Star Beacon
March 16, 2008 04:39 pm
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Hey, “Brother, can you spare a dime?”
It has been 77 years since that song by Yip Harburg (lyrics) and Jay Gorney (music) helped capture the times. The times were the Great Depression.
There are a lot of people still around who went through the Great Depression and will forever have these words stamped in their minds:
They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob,
Where there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job.
They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead.
Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?
Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad; now it’s done. Brother, can us spare a dime?
It was the American dream they were building. That dream seemed to end for a while with the Great Depression.
No one is saying we are in a depression today, and some would say the haunting words of “Brother, can you spare a dime” have no relevance today. Actually, this country has not been in a depression since President Franklin D. Roosevelt led us out of the great one sometime in the 1930s.
I can’t help thinking this song has a lot of relevance today though. We are in a recession... a deep one. That is a step above a depression. There are a lot of people without jobs, retail prices are escalating rapidly, many people are losing their homes, the value of the dollar is plummeting and Wall Street is on a roller coaster ride, but mostly going down.
There is a point I want to make.
On March 4 Ashtabula County voters went to polls to nominate people for political offices and decide a number of money issues, including five school issues. All but one of those school issues failed. The only one that passed was the textbook and technology renewal levy for the Ashtabula Area City School District. It barely passed.
All the losers were new levies.
There probably were a number of reasons for the failures, but the one I heard most was people do not have extra money to put out for the schools these days. Even though the lucky working people draw salaries, they are living basically on fixed incomes whittled away by daily price hikes.
It was most evident with the 1-mill capital improvements levy for the Ashtabula County Joint Vocational School. A lot of people expected this one to pass because it combined local money with state money for a major expansion of the center. Also, Ashtabula countians seem to have a deep affinity for the vo-ed center.
Why didn’t it happen?
Gasoline and food prices are rising rapidly. This is impacting people’s ability to pay their monthly mortgages and rent as well as to have any money left over to purchase occasional entertainment or buy a car. They also are watching as their fringe benefits, such as health insurance, deteriorate in quality.
People also are getting angry because they are being asked up to four times a year to increase their taxes and see their incomes and American dreams transform into nightmares.
Yeah, a lot of us can spare a dime, but it is much more than a dime being asked for. A lot of people are beginning to feel nitpicked to death by school boards and other entities asking for a dime times five hundred.
So it is time to present a challenge to all the school boards in Ashtabula County: For the remainder of 2008 give it a rest. No new proposed levies. If you have a renewal levy ask the voters to renew it, but don’t ask for new money. Don’t ask people to dig deeper into their pockets when they can barely pay for gasoline to get to their jobs, are having a hard time paying for groceries and are staring at missing monthly mortgage payments because too much of their money already is going to taxes. They are losing their homes. Do you understand that school board members? Again, they are losing their homes.
Give them a break and may be as things work out in a year or two they will say yes.
Again, just give them a break for now.
Speaking of levies, I talked with a Conneaut resident the other day. She was one of those people who voted against her district’s 6.85-emergency operating levy. The levy failed. As a result of that failure the district will make substantial cuts to its transportation program.
The Conneaut caller suggested if the board tailored a levy specifically to transportation needs it would have passed. She might have something there. Levies should be less generalized and needs specific. People have a hard time understanding today what their money is going for.
OK, you Great Depression era people, how does the song end?
I know you didn’t forget these words:
Say, don’t you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.
Say, don’t you remember, I’m your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?
Frieder is editor of the Star Beacon and can be reached at nfeditor@suite224.net.
Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.
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A NEIL FRIEDER column