February 7, 2012-
I believe that to be truly wise, you need to admit when you make a mistake. And that is what I am going to do now.
Take a good look at the picture below. I took this picture at Tallmadge Elementary School while waiting for my daughter to finish basketball practice. The message inscribed on this plaque is simple but quite frankly humbling. Such unassuming language- "Erected in 1955 by a free vote of the people" hanging on that hallway wall for the past 57 years gave me pause to reevaluate.
Let's back up to last November when the Lancaster City Schools was asking for our vote to fund new elementary schools. The plan was (and is) to replace all of the old buildings with fewer but more centrally located ones. The logic is that as population has shifted, the existing buildings are no longer ideally located. Also, by combining buildings, a cost savings in support staff, utilities, etc can be achieved. There is also those pesky issues of energy consumption and lack of technology in those 50 plus year old buildings.
And while I agreed that this was a well thought out plan and worthy of consideration, I was against it when it came down to raising our taxes. After all, we are in a recession and times are tough- at least that's what I argued. "We can't be raising taxes now" I said.
So there I was, standing there in that hallway at Tallmadge Elementary School staring at that plaque. And here is what I realized-
Those people back in the early 1950's- the ones who freely voted to raise their taxes to build the schools we still use today- could have easily said "no new taxes". But this was what we now lovingly call "the greatest generation". These were people raised during the great depression- an era where doing without was the way of life. They obviously knew their share of hardship. This was also the generation sent over to Europe and the Pacific to defeat the Axis Powers. Millions of them went and served. Hundreds of thousands came back missing body parts or with deep psychological holes in their souls. And over 400,000 didn't come back at all. They could have came back with a huge chip on their collective shoulders- an attitude of "you owe me". Who would have blamed them in those early post-war years if they thought their taxes were too high- that they had sacrificed enough already and voted "no" to those fancy new school buildings.
But they didn't.
What they did was come home- go to work, get married, raise children and build one helluva community to live in. They paid it forward and we are still enjoying the benefits of their generosity to this day.
Now it's our turn.
We need to honor the greatest generation by living up to the standards they set for themselves. What I have learned is that there is never a "good time" to raise taxes. The economy will always have issues. There will always be excuses why we shouldn't.
But ask yourself this-
Fifty years from now what do you want the plaque to say about your generation?
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