Bigger government is irresponsible (October 4, 2015)
Half of the people in our county are already getting public assistance
According to today’s Daily Press, more than half of High Desert residents are on government aid. The total value of public assistance is up 700 percent compared to 2000.
With more persons on government assistance comes more government. With more government comes more costs. Add the skyrocketing costs of the assistance itself with the increase in costs of providing that assistance, and you have an unsustainable system, even without the fact that the more persons there are receiving assistance, the fewer persons there are to pay into whatever funds there are to make that assistance available.
In this sorry government-created and government-maintained downward spiral of public assistance, we see yet another reason why the Town of Apple Valley (TOAV) should leave Apple Valley Ranchos Water Company (AVRWC) alone and stay out of the water business. AVRWC as a private company do a better job than TOAV ever could, and removing AVRWC from the tax roles and increasing the size of the Town government are exactly the wrong things to do for the health of our community overall. To put it another way, if it is a good idea for TOAV to seize profitable businesses, then why not seize every profitable business in Apple Valley, removing them from the tax roles?
The answer is because that’s the communist model, where the government owns and controls everything. Neither communism nor any other form of socialism has ever been shown to work once the money runs out, and when you remove productive individuals and businesses from the equation, the money always runs out. This is not the model we want for our water system. It is irresponsible even to suggest it.
— Greg Raven is Co-Chair of Apple Valley Citizens for Government Accountability, and is concerned about quality of life issues.