It’s a Wonderful Life ... Tis the season ... let’s get back to Capraesque values.

I’m a fairly left-of-center democrat, who sadly is aware that Will Roger’s joke was no joke: “I do not belong to an organized political party, I am a democrat.” And I write this brief letter not as an ideolog democrat but as a boots- on-the-ground democrat.

The focus of the Rockland town meeting of Dec. 13 was an affordable housing proposed ordinance.

I strongly support efforts to produce affordable housing.... It’s certainly a worthwhile goal ... and a challenging issue.

To resolve the problem a real discussion and coordinated effort is needed to address the complexities of tempering unbridled capitalism for desired social outcomes.

Alas, in these strange and divided times, a coordinated approach will be so fragmented ... so difficult... such a challenge.

And so ... well intentioned people will do what they can.

And so ... we got that ‘inclusionary’ ordinance presented at the Rockland town meeting.

We got recycled ideas: Another tax, another transfer of wealth. I’m not against a new tax or well thought out transfer of wealth, but let’s understand and admit that that is what was proposed: a new tax. So, when we talk about tax burdens and their cumulative effect on society, let’s make sure we include such hidden taxation in our calculations.

I am horrified by such well-meaning knee jerk reactions to problem solving ... when will this change? I’m old, I have seen this over and over – utopian goals with dystopian results.

In one of my past lives, I managed a large’ Child Support enforcement program.

I saw, firsthand, several failures of the ‘Great Society’ legislation ... generational failures.

As a true metro denizen, I witnessed the horrors of poor people warehoused in projects and stripped of incentives to create wealth and punished for doing so by ‘means testing’: a super costly, ineffective, cumbersome, bureaucratic nightmare of regulations and paperwork misused to determine whether someone qualifies for financial assistance to obtain a service or good like housing or welfare.

All this led to complex schemes by welfare and housing recipients to circumvent the rules and create wealth for themselves and their families while retaining their ‘assistance”. We created a complex underground economy and stunted the real creation of wealth.

Plus, opponents of the social net, easily find anecdotal evidence of a well-intended helping hand morphing into a relied upon and never ending ‘hand out’ ... and they beat us over the head with these sometimes real, often false stories.

As a tax administrator I battled the consequences of poorly designed anti-snob legislation and funding devices that swelled the bank accounts of the worst developers and politicians.

Friends, who I think usually see me as level-headed (emphasis on usually!), wonder why I show disdain, disgust, d- whatever when I listen to those who believe they have all the answers. .... I’m cringing as I simply watch the never- ending spectacle ... déjà vu all over again ... temporary players following the path of least resistance ... believing they have found the yellow brick road to utopia, ‘the Emerald City’. I believe they are smart people and truly well- intentioned, but it amazes me that they do not see the shallowness of these recycled ideas. They usually throw money at a problem, always someone else’s money. They believe they have the answers, the solutions ... but I wonder if they have the historical perspective and an understanding of the scope of the problem.

Tonight’s more tax, more government, more regulations attempt to solve one of the biggest problems facing all societies since the dawn of communal living, by shifting the burden to the private sector and watched over by a costly administrative/enforcement program run by a government bureaucracy ... oh yeah, that’s always been so so successful!

Personally, I do not believe that ‘affordable housing’ should be the recipient of so much of our collective civic/community attention. ... it’s today’s cause cé·lè·bre: it’s a symptom, not a disease.

Conversely, when philanthropical individuals, companies, organizations come forward to help, let’s do what we can to pave the road for them. Let’s applaud and extol their efforts. These people and organizations do so because they believe in sharing and that’s pretty cool.

But I digress, I believe the creation of wealth is the key to a more productive and ‘shared’ economy ... the Roosevelt era ‘New Deal’ was a wealth creation program ... on steroids. That’s why it worked.

Who is more likely to succeed ... the person we empower to create wealth or the person we give an apartment to? Y’all have heard it many times, “... give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” ......... Though I do prefer the modern version “Give a woman a fish and she eats for a day, teach her to fish and she eats her for a lifetime, but give her access to markets and she earns a living, and give her community resources to fish sustainably and she can feed the world.”

Affordable housing is a community problem – let’s create community resolve/buy-in and seek solutions through the community... the scarecrows, the lions, and the tin men ... there is no yellow brick road; there is no Emarald city .... There is hard work, shared values and a belief and reliance in a somewhat Capraesque focus on courage and work and its positive effects and the triumph of the underdog, the common man.

I wish, I wish, oh I so wish we could provide something like the Bailey Brothers Building and Loan – as imagined in It’s a Wonderful Life — that could work with individuals and provide a helping hand to those left behind for whatever reason. A helping hand, funded by some market driven but socially conscious business, not by yet another entitlement funded by a hidden tax or transfer of wealth. A helping hand that requires work and challenges and leads to a better life including financial independence and decent housing for working-class families.

By the way, in case any reader may doubt my liberal leaning view of the world: I believe that the best mechanism to transfer wealth or level the playing field is through decent wages, a minimum wage, adjusted annually for inflation ... to me, anything else is socially sanctioned slavery. Reward for work – what a novel idea.

Job creation and the creation of real shared wealth needs to be our long, slow, nurtured goal. There is no easy fix. Stop it! It is not trickle down. It is bottom up: a New Deal. it is a system where the government and the community invest in people. The word “invests” is important ... It’s a system where we invest in each other and our community.

Tis the season – Let’s do some good out there.

Robert Arena lives in South Thomaston and Rockland