Multi-million boon to the political class

The powers that be are ready for us subjects to hear publicly the Capital Improvement Plan, essentially a wishlist for all the public "servants" to outline their new toys and games as they play businessmen. New cars, new sidewalks, new bike paths, a new fire sub-station. Ask and ye shall receive!

The mentality of town government is well summed up by Darren Winham, who talks about how important it is to "invest" (read: tax some to benefit others) in the downtown area* "to allow and inspire commercial growth..." What the heck is he talking about? Entrepreneurs need no such "encouragement" from local governments. Really, Winham means that he wants to mold the area into a place he sees fit, not you or me. Worse, instead of becoming an entrepreneur himself (and thereby assuming the risk), he becomes a town bureaucrat who plans to use the bottomless pit of tax money. 

More money to study downtown parking and traffic. For free, I will tell you that the government road is a disaster; it is always congested; drivers pull out of spaces without looking; people run across the road in front of drivers who have the sun in their eyes. Yikes! Why do people continue to think that the Exeter government should be in charge of roads?

Note well: the question is not whether or not Exeter residents "need," say, a new wastewater plant; rather, the pertinent question is: who determines what to produce? The answer here is that our mighty rulers know best. They've hired good technicians and engineers who can determine what needs to be built, where, when, and how long such goods and services will last. (Of course, they always need more money!) In truth, it is the consumer who best decides what entrepreneurs freely produce on the market. Government bureaucracies just meddle.

(By the way, does anyone else think that someone who doubles as both a selectman and a downtown store owner should recuse himself of all discussion of downtown "investment" as a conflict of interest?)