The downside of volunteerism

What better time to voice our support for post-volunteerism than the day after National Volunteer Week?

Please don’t get us wrong; we certainly applaud the Kaua‘i community’s willingness to lend a hand and help get the job done. The sense of ‘ohana and the spirit of aloha are inspiring.

However, we are growing concerned that recent volunteer efforts to repair state-owned infrastructure are setting a dangerous precedent.

After a four-month closure due to December storms, Polihale State Park reopened Saturday thanks in large part to improvements (estimated value $200,000) performed by community volunteers while the state Department of Land and Natural Resources cried over the burgeoning pile of red ink in its balance sheet and the layers of red tape that lawmakers would have to cut through to appropriate some emergency repair funding.

Volunteers, including some of the same residents who performed the Polihale work, are now seeking to conduct a similar operation at nearby Kikiaola Small Boat Harbor to fix a broken wooden dock — again with the blessing and encouragement of state entities.

Here’s the problem.

We all pay a wide variety of taxes and fees designed to fill state and county coffers so that they can in turn provide services that would be unfeasible or unfair for the public to accomplish on its own. (Our legislators are working hard right now to add to that list of taxes and fees.)

There is a wide spectrum of beliefs when it comes to the role of government; small-government “libertarians” argue its only purpose is to uphold various constitutions and core laws, while big-government “socialists” say it exists to serve the greater good by providing programs and organizing and distributing communal resources.

Regardless of where along that spectrum you fit, we should all be able to agree that our government can’t have it both ways. It can’t tax us with the promise of services and then turn around and plead the case of fiscal conservatism and expect us to provide the programs and services for ourselves.

That’s called having your cake and eating it too. Only here, Kaua‘i’s people are providing all the ingredients, doing all the cooking and then going hungry.

We understand the global economic recession proliferated far from our state’s shores for reasons beyond our local leaders’ control, but we still believe it’s fair to hold them accountable for promises that were made and are now left unfulfilled, expectations that were set and are now unmet, and tax revenue that was collected and is now missing in action due to poor fiscal management.

So what happens when our government, for one reason or another, is unable to make good on the deal? Looking at problems one at a time, surely we are all better served by picking up a hammer, pulling together our neighbors and getting the job done. Nobody disputes that.

Access to beautiful Polihale or the ability to launch fishing or recreational boats from Kikiaola certainly carry considerable value to the public, but that narrow view might cause us to miss the proverbial forest for the trees.

Are we setting a dangerous “moral hazard” that lends positive reinforcement to government inaction rather than government in action? If lawmakers and administrators in the Legislature or DLNR grow to believe that they can simply tell us times are tight and sit on the sidelines while we do their work for them, where is the motivation for them to come through with funding in the future?

Trust in the benevolent nature of our leaders is a noble ideal, but at some point that trust can be used against us and we’re left holding the bag and the check. Too much trust can expose us to the downside of excess volunteerism — namely, a lazy government.

Our responsibility to hold our leaders accountable does not subside, even during hard times. In fact, now is when that responsibility becomes most critical.

So when your neighbor knocks on your door and asks for your help paying the electricity bill or carrying the sofa up the stairs, we encourage you to lend a hand. We aren’t misers and we value help from friends and family as much as anyone.

But when the government knocks, asking for your spare time and spare change, we urge you to ask what happened to the money you already shelled out before you reach back into your wallet for more.

We pay the taxes, who is responsible for the services?