Over the past year, we’ve heard urgent demands to do something about blight, graffiti and infrastructure — hydrants, supply lines and the like.  Nothing could be more essential, more urgent or even more morally obligated than addressing these issues.

Yet when it comes time to actually implement a policy to address the issue, all that urgency fades away once the very same chorus realizes that you have to pay for it. At that point, what had been so urgent pales in comparison to the urgency of not spending money. This is how the shell game around demolition works as but one example: a huge outcry erupts to demo buildings, swaths and even entire blocks of our city to rid ourselves of blight; don’t worry about how to actually pay for it as we can magically incur no cost through the magic of shared services and transferring costs to the county we’re assured. But when the county and city budgets come in with the costs to implement the program, a new outcry erupts that we can’t raise spending, we need to cut, cut; nothing should be spared from consideration. Nothing can be more urgent than cutting spending.

I chose demolition as an example but you can see a similar shell game with graffiti and a similar shell game with our infrastructure. Sorry kids but if you want to tackle infrastructure, you need to fund it with capital projects and new spending.  And if you’re going to make a life-and-death argument over the consequences of not addressing the issue while railing against paying for it, you’re still very much on the hook along with your hypocrisy.

I’m always struck at how both sides can be played in this debate, over and over, with no recognition of the futility of this shell game to bring about meaningful progress or policy. Nothing should be more urgent than ending that.