Recently, Commission Main has been proudly proclaiming that “unlike the federal government” the county government is shrinking. At the November 1 board meeting and again while stumping at a chamber luncheon Main let the public know that county staff had shrunk from more than 500 in 1999 to less than half that amount today. This might be construed as the county being more efficient, or more accurately the fewer people are doing more work but it also translates into reduced services to the taxpayer.

Already, the commissioners have explained away ongoing problems with the IT department and ill functioning public software at the assessors office to recent staffing reductions. Understanding that federal forest payments have been sharply reduced and may be gone forever I do note that my property taxes have increased steadily since I purchased my home in 2003 which means that I am paying more and receiving fewer services. Therefore it is hard to see how laying off more public employees is a good thing for the average taxpayer or anything to brag about.

Another item of note is the perception by this commission that public safety means law enforcement, as in no staff reductions at the jail, the sheriffs department or the district attorney, but does not appear to include things like public health, mental health and safe roads and clean water.

Lastly, Main’s claim that the federal government is growing is incorrect and anti-government proponents fail to acknowledge the impact of reduced government spending on the economy as a whole.

Because people overrate the importance of the federal government vis-a-vis the whole structure of the American state, and then overrate the importance of the president vis-a-vis the rest of the federal government, people have a hard time getting their heads around this. But the American public sector is undergoing an essentially unprecedented period of real shrinkage — i.e., not just percentage of GDP. According to one theory of the economy, smaller government should lead to a boom in productive business investment that creates prosperity. According to reality, business investment is going up, but not by nearly enough to produce prosperity. And yet the main prescription for the economy that I hear is that we should reduce government spending to spark a boom in business investment.

Maybe Main is spending too much time with the American’s For Prosperity crowd because not everyone sees these reductions as a good thing.