“The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence.”

The words are those of former President Jimmy Carter delivered to the American people in a national address in 1979.

“It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.

“The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and political fabric of America.”

While I’ve never been a fan of Jimmy Carter’s politics or his presidency, his words accurately described the mood of the country in 1979. It was a time of great worry and concern.

Carter’s speech struck a chord with me this week in considering the latest confidence shaker in local government.

This one involves another missed deadline; the result may wind up causing the City of Natchez to lose $200,000 in reimbursement funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Apparently, because we failed to file some paperwork, the city may not receive federal funds to help reimburse the city’s cleanup costs after Hurricane Gustav.

The problem isn’t that the city’s leadership made a mistake. Most taxpayers realize that those folks are human and would be — at least a little — understanding.

The real confidence crusher here is the city’s reaction to questions about what happened.

Citizens become overly critical when no one will step up and take the blame. The simple question: “What happened?” prompts nothing but a collective shrug. Is no one accountable?

Problems are expected and understandable, but how you handle the mistake, how you own up to it and how you work to fix the mistake are critical to collective confidence.

This comes on the heels of other city — and county — public confidence stumbles of late including:

The county’s similar problem in following FEMA and state rules which may wind up costing the county hundreds of thousands of dollars in having to foot their own cleanup bill from Hurricane Gustav.

The city is completing a $1.3 million paving project without having the funds in place first.

The county’s decision to yank EDA funding without reading the law that prohibited this first.

The county’s insistence on putting a trailer in the city limits, despite Natchez’s zoning laws.

The city is considering writing a law to create an exception in an existing law for what’s clearly an illegal fruit stand. Apparently, no one wants to enforce the existing law, so we’ll just change it.

Just complaining about the problems doesn’t seem to be working. But voters are smart, and they’ll eventually “correct” the matter.

Term limits might be worth considering so that the system would be forced to have fresh ideas and input.

The lack of taking responsibility for their own actions, combined with hints of arrogance that some of our leaders are above the laws — laws they agreed to uphold when they took office — leaves a sour taste in the mouths of many residents.

But more important, these actions erode the confidence that the government has anything but its own political self-interests at heart.

Perhaps Carter was onto something when he concluded his speech. “Let us commit ourselves together to a rebirth of the American spirit. Working together with our common faith we cannot fail.”

Kevin Cooper is publisher of The Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3539 or kevin.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.