If you happened to catch any of the 2017 county budget proceedings, you couldn’t help but hear the oft-quoted cliché, “Kick the can down the road.”
The expression, meaning to procrastinate or put off solving a problem until later, exhibits a type of gamesmanship similarity to the childhood activity “kick the can” – when somebody kicked a can full of pebbles, then ran and hid.
So, when did the phrase originate?
Nancy Marshall- Genzer, a senior reporter for Marketplace, working from the Washington, D.C. Bureau, posed the question to University of Minnesota linguist Anatoly Liberman, who said the phrase might have been around for a century. She asked him: “Can you give me a specific date?”
Anatoly replied: “No, but I’m happy to kick the can further down the road and hope that Michael Adams, English professor at Indiana University will pick it up.”
Michael figured the “kick the can” phrase may even pre-date, well, . . . cans. Who knows?
He conceded, “It’s as old as procrastination.”
The Hoosier professor directs us to the crux of the matter (another of those 18th-century idioms whose origin should probably be explored): The tendency to postpone or defer a definitive action, decision, or solution, usually by affecting a short-term one instead.
An unwieldy budget is not a problem that can – nor should be – put off. It will not solve itself. Eventually, a lasting solution is going to have to be sought.
And, I might add, that solution – if you’ve been following any of the previous columns on the price of local government – should not be placed, as an additional burden, on the backs of taxpayers.
The only way for the county to deal with the escalating budget problem is to make some very tough changes . . . substantial changes. Unfortunately, elected officials appear unwilling to actually take up the cause as – it is assumed – trying to press for those unpalatable cuts would be very unpopular. To whom?
What commissioners have been very good at, however, is waiting until the last minute, delaying and – eventually, when all other options are exhausted, “kicking the can down the road.” I know, just check out the scuffing on the toes of my shoes.
We are either hoping that: a) the problem magically disappears; or b) we will leave office before the problem has to be dealt with.
Frances Lee, a political science professor at the University of Maryland, observed, “It’s hard to make tough choices at any time, and it’s especially hard when you hope that if you can just stay popular a little bit longer, you might get a big electoral victory.”
Borrowing some of the words of David Muhlhausen, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, “Real leadership requires articulation of a clear and persuasive message that is backed by concrete actions that instill a culture of fiscal discipline in the nation’s capital [read: local government].”
One obvious tool missing from our budget-cutters’ toolbox is strongly linking evidence-based policymaking to budgetary decisions. Objective, reliable evidence of program effectiveness or ineffectiveness should encourage commissioners to be wiser stewards of taxpayer dollars.
Third parties, like special interests, are often dependent on continued funding, even if the programs are ineffective. In my experience, I have found commissioners eager to dole out taxpayer dollars with little regard to credible evidence that such funding will work. Hence, they have strong incentives to confuse the public about the effectiveness of programs.
This dilemma arises because intentions and symbolism are sometimes more important to commissioners than the performance of the programs they fund.
While emotions and beliefs will always strongly influence political decisions, the degree to which these decisions are based on rigorous evidence may be the difference between creating public policies that fail or succeed . . . accelerate or decelerate the county’s burgeoning budget. The question is whether policymakers can create an environment where rigorous evidence informs political decisions and the consequential allocation of taxpayer dollars.
“We always talk about whether or not we’re going to ‘kick the can down the road.’ I think the mood is that we’ve come to the end of the road.”
Cathy McMorris American politician
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