Sniffing around data on the back end of documents about taxes and budgets, it’s not long before you realize the scent is anything but pleasant, and property tax protests are like tails wagging dogs.

This week, despite objections from some of the dozen or more in attendance, Marion’s city council unanimously approved increasing the city’s tax levy 3.9%. That’s a heavy burden, one that will especially dog retirees on fixed incomes, with most of their wealth (such as it is) buried like forgotten bones in home equity. Still, with inflation running around 2.5%, it’s at least understandable.

What isn’t understandable is the rest of the budget. Although most people look at budget hearings as a time to question tax rates, mill levies aren’t the only things set in these hearings. The main purpose is to set overall authority for spending.

While Marion’s property tax revenue, which pays for less than 10% of its total spending, will increase a relatively modest 3.9% next year, overall spending by the city will rise a whopping 30.9%, according to the budget approved Monday night. That increase comes after a 34.6% increase in city spending from last year to this.

Last year, the city spent $2,882 per resident. Next year, it will spend $5,078. Marion residents need to ask themselves a simple question next year: Did every adult and child in your household get $2,196 more in benefits as a city resident than they did a year ago?

It isn’t just the city, of course. Across the board, governments are spending more and more to provide what seems to be less and less. The combined 76.2% increase in city spending from last year to next may be more massive than most, but it’s not unprecedented. Marion County plans to increase its spending 38.9% over the same period, and the Marion-Florence school district will increase its by 6.9% (plus, of course, new long-term borrowing for a concession stand and locker room).

The swamp that national politicians talk about as being inside the District of Columbia’s Beltway is at least as deep right here in River City.

As with D.C., much of our local economy revolves around government spending. Our biggest employers are a public hospital district, a public school district, county government, and city government. Those four, plus various other governmental agencies, touch a huge percentage of households among the voting public. A household member or close relative either draws pay from one of these public bodies or regards them as the biggest customers of their private business.

Dwight Eisenhower should have warned about more than the military-industrial complex. What we have is a government-dependent society that all too often votes to maintain the status quo of ever-rising government expenditures because at least some of that money trickles down to them.

Any idea of reforming government spending is greeted with the same immediate distrust and disdain that a huge block of retired voters normally reserves for proposals to alter Social Security.

Six years ago, before I retired and moved here permanently, I wrote an editorial lamenting that the desk I was using had a loose keyboard tray, haphazardly held up by a twisted piece of wire; that my chair had several nicks and scrapes on it; and that some of the letters on my keyboard had worn off.

Six years later, every one of those problems remains. The newspaper hasn’t replaced any of the equipment with shiny new things because the items we already had still do the job — reliably and economically.

That’s how families work. So what if your cell phone has a minor crack or a favorite chair has a threadbare spot or the air conditioning in your car doesn’t work as well as it used to? You live with it, because there are other things more worthy of spending your hard-earned money.

That’s not how government works. Everything must be new and shiny and bright — even if it only appears so. Don’t worry about prioritizing spending. It’s not your money, after all. It’s someone else’s. You don’t even have to worry about whether your purchase will be good in the long term. As long as it looks good until the next election and makes people smile in the meantime, it’s fine.

Monday night, Marion was told about the need to look after the nickels and dimes that add up to significant spending. It didn’t. But it could at least have questioned some of the things staring out at council members from their own meeting packet.

Many of these questions might have perfectly legitimate answers, but we will never know. No one asked questions like:

■ Why does the water department need a $535 big-screen, ultra-high-def TV set and accessories?

■ Couldn’t the city have done its own lead and water pipe survey instead of spending $1,659 to have an outside firm do it?

■ Why are we spending $295 on another 20 or so T-shirts when a one-time expenditure for reusable “event staff” vests would have met the need?

■ Why does the open air of Central Park need a new $320 air conditioner?

■ Did we really need a $298 instant camera when a cell phone and printer can accomplish the same thing?

■ Who enjoyed the $109 in refreshments purchased for some unnamed celebration?

■ Does everything have to be brand new for new police officers? Has anyone heard of hand-me-downs? What happens to old vests, badges, and the like?

It’s time to wake up and smell the spending, but you might have to hold your nose.

— ERIC MEYER