Alright, today’s Washington Post article on Fairfax County government cutbacks doesn’t exactly outline a doomsday scenario. Fairfax, which claims that it has long been picking up the Virginia state government’s slack and performing the truck inspections the state is obligated to do, will be cutting back police units who look out for truck violations — among other services. The Post reports:
The truck inspection unit is among hundreds of program cuts that County Executive Anthony H. Griffin has proposed as part of a $3.3 billion spending plan that includes layoffs, a freeze in the school allocation and an increase in the property tax rate.
Among the most controversial of the proposed cuts will be cherished public safety programs that have helped cement Fairfax’s reputation as one of the safest communities in the region.
No doubt, anti-spending conservatives will call this a feature, not a bug. But foregoing truck inspections is the kind of service cut that has real effects on the community. As the article observes, diesel prices are up while construction is down, making for bad times for truck drivers. When drivers are cutting back on driving, you can be sure they’re cutting back on truck maintenance. That increases the likelihood that truckers are hauling around heavy stuff in massive, unregulated lemons, which makes Fairfax (and other) roads more dangerous to drive on. “The need for services is going up just as the ability to pay for such is diminishing,” maxims the Post.
Meanwhile it’s unclear what regulatory body is supposed to emerge to provide these services in the government’s stead. When (as Fairfax officials claim) the stake shirked their duty, the county stepped up. Who steps up next? Maybe the market will promote safer drivers and trucks. But it’s not intuitively true: As a consumer, I don’t know how my stuff got from wherever to me, so there’s little for me to do with my dollar. Now, developers hiring contractors would certainly be less inclined to hire a driver with a poor driving record or a bad truck. In the case of the unnamed driver in the article, though, the truck looked totally fine, but had terrible breaks. And once that massive, multi-ton truck is involved in an accident, the regulatory system has already failed.
It’s just one example among several: middle school–stationed police and mall cops being other services deemed nonessential. Maybe Fairfax residents have internalized the lesson that you don’t steal from Fairfax malls and ne’erdowells don’t spring up from the woodwork. But maybe the malls become a little bit less safe, and so do the schools and the roads. You begin to see these service failures chip away at the community foundations that have provided for declining violent crime and rapid growth and prosperity.
Don’t feel too bad for Fairfax — unemployment levels are still far lower here than throughout the nation. But layoffs don’t help anyone when the economy is sore and Fairfax is hardly alone in looking forward to service cuts.
Photo by Bullneck
