Television quote sums up 2010 America perfectly

“There are times when the only choices you have left are bad ones.”
This quote comes from a character on the Fox television show “Fringe,” and when my wife, Jenny, and I heard it this past week while catching up on our DVR watching, we both looked at each other and said truer words haven’t been spoken about 2010 America.
The character who spoke those words, Phillip Broyles (played by the great Lance Reddick who is best known for playing Lt. Daniels on “The Wire” – my vote for the greatest television show of all time), was referring to a bad predicament his Homeland Security unit found itself in following a series of unfortunate events.
All the choices unit members had in resolving the situation had serious consequences in which people would be harmed or killed. Still, a decision needed to be made and acted upon, because doing nothing would be even more harmful.
As this country attempts to climb out of a recession that hasn’t been this deep since the Great Depression, it’s clear recovery is going to be slow, if true recovery even takes place at all. While some economic indicators say recovery is taking place slowly, other indicators point out we shouldn’t be so hopeful because it’s not happening.
Based on the things I hear from local officials about budgets in coming years, especially at the state level, people should brace for the worst. The dollars aren’t there, and unless massive changes are made at all levels in the way government operates, the only choices left at budget time are going to be bad ones.
We’re already seeing it at the local level. Stevens Point Area School District residents voted against two spending proposals. Many of those who rejected them did so because they’re worried about their own well being, especially when facing salary reductions, reduced hours and even layoffs, more than they are worried about the setback local education could suffer with budget reductions.
Few people liked having to choose between personal well-being and education, especially knowing education plays a huge role in everybody’s well-being as the young generation becomes our future. But the choice was on the table to get the ball rolling. By rejecting the proposals, school officials knew they had their own difficult choices to make: cutbacks, which meant layoffs, and finding alternate sources of funding.
School officials made those choices, few of which they thought were good. Next year’s school budget has been balanced, although it won’t be official until October or November, and then the process will begin all over again. And since the school funding mode is completely broken, the process of bad choices will begin all over again before anyone can even breathe a sigh of relief.
The county felt a bit of this type of pinch when coming up with the 2010 budget late last year, but for the most part it was relatively unharmed compared to most municipalities. Good planning by our leaders can be credited for this, but even the best planning won’t prevent a bigger pinch from occurring during the next budget cycle.
The state continues to place numerous unfunded mandates on counties and then takes away funding from them. It adds up, and for 2011 the county may find itself scrambling, like local schools, to balance its budget. The choices it will have to make will most likely be bad ones.
I’m sure the state can argue it’s putting counties, schools and other municipalities in these situations because of the pinch it’s receiving at the federal level. And the federal government will most likely have something to blame, too.
Perhaps the only way to get out of this never-ending cycle of bad choices is to start over again. Government at all levels may need to re-examine how it operates, especially in how it obtains funding through taxes and how it distributes those funds.
John Holdridge, chair of the town of Hull, told me he hopes a Property Tax Seminar being co-sponsored by Portage County, the town of Hull and Portage County University of Wisconsin-Extension Wednesday, June 23, at the Lincoln Center, 1519 Water St., Stevens Point, will start such a grassroots movement at the local level to re-examine how government operates.
I hope he’s right. And then maybe government won’t be faced with bad choices, because unlike “Fringe,” which managed to find a good choice so no one would be hurt, life isn’t television. Problems don’t disappear in the final act.