Chambermaid Managers
I was commenting to my wife the other day about how one lives through history one day at a time, while the historians condense it in books. For instance, we are already four years into the Great Recession, which looks to be continuing into the next president’s term. We live each day with government becoming more and more intrusive and burdensome, but it occurs slowly, unlike a street robbery or burglary, which are sudden, although the end effect is the same. When historians write this chapter reflect on what they will say, and how different that is from each day as you lived it. This is a case of being too close to the trees to see the forest. There are groups in Charlotte – SMART, CAUTION, SPARK, etc. – which are trying to change this mindset, but they need support. Think about that as you read this.
Mr. Curt Walton, city manager of Charlotte since 2007, has decided to retire. It is a pleasant avenue for him, retiring at age 55, after 32 years as a government employee for the city of Charlotte, when so many people are without work. Certainly most taxpayers have no expectation of retirement at the expense of others, some of whom can barely pay their taxes. Most assuredly they will not enjoy the benefits of retirement that Mr. Walton expects. But as this is delineated elsewhere, let us examine the legacy of Mr. Walton.
One of his supporters, Mr. Bob Morgan, the president of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce, is quoted as saying Mr. Walton did an excellent job during his tenure, that he had an “entrepreneurial spirit” of “willing to take risks to make good things happen.” I’ll have to disagree with Mr. Morgan’s enthusiasm about having a government manager who has an entrepreneurial spirit with tax money, but one can understand the reason Mr. Morgan would say so. All one need do is look at the beneficiaries of the ‘risks’ Mr. Walton is willing to take, and one will notice their relationship to the chamber membership rolls.
As one of its many functions over the last 32 years, the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce has focused on the use of government funds to enhance specific businesses. Whether this was the construction business, which has benefitted from the exorbitant construction program at CMS, the Tyvola arena that was recently destroyed in favor of one downtown, or the sinkhole for money that is the convention center, along with the NASCAR Museum, which benefit the motels and downtown restaurants, or the purchase of Eastland Mall for the esoteric ideal of the movie industry, the Chamber was always ready to work with the Charlotte bureaucrats to find a way to take taxes and direct those revenues to the benefit of specific businesses. The term is crony capitalism, combined with kleptocracy.
So while working for 32 years at city hall, Mr. Walton has seen Charlotte become a government of taxing the people in order to transfer the money to the well connected. Of course, those on the city payroll also benefit. Also, one must be impressed with how well the members of Charlotte City Council repeat the correct phrases to justify their inbred kleptocracy as being ‘a proper function of government.’ And they say so because the bureaucrats tell them what to say.
This then is the nature of the government from which Curt Walton does not retire, but from which he stops having to show up each day to get paid. He’ll still be bellied up to the hog of government, just with a smaller paycheck and no requirements of work. It is this government that the president of the Chamber of Commerce praises: one of crony capitalism, run by kleptocrats.
Since the Chamber proposes and the bureaucrats dispose, then of course the bureaucrats are willing to ‘take risks’. They’re doing it with someone else’s money and have no risks to themselves if the project fails. No bureaucrat ever loses his job for a deal gone bad. If things turn sour, they just raise taxes. But they raise taxes anyway. They just often call it something else – revaluations, water bill fees, storm water fees, hotel/motel taxes, prepared food taxes – but they are all a cost to the taxpayers of Charlotte and they go to fund a special interest group: the membership of the Chamber of Commerce. Of course the Chamber is pleased. They want the next in line to know that as long as (s)he toes the line, they’ll be approved of too.
Previous to announcing his retirement, Curt Walton proposed an 8% increase in property taxes to spend on nearly $1,000,000,000 worth of projects that will benefit the membership of the Charlotte Chamber. Of course, it’s for the people – I mean children (it’s their debt you know). And one never knows, maybe the Chamber will see an increase in membership dues. Certainly Mr. Morgan should be pleased, and I’m sure he looks forward to directing the next city manager towards special projects of benefit to particular parties.
In the meantime, the taxpayers get deeper in debt, with more taxes to pay every year. Isn’t government great … for those on the receiving end?
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