On Wednesday Congressional Republicans passed a major overhaul of the U.S. Tax Code thereby opening the opportunity for individuals and businesses to see a reduction in the amount of taxes they pay.They should notice the savings as early as January, around the same time that Naperville city officials will be hammering the good folks of Naperville with higher water and electric rates. In essence, city officials are staking claim to a chunk of your federal tax savings.
In a way, your family and/or business has a partner, and it’s not a silent partner; it’s the City of Naperville and they want to be ‘paid or else’. It’s the ‘or else’ that causes mistrust of government officials. Government officials thrive on the Golden Rule; he who has the gold makes the rules, and the rules always favor Naperville city officials.
The City of Naperville raised the water rates in May. They did it without much if any resistance. It was so easy that the City decided to look at the numbers again, and bingo, they realized the model they used to determine the new rate structure was so flawed, that they needed to raise the rates again just seven months later. This most likely would go under the heading of ‘grossly incompetent’. Naperville city officials see this as no problem, they’ll just squeeze it out of the good folks of Naperville. It’s the same quick fix, the ‘not-so-silent’ partner (city officials) always resort to, raising rates and taxes.
It’s almost useless to look at the new rates, and projected rates because the ‘Golden Rule’ trumps what city officials say. Just because they say it, doesn’t make it real. If ‘fake news’ applies to journalists, then fake words can apply to politicians.
So what can politicians do to redeem, in some degree, their image? They as a group or individually can speak up for the ‘little guy’, the good folks of Naperville. They can show where money is being saved. Individual council member can champion a particular endeavor that will benefit the good folks of Naperville. They can speak up for positive attrition. Some folks at the Municipal Center simply need to go. Incompetence is unacceptable. Manage the City as if it was a business, because it is a business, and the residents are not-so-silent partners in that business.
The concept of running any government body like a business has been proven false every since the disaster that was the Reagan Administration, yet people still cling to this false ideology. I guess it is because it make such a great political slogan.
The reality is government organizations are not businesses. Businesses are for profit organizations and a successful business is one that generates profits. The greater the profit to gross revenue ratio the more successful the business. The reality is most of the services governments provide are not available from businesses because there is not way to make a profit on them.
The inherent nature of most government provided services not being profitable is the reason government organizations are not-for-profit, meaning the core business metric for measuring success does not apply. The only way to measure the success of a government organization is through the perceived quality of the services they provide compared to the cost of providing them, which is subjective and varies widely from person to person. The business community is littered with defunct businesses that tried and fail to operate based on quality and not profits.