Guest Opinion - Mike Stegall, The Problem with Problems

The Problem with Problems

By Mike Stegall,

Republican Candidate for Darke County Commissioner

                Turn on any newscast or radio broadcast, read any paper, get on the world wide web, or go to any social gathering and all you hear about are the problems we are having.  It is widespread.  Social Security will be broke in a few years. Medicare and Medicaid are already insolvent. More money is needed to bail out this.  Not enough money went to fix that. The economy is tanking, and no new jobs are being created.  It is a never ending deluge of bad news and unsolvable problems.  Most of our problems are problems that have been around, or brewing, for decades.  How did we get in this mess?  The answer is really quite simple. This mess wasn’t fixed when it should have been!

The real bottom line in all of this is nobody in the last 50 years or more has wanted to tackle these problems.  They were not that big a deal back then.  The prevailing attitude was “Well, I got elected to this nice job, and if I vote to fix Social Security for good, I might lose votes and lose my job.”  And therein lies the problem. 

My biggest pet peeve with government is the complete lack of fortitude to do what is right.  Every elected official knows what needs to be done. Ask him/her privately and he/she will tell you how to fix almost all of our problems.  Not the standard, “We are studying the problem and are working on a comprehensive program to alleviate the pain people will suffer,” blah, blah, blah. Every politician actually has ideas for permanent fixes. He/she just doesn’t have the will, or the stomach, to do what needs to be done.  If our problems, at all levels of government were attacked when they were small problems, we would not be in this mess now.  That’s the problem with problems: Nobody wants to fix them when they are small; it is easier to pass it on to the next group and let it deal with them. 

As a small business man, I know that if something small goes wrong with one of my trucks, I better fix it because by letting it go, it is going to cost me more in the long run.  I’ll give you an example.  Let’s say one of my trucks gets a leak in a radiator hose; a small leak, no big deal. I let that leak go and decide it isn’t bad enough to replace yet.  A couple of days later while cruising down the road, the hose lets go, and all the radiator fluid is drained in a matter of seconds.  Before I can shut down the truck, it has gotten so hot that I have hurt the engine.  Instead of fixing that $20 radiator hose, now I am looking at several thousand dollars of repairs!  Not very smart, was it?  Yet this scenario is played out every day in Washington, Columbus, and in counties all over the country. 

Most elected officials (certainly not all) know that some of their fixes might cause some people some loss of income, some government service, or some entitlement program that they know we can’t afford, but they are to unwilling to do anything about it for fear of not getting re-elected!  THIS IS NOT THE PURPOSE OF ELECTED OFFICIALS! 

I believe we are elected to fix what needs fixing, the best way we know how.  Some of our fixes are going to be painful in the short term, but for the long term are the correct answers.  I truly believe that if we fix the small problems before they become big problems, everyone wins.  The public wins, the elected official wins, and the county, city, or country wins.  Yes, elected officials are going to hear complaints about how some people are being hurt, but we have to look at the overall picture, not just one little section of it.  The thing most officials should realize by now is no matter what we do, somebody isn’t going to like it!  So be it! 

You elect us to solve problems, not keep getting elected on broken promises, and grand schemes to help everyone that never work.  We need to do what needs to be done, and let the chips fall where they may.  I believe if you honestly govern this way, people will respect you more, and you can continue to serve them.  But, it is easier to just pass the problem on, so someone else has to deal with a bigger problem later.  That’s the problem with problems.