In 1995, a group of US Senators drafted the “Contract with America”; a document listing what job functions and projects these politicians would perform in the next few years as your Senators. Politicians in 1995 (like now) were working on projects that the American people, didn’t need, didn’t want, didn’t ask the politicians to perform, and raising taxes to pay for those projects while forgetting to provide Americans with the basic services they were hired to do (like today).
To correct this going forward this group of politicians essentially wrote their own “job description,” called “Contract with America”. Americans reviewed the job description and saw that these guys/girls understood the role we were hiring them to do. The ‘contract” showed that they understood what we needed to be done by our employees (Government workers; they are our employees). We hired them by voting them in and paidthem with our tax dollars. We got good results.
Today, our employees are off the rails again! Again, a group of politicians, either worried that we are going to fire them, or people truly good in their roles as administrators of our tax dollars, has again walked into our office with hat in hand, and said,
“Hey, I know you, as the boss, think all of your employees are spending all their time at work on things that you don’t want, don’t need, and waste company money. And I saw that also mentioned that we aren’t doing the basic things that you hired us to do.”
“I’m telling you that, that is not true. Yes, there are a lot of rouge employees in this company wasting your money on non-business things, but there are also a lot of good people too, doing really high-quality work, and working more than their eight hours a day doing what’s in our job description. This company (a.k.a country) has been doing poorly for the past few years, and I don’t want the company to go out of business and I don’t want to get fired. “
“So, I noticed that we haven’t updated our job description in 27 years. I took the initiative to do that. Here it is. If you agree with this, this is going to be my top priority for the next four years (or longer.) If you want to edit this, I’m fine with that. It’s your company”
“And you are the boss and I’ll back you up if you decided to fire anyone who disagrees with this or goes off and doesn’t work on these things and only these things to the best of their ability. I am one of your employees who understands what you need us to do, and how much money you are paying all of us to work for you. And I’m proud to be doing that.”
In 2022, they are calling it the “Commitment to America”, but what about the Raleigh?
So, let’s go local. The Raleigh city council spent $2 million for 2 electric buses, wants to spend $13 million for a soccer stadium, is spending unknown amounts of taxpayer money on a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Office with a staff of 11 people, spent $2 Million on a bike share system for downtown Raleigh, and who knows how much on attempts to launch light rail in Raleigh.
We need to have a “Contract with Raleigh” to provide the Raleigh City Council with their Job Description
(The First Draft is shown here. Edits are welcome in the comments section.)
“The Raleigh city council is an administrative function of the City of Raleigh. Its only function is to assure that all citizens get the common services needed in a community including, Fire Department, Police Department, Clean Safe Water, Sewer, Public Education (reading, writing, and arithmetic as a priority), street maintenance, and other necessary services. That’s it.
The city will assure that each of these services is available and that the vendors (either public or private) are paid. The city will not involve itself in areas outside of administering and funding these services. This includes any involvement by the City Council in supporting (or condemning) political causes such as Global Warming, Controlling Free Speech, Equity and Diversity Issues, defining marriage, defining gender, and Promoting or Condemning legal businesses and products. For example, the city will not spend taxpayer money to install electric charging stations for EVs. This should be left to private industry. They will not ban gasoline-powered cars.
The city will not add burdensome taxes to products they condemn such as gas, and liquor.) The city will not impose both user taxes and citizen taxes on any service. If Raleigh City taxes are rightly used for road repair, the city will not additionally place tolls on these roads creating a user tax. If the city taxes are rightly used for hiring restaurant health inspectors, the city of Raleigh will not additionally charge city tax on restaurant patrons on their meals. In the event that there is a need for a user tax, (perhaps a public golf course?) the collected funds will ONLY be used for the maintenance of that service.”
The city will not try to promote downtown over the suburbs. Let the market decide where people want to live, not the politicians.
The cities top priority is to fund police, fire, EMS, safe water and sewer services.
Contracts for all necessary services for the City of Raleigh will be awared to the most qualified and experienced professions / vendors without regard to sex, race, religion, equity, or nepotism. All will be paid at the market rate for their services based on experience and past performance. Private sector vendors and professions shall be used when better qualified to perform the services and more cost effective. This shall include public education. Contracts shall be renewed base on performance.”
Let’s make a Liveable Raliegh by holding all Raleigh city council members to this job description. Edits and suggestions are welcome in the comments section.