There They Go Again

An editorial in today's Orlando Sentinel once again shows that the periodical believes that anyone who believes in finding ways to conserve cash in these horrible economic times is a moron. Once again the Sentinel is advocating scrapping normal government functions that residents pay taxes for and instead dumping all of our money into finding a way to stop homelessness, or as the WayneWho staff prefers to call them, the undwelled. Their editorial starts out by attacking local communities of hardworking residents by saying "communities are using the economic meltdown as a built-in excuse for cutting back services," and "that's no reason to give up. It's a great reason to try even harder." The Sentinel believes that it is wrong for the members of our local communities to find ways to pay their own bills and stay in their homes, and that we should give away more of our money to faceless charities that have yet to prove they have helped anyone. While the WayneWho staff agrees that if residents have the disposable cash to give to charitable organizations of their choice they should try their best to give, we do not believe that having government give more tax money to these organizations is wise in any way. Taxpayer's money should be spent on public safety, transportation, and other basic government services and not grandiose plans of ending homelessness by organizations that have no clear plan on how to do so. If the plan is to end homelessness, and government wants taxpayer money to do it, then taxpayers should be presented with a plan that has a clear end goal in sight. The taxpayers should also receive monthly updates on the reductions in homelessness with information on how the successes will speed up the end date of the organization. But we all know this is not how these charitable organizations work. These organizations continually find ways to expand their parameters of services and demand more money to serve those new needs. There is never a metric of success, only a metric of why these organizations need more money.

It is probably our mistake in thinking the editorial staff of the of the Orlando Sentinel has any understanding of the real needs of our community. It is easy to sit in a comfortable office and surf the Internet looking for great causes to write about, but it is another to actually go out and talk to the people you are asking to give up their hard earned money and ask them their opinions on the subject. We would have assumed with all of the budget cuts and layoff's at the Orlando Sentinel, the editorial staff would have a better understanding of why it is important to tighten our belts in tough times like these. We would also like to inform the Sentinel of one simple truth, you cannot legislate compassion. As the complaints in your own article show, government is not the answer to the problem. Government is the problem. Task forces, boards, and organizations that are used to funnel tax money have shown a tendency to make problems worse and drain government of the funds it needs to make a community better. All the editorial staff needs to do is read the articles on the mismanagement of tax money between the TDC and the Education Foundation to see the types of patterns that develop and how taxpayer money is wasted. Of course this would require homework on the editorial staff's part and might actually contradict en vogue causes. Actually ending homelessness will never be done by government agencies or by boards that require tax money to survive. Homelessness will only end when we focus on the problem and stop thinking that some one else will fix it.