A financial shortfall leads to a 'only me' attitude by the community

Huntington Political Examiner ^ | 12/10/2009 | Mark Shoffner

[mshoffner]

As reported here over the last few weeks, Huntington has been facing a shortfall of over a million dollars in tax revenue. Mayor Updike has tried to acquire a trash fee, has laid of a minimum of 12 people (including 6 fire fighters), closed one fire station and gotten a lot of bad reactions. The city employees have tried to help. City employees volunteered their time to decorate the city with Christmas cheer, only to find that the city has to pay overtime. The reason, a labor law states that a worker can not do anything while off duty that is part of their on duty job. So, the law bites volunteerism in the backside.

[blam]

Abolish all unions!!!

[Senator John Blutarski]

..... Evidence perhaps that the wall has been hit. I think it can be safely said that people are now scared.

[Red Boots]

What a bunch of government whiners ! They have the nerve to accuse the overburdened taxpayers of greed because they refuse yet another tax. And far from the claim that city employees have taken a pay cut and shouldn’t have to suffer any more; what about the thousands of private sector people who have lost their jobs entirely ?

[autumnraine]

I know this is picky, but should it be “...an ‘only me’...?

[Think free or die]

I'll admit I'm getting a bit of "only me" attitude as well. Over the years, I've freely given of my time and we've donated to various organizations. As long as we're able, we'll continue to do so, since we've picked groups whose work we trust.

What I don't like is finding out about embedded giveaways when we've paid for services or memberships. For example, our YMCA is, in my opinion, overly generous in its giveaways on memberships, causing the cost to those who actually pay to rise considerably. They now consider families earning below $60K to be underprivileged and deserving of reduced cost memberships . . . at our expense of course. There is no end to their appeals for the underprivileged - summer camps for kids, after school programs, etc. etc. If we couldn't afford summer camp for our sons, we wouldn't expect someone else to pay for it.

Similarly, I just found out, through disclosure of an administrative error, that our CSA farm has set aside between 5 and 10% of its production to local food cupboards. I have nothing against food cupboards, but it bothers me that this has not previously been disclosed. It raises the cost of all the other shares, and in all fairness, should be told to participating families. If the organizers were to ask for support directly, I suspect our participating families would pony up more than what they've thus smeared around in our share prices, and it would be done in a spirit of charity. (Ironically, our most recent share enrollment period included a note about extended payment plans or assistance to families having trouble paying for their shares. Perhaps they could start by reducing the price by the "donation" they've embedded in the share price.)

Then there's the "give a Christmas gift to the poor kids" programs at church and hubby's office. The wish lists for the kids are more sumptuous than what we give our own sons. How poor are they really? I'm sorry, but I don't give iPods to strangers.

I prefer to select my own charities, to know when I am supporting them, and how much. It's a concept called liberty. Unfortunately, many of my neighbors have lost sight of it.

[bert]

The process is called redistribution.

What is yours is really theirs. There must be equality. Equality is achieved by taking from you and giving to someone else.

[mshoffner]

I agree. I assume the CSA is a membership food consortium? As for the Christmas wish lists, I agree. Asking for needs and a few toys is one thing, but I’ve seen things listed like video game systems and such. I donate to the red kettles and the local food donations (Sen. Lugar food drive, scholl canned goods collection, shelter food programs, etc.). I figure this is where the needs are.

[Think free or die]

Yep - The CSA is a community sponsored agriculture farm. We pay in advance for a share of the harvest. It's a non-profit organization which hires a farm manager and a small staff to grow food for ~350 families. Love the food, have issues with some of the politics.

I'm with you on the red kettles. I always support the Salvation Army. They gave my parents their first (free) cup of coffee in America when they arrived in New York harbor in November 1950. They do good work and take little for themselves. We also support the Toys for Tots drive, Boy Scouts, our local food cupboard, and our church. We've taken issue with our church lefties, but are hanging in there for now. Mostly good people; just suckered into the social justice schtick.