Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:44:35 -0400
From: Karen E Crowell
Subject: re Bock’s candidacy
Candidate Brian Bock states on his web site that we must:
Accept two basic truths to job creation then apply common sense.
Basic truth #1:
The private sector, not government, will lead us out of recession.
Well, I’m not sure you’ll even get to first base with that premise.
I distinctly recall that it WAS the private sector that was responsible for getting us into this mess in the first place. Surely, as managing director in the private wealth management department of a bank, you must acknowledge the role that the financial institutions had in the current recession. Sub-prime loans were issued by banks to people unlikely to be able to afford to pay them back. and for homes whose values were overinflated and then bottomed out, and companies whose lines of credit dried up and were forced to lay off employees, leaving people jobless AND homeless, even here is Chatham County. All because the government did NOT provide adequate oversight of our financial institutions and allowed practices that jeopardized not only our economy, but the national and global economies as well.
But you intend to fix the devastating impact this recession has had on Chatham County businesses and residents by reducing government oversight? Oversight that discourages the private sector from running up our tax bills by flooding the market with expensive new homes that drive up the cost of land and drive up our property taxes? They go hand in hand. You can’t have one without the other. Oversight IS needed because the private sector is NOT whom you turn to when you want decent roads, firefighters, power, clean water, unemployment benefits, safe neighborhoods, etc. It is our government that pays for these.
As you point out, government does have a purpose:
Those core functions at the local level include:
1. Upholding the US Constitution and the NC Constitution
2. Public Safety
3. Public Education
4. Infrastructure
5. Protecting our environment and natural resources
6. Providing a basic social safety net to those who cannot provide for themselves.
Just remember that, as an elected official , you become part of our local government. So you become part of what you see as the problem. If you think it is up to the private sector to lead us out of this recession, and you don’t think government should, then why are you us to elect you? So you can …do what? Not stand in the way of the private sector? Wait for them to solve the problem of a jobless economic recovery? No, because, once again, it would be irresponsible for our local government not to address these issues when they have a direct impact on the services we expect government to provide. Unemployment results in more and more Chatham citizens dependent on local government services, increasing the demand for these services and challenging local government to adequately provide that social safety net to people unable to provide for themselves, as you say.
No, we will not expect you to sit on your hands. We will expect you to work miracles, because that’s what we always expect from our leaders. I admire anyone who has the determination to run for political office. It is hard work. But I seriously doubt if “a fresh perspective” is all it will take. It will certainly take the whole-hearted effort of the private sector working WITH government, to solve the problems that we face.
Karen Crowell
Pittsboro, North Carolina