We're the ones who serve food to the hungry, shelter the homeless, and hospitalize the indigent, while at the same time fighting shrinking tax bases and scrapping for federal grant money to try to eke out a few more services. On a less dramatic note, we're the ones who find out why some utility workers left the fence open and let out the dog, stepped on the pansies, and left wires dangling too close to the driveway. In most cases, I m fortunate to be able to advocate for consumers and get their problems resolved. Because I work for local government, I can be found more easily than other governmental representatives, and my proximal advantage should be exploited in a harmonized telecommunications regulatory model. And what of the other members in my proposed three-part harmony.
States handle structures well.
Shaped to the idiosyncrasies of their locale, they create frameworks for any particular industry to organize, establish an identity, and take advantage of an area's business opportunities. They guide and direct on a scale larger than that of local governments, which while taking them further away from their constituents, brings them closer into contact with aggregate data, trends, philosophies, and plans. In my three part harmony, clearly this is the horn section. Big and brassy, shiny when polished, but often tarnished, the federal government is often too huge and unwieldy to move very fast. But sometimes fast changes are not what we need for social progress.