Letter to the Editor of the Baltimore Sun re. Editorial: In crisis, think big'.

The Baltimore Sun editorial of Friday May 14 entitled “In a crisis, think big” is an exercise in small thinking. Arguing about the issues raised by the City Council relative to numbers and race of police and the state attorney’s concerns about staff cuts is not big thinking. Big thinking requires a holistic view of how a multiplicity of goals are met by the city as it attempts to fulfill its mission with limited resources. Thinking big deals with how issues such as employment, tax income, environment, welfare, social services, public safety, economic opportunities, and all these competing goals can be balanced given limited resources.

It appears that the mayor and the City Council and The Sun are participating in the same kind of politicized discussion that has landed our economy on the brink of disaster. There is too much linear thinking, and too many rules that compete with each other, such that anything that has to be done is strangled by red tape that wastes time and effort and resources. This is what is causing the tremendous budget deficits, not the problems themselves. It is the systems of conflict of rules and regulations, conflict in goals, politicized decision-making, myopic thinking, geometric growth in rules and regulations, and intransigent philosophical predispositions that constrain balanced solutions.

It appears that solutions are not possible because of a collective mindset and a political system that does not attempt to achieve prioritized goals within the context of limited resources. In other words, politicians, lobbyists, community organizations, media, and the general citizenry have been taught and encouraged to focus on small things such as their personal welfare and perspective and no one seems to be concerned about the good of the system as a whole.

Certainly we need policemen, liberals, firemen, teachers, environmentalists, builders, veterans, nurses, lawyers, doctors, artists, jockeys, urbanites, rural dwellers, conservatives, black, white, preachers, youth, elderly, poor, rich etc; the problem is that no one seems to be paying attention to the big picture and coming up with solutions as to how to balance their sometimes complimentary but often contradictory needs as we attempt to fulfill the overall mission of maximizing our collective welfare.

In a similar vein, linear priorities which focus only on narrow perspectives will cause well-intended rules to obviate the collective good. For instance, under normal conditions building or rehabbing a house or a small commercial building is not rocket science. Yet, to obtain a building permit in Baltimore, countless rules and regulations relating to zoning, licenses, environment, community concerns, structural and technical adequacy of the building itself, sewer and water availability, deteriorating infrastructure, electrical, mechanical, etc etc are applied in a manner that they become more of an impediment to building and development rather than being requirements which advance the benefits to the city as a whole. The positive goals which motivated these requirements, when not balanced and prioritized make complex the process by which the positive economic benefits provided by building rehabilitation and new construction could be realized. These benefits include increasing the tax base, reducing vacant housing, inducing community revitalization, cleaning up blighted areas environmentally, reducing crime, providing jobs, income, employment, economic opportunity, and so forth.

The reality is that the positive benefits of building rehabilitation and new construction are exactly what the city needs. Yet there are 30,000 – 40,000 city-owned vacant houses, unemployment is rampant, housing for the impoverished is deteriorating, so that the very solutions to these problems are choked out by a system that cannot consistently pursue an objective because of the operational complexity of competing goals.

The vital and extremely critical role of political leadership and the press in this time of crisis is to bring priority and balance so that the multiplicity of goals will have a context in which effective and efficient operation of government can be achieved. This balance will eliminate the conflict of rules, regulations guidelines, etc and prioritize budgets such that waste from contradictory, duplicative and unnecessary expenditure by government is reduced.

In the context of this thinking it is not whether or not we have policemen, firemen, a cleaner Chesapeake Bay, state attorneys, builders, barbers and beauticians; it is how we limit obstacles and provide incentives for positive, proactive efforts which would increase the welfare of the city as a whole.

These are some ideas as to how to immediately begin to reduce budget deficits and increase the impact of government expenditures:

i. Prioritize budgetary concerns such that matters of public safety, economic opportunity, the environment, human development and education can be decided and operationalized on the basis of causality, time-frame and impact.

ii. Put in place ombudsmen with sufficient authority to eliminate red tape, process requirement, wasteful procedures, and duplicative and/or contradictory rules by examining the cost-benefit of laws, rules and regulations relative to the overall goals and priorities. This office should be completely apolitical.

iii. Look for no-cost solutions such as changing the time frame and procedural complexity of efforts which will multiply jobs and tax income

iv. Eliminate small minded and myopic rules and regulations so that they do not further complicate the achievement of the stated goals

v. Allocate more resources to analyzing the interfaces and causal relationship between economics, environmental concerns, public safety, education and human development variables

vi. Prioritize proactive actions and incentives which multiply resources and employment etc while reducing punitive efforts which add regulatory burden and cost to government and citizens without multiplying overall benefits

vii. Minimize relatively unproductive regulatory activities (such as zoning and housing code enforcement) which increase the burden on the tax payer without providing opportunities for long-term growth, and convert these resources to true health and safety issues which yield immediate benefits such as police and fire protection

viii. Use economic development funds to empower community-based entrepreneurship and community development; make capital and business opportunities available in digestible portions to small business and developers indigenous to the community. This will generate much greater multipliers in housing growth, jobs, tax income and economic activity. To achieve true economic recovery, stay away from big programs which exclude the multiplication of small businesses.

ix. Eliminate strategies which presume nonprofits as a standard necessity for community development. This adds a layer and screen to the ultimate solution, which is small business multiplying through capital. By definition, nonprofits cannot multiply through capital and must be supported and re-funded every year. Give the capital directly to businesses.

x. Analyze, evaluate and replicate successful methods of budget strategies and outcomes and improve those consistently from year to year

In conclusion, it is time for us to get beyond finger-pointing, blame, and philosophical political labels and begin to look at the real outcomes and effectiveness of different government actions, laws and activities. There is enough money to feed every hungry person, provide education to every citizen and maximize the potential of every individual without anger, distress, blame or persecution. This is the time when we need to really say what the big picture is and organize ourselves to get that job done.