Flaming out

The inability of government to think ahead strikes again:

An "eternal" flame at Bullhead City's new veterans memorial park that only lasted until city officials received a $961 gas bill has been re-lit following complaints by veterans groups.

The Medal of Honor Memorial at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Park alongside the Colorado River was lit on Veterans Day in November. When the bill arrived in late December, city officials were stunned.

"It caught us by surprise," City Manager Tim Ernster said Thursday.

Honoring the service of veterans is a laudable idea, but when choosing how to do it, one should probably look at sustainability. In fact, there's a good argument to be made that the BEST way to honor those who've defended our freedom of self-government is to actually govern in a thoughtful, responsible manner. And "eternal flame" is typical of most political action today--all gesture, without any careful reasoning behind it. Hence the "stunning" bill. I mean really, how hard is it to project the likely monthly cost of such a memorial before putting it into operation?

What's worse, even after the clue light came on the officials went back to the fiscal silliness due to public pressure. That's a pity. I'm sure it's only one of many expenditures there that appeal to a small slice of the public, but provide little to no overarching value for the community.

Ramp up the $1000 by four or so zeroes, and you have a perfect example of Federal action as well. There's nothing wrong with private citizens banding together to honor this group or that, or to provide aid and relief to their fellow man through charitable action. In fact, such groups are far more likely to use resources wisely, since they lack the ability to augment the budget by robbing others through taxation. But government is demonstrably awful at managing these sorts of things on our behalf. So why are we entrusting ever-larger slices of our economy to their less-than-studious care?