Cut to modern day and an executive saying to what are obviously business consultants: "Are you suggesting we throw money at the problem?"
This commercial, and the proclivity of the Houston Chronicle Editorial Board to editorialize for increased government funding to fix all problems, led to the creation of "Mrs. White's Catapult*" which they would roll out from time to time to bemoan that the local government crisis of the day was not getting enough funding, and would be immediately solved if Houstonians would just "pay a little" for the greater good.
On Wednesday, the Chronicle dusted off the old girl and started firing shots again.
Park Perks. HoustonChronicle.com ($$$)
Yet the hard work is not over; parks are not just about acquiring land. Parks have to be maintained, renovated and constantly made more accessible and relevant even as their natural beauty is preserved.
As Houston has changed, its parks have had to adapt. Once Houstonians demanded more baseball fields; now park users want more soccer fields, fat-tire biking trails and skateboard facilities
To accomplish all this, the parks department needs adequate funding. As park usage and demand for services have increased over the past few years, the budget for maintenance and programming has stayed flat.
So, once again we're rolling out Mrs. White's catapult and suggesting that we solve a problem by hurling large amounts of money at it. Add unmaintained parks to the list of problems solved overnight by the lifting of the pillow-soft revenue cap.
Also occurring several years ago, was a movement by certain members of the InterLeft, asking fiscal conservatives "how much is enough" when referring to tax cuts and reduced government. They thought this clever, but it was really just an exercise in avoiding any serious discussion on the issue. Obviously their efforts at avoidance were successful because the InterLeft as an entity has devolved into a morass of circular reasoning and blockquotes with no value add in a hermetically sealed netroots bubble. Want to engage with a blogger on the left? You can't, unless you're a politician or blogger on the left that is. To be fair, that's slightly more developed than the eco-system of the conservative blogosphere which has largely died.
The question itself though was ludicrous, but it should be asked again today (in reverse) to point out just how silly the entire debate is.
"How much additional government spending is "enough" to make things right? How high to taxes need to be raised?"
You will never (ever) get an honest answer to this because the answer to the question is "more".
The Leviathan that is the bureaucracy at all levels has an insatiable need for funding and control. There is no level that is going to ever be enough. It is akin to Ungoliant in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillian always drinking, always more thirsty. Eventually, of course, Ungoliant began to hate the source of her nourishment and turned against them, such is the case with the government who views the ruled with disdain.
On the other side of the ledger you have fiscal conservatives, standing athwart the ever expanding bureaucracy, putting their hand out and hollering "Halt!". If this reminds you of King Canute, trying to stop the rising tide you are not wrong. The problem with trying to put a halt to the inevitable is that you soon become frustrated. After decades of Democratic rule, and ever-rising tides, urban GOP groups are exactly that.
This is where the debate breaks down, and why one side can simultaneously roll out bigger and bigger catapults while chastising the other side for being 'knee-jerk' in their opposition to it. It's how one side can believe that "eliminating the IRS" is something not only plausible, but desirable as well. (Even with a flat tax, who would collect the money?) So when the bloggers of the InterLeft mockingly asked Conservatives "how much?" what they were really saying is "We don't want to talk about it" and Conservatives said the same by becoming, in large part, the party of silence at the municipal level.
Throughout all of this however it is Mrs. White's catapult that has survived.
It is rolled out, from time to time, by the Houston Chronicle Editorial Board and loaded with money. If you ask them how much they need to craft Houston into Houtopia they will look at you with a straight face and answer......
"More"
*At the time, I thought I was being humorous calling the Ed board "Mrs. White" they were in love with then-Mayor Bill White and their op-eds regarding his governance read more like love letters. Little did I know, then, that they would have no shame and ultimately put the REAL Mrs. White (Andrea White, wife of Bill) on the current version of the Editorial board.
