Last week’s winter storm taxed emotions as motorists experienced frustration with icy and impassible roads. It’s a reminder that government can attain only a certain level of service — but the public’s expectations have no limits.
Staffing and equipping for a 6-7-inch snowstorm followed by ice and sleet would require significant outlays of money. Given that such events occur very rarely in Georgia, few taxpayers would tolerate budget writers who allocated for that level of preparedness every year.
So, when extraordinary events do take place, the public must understand that some inconvenience is a trade-off for limited spending.
The winter storm was an incredible event, but the reduction in government spending due to the economy is likely to produce other occasions when the ability to deliver service is reduced. Taxpayers who call for smaller government must understand that with fewer employees and reduced resources, delivery of service will suffer.
In theory, most people would accept that trade-off — until they’re personally affected. At the present, too many people expect to be able to pay less but receive the same levels and quality of service to which they are accustomed. That’s as unreasonable as closing down two lanes of Interstate 20 in Atlanta and expecting traffic to be unaffected by the reduction in the road’s capacity.
The notion that one can shrink the size of government, whether in Commerce, in the county school system or a state government, without adversely affecting the delivery of services is unfounded. There is a certain amount of efficiency that can be gained in any organization, but you can’t expect three snow plows to clear the county’s roads as quickly as five once did.
Instead of getting impatient when standing in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles, with grass cut less frequently on rights-of-way or with slower police response times, think of the money being saved. The idea of reducing the size of government is to reduce the frequency with which we see our tax dollars at work.
That being said, the impression locally is that government at all levels performed very well in response to the storm. The DOT got to work on the state highways, the county on the county roads and Commerce tackled the city streets. Before noon on Monday, major thoroughfares were open — although motorists had to utilize reasonable caution — and those who had to get out found they could navigate the public roads. Considering that no government in this part of Georgia is really prepared for that kind of weather event, the response was actually very good.
The biggest problems statewide came from people who did not have to be out who ignored the warnings of local and state public safety officials to stay off the roads. Many of those people ended up abandoning their vehicles, impeding the ability of the Department of Transportation to reopen roads. Just as government cannot prepare for all contingencies, neither can it eliminate careless behavior on the part of its citizens.
