Warren McCord: Gov't should 'Do something,' but what?

I am amused when I hear folks in north Alabama, where I was reared, complain about big government when those same individuals and their families have benefited greatly from government programs and funding over the last 75 years.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned corporation of the United States created by Congress in 1933. It reduced flooding, eradicated malaria, brought low-cost electricity, manufactured fertilizer and taught farmers how to use it, and attracted high paying manufacturing jobs.

TVA improved the quality of life in the Valley. My dad told me more than once, “Son, you just can’t imagine what this place was like before TVA.” If, when I was in school in the 1950s, your dad had a job with TVA or one of the industries that located in the Shoals because of TVA power or the river navigation its dams enabled, your life was good. Yet, some of my former classmates howl about federal programs, although their parents were able to send them to college because of their good industry jobs or even after they, themselves, retired from TVA.

It seems contradictory to me.

In the Huntsville area, in addition to having TVA, NASA employs thousands and infuses the economy with federal space dollars. There are hundreds of companies in the area that would not exist were it not for federal space program money. Yet, when I visit there, I hear and read a lot of complaints about tax dollars going to the auto industry.

We tend to react negatively to governmental actions that benefit others and positively when they benefit us. And, we often forget the federal benefits we have received or are already receiving when evaluating new program proposals that may not directly benefit us.

To be honest, we are all guilty of this at times. Farmers want smaller government, but they fight to keep price support payments. Local officials want local control, but go after every federal grant and/or pork dollar they can get.

We want to keep quarries from locating near our property, but we don’t want countywide zoning that would regulate the use of our land. We want to be free to protect our privacy by building a fence around our yard, but we want regulations to keep a neighbor from building a fence that blocks our view. We want speed limits enforced, but we get livid when we are pulled over.

As the world economic crises hit the U.S., there rose up a great cry for the federal government to “do something.”

The key questions were what should be done and for how long. However, are we evaluating the programs developed in response to this cry based on them being the correct responses for the economy, or are we evaluating them based on who is getting a direct benefit?

Warren McCord is chair of the City of Auburn Commercial Development Authority and member, and former chair, of the Auburn Planning Commission. He can be reached at blmccord@bellsouth.net.