Essay # 9 – Restoring Faith & Integrity.

We need to reform local government and change how we pay for it. We need to do it now.  But how can or will change possibly occur when the very citizens we elect to serve in public office resist necessary change?  If we ignore the problem will it simply go away?   Have we grown so numb to the excesses and become so distracted by our daily grind that we’re willing to permit business as usual?  Our very future is at stake.  The excesses, excuses, abuses, rationalizations, investigations, indictments, convictions, and spiraling tax bills all cry out BROKEN.

A few years back, the Northwest Indiana Local Government Academy challenged every candidate running for public office to sign an ethics pledge.  Amid token protest nearly every candidate that year signed the pledge.  At the time my concern was that the pledge would not be worth the paper it was printed on.  Not for lack of faith in the effort or the heroes leading the charge, but because the path of excess was so well worn that it had become familiar, accepted, routine.  Sadly, a number of those who signed the pledge and were elected have since been indicted, convicted and/or incarcerated.  As one elected official was ushered to prison their words spoke volumes arguing no wrong was done and that everyone else was doing what they had done.  I believe that everyone who signed that pledge (including the indicted, convicted, and imprisoned) believed in what they were signing and were comfortable that their actions & behavior were consistent with the spirit & terms of the pledge.  It was evidence that the problem was not only with the elected official, but the culture that would elect them over and over and over again. They did not believe what they were doing was wrong!  Have you ever had a job that required you to kick back a portion of your salary to your supervisor as a function of your employment?  That’s not freedom and it’s not democracy.  It’s more like indentured servitude.

What can we do now?  Protest votes are useless.  The taxpaying citizens of Porter County tried that... the names, faces, and political parties changed but the mess remained; some argue it got worse.  A misguided moment of righteous indignation in the privacy of a polling booth translates into 4 long years of lamentation.  The voter wins the battle, loses the war, and is left with the tax bill.  The sting of that bill endures long after the feelings of outrage, then euphoria subside.   So here’s what we can do.  Demand that every candidate seeking your vote in the future agrees up front to enthusiastically embrace restructuring and reform of local government even if it translates into the elimination of their office.  If they don’t or won’t agree up front, in writing and in public, then don’t vote for them ever again.  This simple standard provides the power to hold them accountable if they duck or dodge reform while in office.  Just watch how cooperative and engaged our elected officials become.

A whole lot of taxpaying citizens are at risk of being taxed out of the homes they’ve worked a lifetime to build, others are being forced to abandon their dreams.  Let’s raise our demands and expectations of our local government and the citizens we elect to serve in public office.  Benjamin Franklin said it best, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”