Looking for blog material last night, I ran across this from Haywood County. It describes the woes of a government reeling from having to slash welfare-state recreation entitlements by a few percent. I’ve read several similar articles about other local governments, hoping to find something commendable. It depressed me, so much I went to bed. The page was still on the computer when I woke up.

Then, I read the budget update to be presented to Asheville City Council, and posted the following recommendations to my email list:

I recommend chopping the remaining $300,000 from the Housing Trust Fund. Government should not be subsidizing housing costs.

Eliminate building licensing and permitting fees. To recover losses, fire building inspectors and planners. Repeal all planning, development, and building code ordinances that don’t pertain to building health and safety to cut the workload.

Eliminate all Parks, Recreation, and Cultural “Affairs” fees. To recover cuts, eliminate all programming. Churches and nonprofits can handle this. Pull government out of the daycare business. I’ll wimp out and say it is OK for the city to maintain public spaces. This would include things like tennis courts and swimming pools – though they could certainly privatize them. Others would be responsible for providing the lessons and tournaments. Then, the city can save ink by renaming the department “Parks Department.” For one-time budget gains and long-term recovery, privatize the Civic Center, Municipal Golf Course, Nature Center and Riverside Cemetery.

I will hold my nose and tolerate public transit for the short-term. Somebody needs to check bus advertising rates. I see a lot of empty signs. I do not think the city should give advertising rate breaks to nonprofits and nonpartisans. We do not need promotional bus fares for special days. The city should preserve liberties, not classism. If it wants to give bus discounts on Earth Day, it should provide discounts on another day designated Developers Day. If it wants to give free rides to Veterans, on Veterans Day, it should do the same to conscientious objectors on a day so designated. (Undoubtedly somebody will miss the point I was trying to make.)

Fees should not be collected for public infrastructure. Government, as the natural monopoly, can pick up the tab with taxpayer dollars. The city should adopt a more minimalist stormwater mitigation program to cut fees.

Water funds should only increase for cost recovery, but not because the city is investing in exotic, state-of-the-art facilities because it wants to scramble for s******* loot.

Then, I picked up a copy of the Asheville Tribune and read the following from Bill Fishburne:

Now, what would I do if I was suddenly appointed President?

I must say, the country would be on the right path by now. We would cut the federal budget by eliminating the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services (most of it), Department of Energy (transferring nuclear responsibility to Homeland Security), Department of Housing and Urban Development, Dept. of Labor, Dept. of the Interior, Dept. of Transportation and others. I would then instruct Congress to introduce legislation to limit the purview of the Supreme Court (They can do that.) and to suspend enforcement of every wacky environmental regulation that prevents immediate drilling for oil in this country. By executive order I’d give power companies the absolute, unchallengeable right to build nuclear power plants, and I’d authorize tax breaks for every coal and nuke plant they brought online in the next 160 years.

I would repeal every Executive Order issued by Obama and probably Clinton. Then, I would order a complete review of the Defense Department budget, and I’d move at least 1/3 of the field grade and general officers right out of their desks and put them in training commands to greet the new recruits that would be coming in from the housing projects and other federal social programs that were being shut down.

You can read the rest here. Fishburne concluded all that all we lacked was conservative leadership that “seriously wants to bring about change.”