FROM THE EDITOR: These Are Trying, and Promising, Times
Crisis creates fear and pain; however, it also creates an opportunity to rethink and reinvent ourselves. Our community is uniquely positioned to do that.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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The text message from a local active-duty member of the military was straightforward.
“You know my stand on the president,” wrote the conservative soldier, “but this angers the f___ out of me.”
“This” was a no vote on a “non-binding resolution calling for the protection of health care benefits for veterans exposed to burn pits,” according to Task & Purpose.
Though the action “does not officially remove funding related to the PACT Act,” Task & Purpose wrote, “discussions around cuts to veteran benefits have been gaining traction.”
Comments like this from people across the political spectrum have been pouring in to the Advance ever since the launch of the Executive Orders Project, with people texting, calling, and writing to express their frustration with how the actions of the Trump Administration are proving disruptive to their lives — and potentially to our local economy.
Just some examples that we’ve chronicled:
Anger over the cut in a federal research project that has ended a program aiding 91 high school students in Spotsylvania and paying for their five teachers has caught the eye not just of families in Spotsylvania, but across the nation.
Local nonprofits are bracing for the worst as federal dollars are shut-off with no warning or plan for the future. The concerns of leaders are for the loss of the safety net to the vulnerable people that these nonprofits serve — drugs that Fredericksburg Area Health and Support Services provide to HIV patients; housing the Loisann’s Hope House provides to battered women.
Fear among immigrants over possible deportation has led to school districts in our area seeing higher absenteeism from this group of students, according to people who spoke to the Advance on the condition of anonymity (more on this story is forthcoming).
Mass firings across the federal government are disrupting lives locally, while back-to-office orders are putting federal employees back on the I-95 gas-guzzling treadmill.
The Advance’s reporting leaves little doubt that our region is feeling the impact in a significant way, owing to the high concentration of civilian workers here involved in government work. A fact that has not escaped the eye of the Federal Reserve.
At Tuesday’s Lunch & Learn talk, Federal Reserve of Richmond vice president Renee Haltom noted that of the Top 20 counties with the highest percentage of civilian government workers, King George County and Stafford County rank second and sixth nationwide. (Los Alamos County in New Mexico has the highest percentage.)
Beyond the individuals who are being affected, there are also the local governments that are already facing a challenging budgeting season.
Consider the difficulties faced by Stafford County — apart from concerns over government downsizing — expressed Tuesday night about the strain that tax relief for disabled veterans is placing on the county’s budget. From Adele Uphaus’ story:
The county pays 8.5% of the state’s total disabled veteran tax relief, despite having only 2% of the total state population—and 10% of all disabled veterans in the state live in Stafford, Ashton said. The number of disabled veterans rose from 157 in 2011, when the law went into effect, to 4,348 last year, and the amount of tax relief rose from $433,000 to $22 million during those years.
Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania are also struggling this budget season.
The lesson here should be clear to all involved. In addition to the normal challenges localities are facing, these federal government reductions are going to churn the waters still further, and currently no one can really project how deep or painful the impact will be.
Local leaders would be well-advised to accept the fact that we as a nation have probably crossed the Rubicon in terms of how much financial support local governments and nonprofits can expect from the federal government.
And not just this year.
We are likely looking at the most significant change in the role the federal government plays in our lives since Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Great Depression.
Crisis Creates Opportunity
The anger and frustration at this moment is certainly understandable. As journalists, we talk daily with those who are most-directly affected and see clearly the pain that these changes are causing. And like our readers, we are both moved and deeply concerned about what this will mean for the citizens in our communities.
However, it’s important that we not lose focus at this moment and focus on the frustration and rage.
In times of dramatic change, there is opportunity to recreate and rebuild. And that is what we have before us.
Consider the local retired attorney we wrote about in February — Bill Botts.
In 2000, Botts was director of Rappahannock Legal Services when he was informed that he would not be allowed to represent undocumented individuals with federal funding.
“Our first response,” he told the Advance, “was to find other funding. The counterpunch was that if you have any federal dollars, it taints all funding sources. So we gave up on all federal dollars. $240,000 of a $900,000 budget.”
That decision created short-term pain for the organization, but today Legal Aid Works, thanks in part to Botts, is well-positioned to weather this current crisis, as it has very little federal funding.
And then there are data centers.
The arrival of these facilities presents a future influx of capital unlike any seen in our lifetimes. Once fully operational, they will produce revenues that can be used to help pay for the services that federal grants once did — and a great deal more.
It’s important in this moment that we prepare for the influx of new funds and begin having the community discussions about the ways to best use these funds to serve our communities. It’s an opportunity to reimagine our future — an opportunity that far too few communities have.
Nonprofits that supply so much of our safety nets stand to face a particularly trying period. As federal funds to support housing, homelessness, educational programs, feeding programs, and more, dry up, they will need to get creative.
As Meghann Cotter noted at a recent City Council meeting, “We are all going to have to find ways to do more, including what we are already doing, with less funding from long-reliable funding sources.”
But let’s not forget that we have been there before, and recently, during COVID. By taking the lessons that were learned from that period and applying them to today, nonprofits may discover a burst of imagination and creativity the sector is overdue for.
The common thread through all of these examples is that citizens are going to have to look to their neighbors for help solving the problems we all face. And that’s going to mean new ways of thinking not just about funding, but about what role each of us must play in our communities’ lives.
Bowling Together
A quarter century ago, Robert Putnam wrote the book Bowling Alone. The Introduction concluded with the following.
Before October 29, 1997, John Lambert and Andy Boschma knew each other only through their local bowling league at the Ypsi-Arbor Lanes in Ypsilanti, Michigan…. “Andy saw something in me that others didn’t,” said Lambert. “When we were in the hospital Andy said to me, ‘John I really like you and have a lot of respect for you. I wouldn’t hesitate to do this all over again.’ I got choked up.” Boschma returned the feeling: “I obviously feel a kinship [with Lambert]. I cared about him before, but now I’m really rooting for him.” … That they bowled together made all the difference. In small ways like this — and in larger ways, too — we Americans need to reconnect with one another. That is the simple argument of this book.”
How much more disconnected have we become with the advent of the internet and social media?
Whether one supports what’s happening, is affected by it, or is angered about it, we all find ourselves in the same situation — our communities are going to have to begin to depend more on one another than they have in some time. And that means coming out from behind social media and actually interacting with one another in good faith, face-to-face.
We may wish that the circumstances that are forcing us to do this were different, more positive. But if we can begin to reconnect and depend on one another, that would be a very good thing.
It begins with a simple act — putting people over politics.
As the soldier’s story reveals, somewhere along the line, we’ve forgotten that.
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