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However, I am simply suggesting that we cease to subsidize more growth. It is expensive, and produces things like Arvida (miles from the core of town, and sucking enough tax dollars that we had to raise the millage as it came online).

I suppose I ought to get points for picking on Arvida instead of [insert obvious city here] which seems to consist of almost nothing but sprawl.

And yes, that’s a shame. It is really unfortunate that we cannot find him and educate him, preferably with a 2×2.

The problem is not just that we have too many of the “best” jobs being in government. We pay for that, but thanks to Save Our Homes, much of the public is largely immune to the cost.

The problem is that we have government jobs doing the wrong thing. Much of the govt is focused in supporting more development. That means we pave more water recharge area. It means we have more black-top, making things hotter if you go out in the day. It means that we have more traffic, and need more roads to support the developers.

Developers contribute generously. That’s why govt supports them so well with our taxes. You cannot honestly say that the citizens of DeLand benefitted by having Arvida built. A few developers, and some temporary jobs, but that money rides out of town on the next truck after the Wal-Mart truck.

There may be no good solution. We may just have too many people. What is clear, however, is that bringing in more people will not solve our present problem of too much development.

Why do people complain about government jobs when the economy is bad ?

When the economy is good and people are working, government workers are among the lowest paid.

Florida has been going downhill since the early eighties because of growth.

Florida has become overcrowded and the crime rate is through the roof because of growth.

Impact fees are way too low. They should be doubled. People who have lived here for generations are constantly being expected to foot the bills for new roads and schools.

Builders should be required to pay for these things instead of the taxpayer.

People should complain more about what an attorney makes per hour for pushing paper, instead of what a lowly paid government worker makes.

And no , I’m not a government worker.

Governments love this. If you can drown out content with adverts for loans and souvenir schlock, then you can reduce the amount of debate. Given the thirst of government for unsupervised money, I can understand why they might not want to crack down on what is in effect electronic graffiti.

Under the current administration, that’s no surprise.

Affordable housing is even more important in difficult economic times.

As for commuter rail (sigh), we need to put it in. It’s been too bogged down in political slop to move forward in any kind of cost-effective way, as it should.