76-04-B2
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Big Government and the Cities[edit]
Transcript[edit]Governments live in their own fish pond. The federal government tries to swallow the states. The states try to swallow the cities. And who do the cities try to swallow? I'll be right back to tell you. The most responsive government is the government closest to the people. The farther away a government gets from its people, the greedier and less responsive it tends to be. It is this greed and callousness that characterize what I call "big government." The federal government is a case in point. Since 1960, it has tripled its take of our money. And the states, particularly the large ones, are little better. Last year New York took $1,270,000,000 more from its residents than it had only two years before. And the cities? New York and Detroit stand out as very large examples of mismanagement, but they certainly are not unique. All cities are feeling the conflicting pressures of inflation, citizen demand for more services, and tax protests. And, many of them are turning to big government solutions, even if it's big government on a local scale. For big government is not a place, or even a size. It's an attitude, and it can afflict the smallest units of government as surely as it does the largest federal agencies. In many states, local government is made up of multi-purpose cities and single or special purpose districts. East district is a separate government, with a separately elected board of directors and a mission to supply water, fire protection, or some other necessary public service to its citizens. These districts - and there are more than 2,000 of them in my state, California, alone - are, in truth, the level of government closest to the people, and because they are at the bottom of the government totem pole, they seem to harbor fewer big government aspirations than Washington, D.C., the states, or even the cities. But districts pay a price for their responsiveness. Often the more efficient of them find themselves the targets of takeover attempts by cities with big government ideas. An efficient water district, for example, can be an inviting source of revenue to a city facing future fiscal problems. What is often overlooked by big government advocates is that a district, made a part of a less efficient city, will itself become less efficient and more costly to the taxpayers. The rule of the lowest common denominator applies with a vengeance in government. Thus, big government is where you find it, whether it is in the dreams of a social planner in Washington, the computer programs of a tax collector in Albany, or the plans of a city manager in California. And wherever it may strike next, deserves our vigilance. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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