I spoke up because I felt someone had to do it.
At a meeting of the COMPASS (Community Planning Association of Southwest Idaho) Board on Monday, February 23, I spoke up.
It appears that the major focus of these meetings is to figure out ways to obtain more money, spend more money, get the legislature to pass laws to provide more money for the group(s) to collect and spend, etc.
This year, COMPASS is spending $120,000 to have a private Idaho firm lobby on behalf of the organization’s “more money” position at both the state and federal levels.
Although I don’t agree with the stimulus package, I can appreciate the argument that at the federal level we are better off trying to get our share of public dollars, including stimulus funds, or we just lose out to other states. But at the state and local levels, government needs to feel the same pain that is being felt by taxpayers everywhere.
You get the picture: the economy is on a downward spiral the likes of which few of us have ever seen before, and local political groups are focused on spending money, rather than making do with less. I spoke up and questioned why we weren’t focusing on making do with less.
The argument for the COMPASS Board’s tax-and-spend position for transportation-related projects is that the backlog of needed road and bridge work is so great that we cannot afford to wait and have it accumulate to an even greater level with an even higher price tag. Even so, according to COMPASS Executive Director Matt Stoll, the Board’s Executive Committee is having the discussion about cutting the lobbying expense. I would strongly encourage them to do so.