Another trickle-down theory.

• Author: Gearino, G.D.
• Position: FINEPRINT - Political system - Viewpoint essay

Years ago, I asked my longtime Raleigh News & Observer colleague Tim Stevens, who has spent his lengthy career covering high-school sports, why he never moved up to the bigger stage of college athletics, where there's more glory and exposure. His answer, both wise and sensible, was because high school is the last time anyone plays solely for the love of a sport. Afterward, at the college and professional level, that purity of purpose is much diminished as other things intrude--money, mostly.

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I remembered that answer when I later found myself working on a big project for the North Carolina League of Municipalities. The more I talked to local-government officials from around the state, the more I understood that a similar principle applied: that the last time anyone runs for office in the sole hope of serving the public is at the local level. Beyond that point, money and ego taint the water. One would hope that the purity of purpose you find on the local political level would trickle up. Instead, the bad stuff increasingly trickles down--the imperidusness and the endless reminders that we are the ruled, which are the hallmarks of Washington-level politicians. Let us count the ways common sense and good judgment are disappearing from local politics these days.

Consider the city of Raleigh, whose administrators have declared that anyone who takes recyclable goods from the curbside and commits the unspeakable crime of delivering them to a recycling center before the city can do so must face justice. Apparently it is preferable to spend tax money to collect recycling rather than have someone else do it at no cost to the public. The reason, of course, is that the city gets $30 for every ton of material that it recycles. Naturally, that's also why anyone else wants to collect recycling--because they need the money, probably desperately

This is big-government thinking brought down to the local level: We're going to spend your tax money to pick up the city's recycling, then we're going to spend more of your tax money to help those in need who used to help themselves by collecting some of the recycling until we put a stop to that. Given the chance to simply shrug their shoulders and agree to look away as the needy earned a few bucks, Raleigh's elected leaders criminalized the private collection of recycling--so now enforcement costs can be added to the mix.

Then there's the situation facing my office landlord, who found himself...