Trash Days

Image via Wikipedia

n For anybody who either works for or follows government, consider this a cautionary tale. This is what happens when people don't through fiscal problems.
A few years ago, the city of Springfield, Massachusets, in a bid to create revenue, decided to make its residents pay yearly for trash removal. What they decided to do was to make everybody buy specific trash cans & then pay a yearly fee to pick up the trash in them. In other words, the residents are renting their very own trash cans! That means that if they put their trash in another type of trash can or trash bag, the city doesn't pick it up.
While that may be stupid in & of itself, it gets worse. If the residents don't pay the garbage tax, the city comes & takes away the trash cans. No regulation trash cans, no trash pick up. You can see where this is going, right?
Fast forward to this year. Residents & apartment complex owners can't afford the fee so the trash cans get taken away. Trash starts piling up. Where do residents start putting their trash? The usual spots: abandoned lots, the side of the road, & in the woods. Rats & other rodents start getting at the trash, creating a potential health disaster; not to mention a very serious littering & blight problem.
When will governments learn? When thinking short term, you also have to think long term. All governments, both municipal, state, & federal, might to keep in mind the unintended consequences of their actions before doing them.