Wednesday, August 12, 2009

'Stuck on stupid' thinking is part of the problem

This is part of our problem in Lucas County and the nation as a whole:

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS), which loses $7 billion every year, has listed two locations in Toledo as targeted for closure. One of them is here in my neighborhood, Point Place, which doesn't make me happy.

But when the government actually wants to reduce the size of its operation to bring it in line with its revenues, that's a good thing.

Our County Commissioners - and many others - may agree with reducing the number of offices, but not with doing it HERE. You see, they all think our locations should remain and other ones should go.

(Sidenote: This is the same perspective when it comes to getting rid of politicians - when everyone wants the incumbents gone, they mean other incumbents, not their own. And when they rail about pork, it's the pork other areas are getting - not the 'necessary funding' we need. See the resemblance???)

So the Commissioners yesterday passed a unanimous resolution urging the U.S. Postal Office to keep these two locations open.

When a news reporter for NewsTalk 1370 WSPD asked about the USPS cutting costs and how this compares to Lucas County cutting services, Comm. Ben Konop actually said:

"It's a little different than in Lucas County because the federal government has the ability to print money."


That's the quote they played with the news and here is the story from their website:

County Board Seeks to Save Post Offices

Two Toledo Branches Could Close

By WSPD News

Lucas County Commissioners unanimously sign a resolution asking the Post Master General to spare the Mid-Town and Point Place post offices that could be part of a nationwide downsizing.

Commissioner Ben Konop says post offices serve as community hubs and help reduce crime.

He says he would prefer seeing the post offices moved into smaller, more efficient buildings.

The agency runs about 7-billion dollars in the red each year.

When asked about the county making cuts to save money, Konop says, that's different because the federal government can print it's own money.

Konop, who is also a Toledo mayoral candidate, thinks that it's okay to continuously run a deficit so long as you can print up money out of thin air to cover the expenses?

Can you say 'stuck on stupid'?

Sadly, this is what many people think. The scarier part is that 1) this is a sitting county commissioner and 2) this is a candidate for mayor. This man obviously has no idea about basic economics; no idea about why governments, just like individuals and businesses, need to live within their (OUR) means; and no idea just how ridiculous he sounds when he says things like this.

Of course, I really don't expect main stream media to cover this blaring display of ignorance, though the paper did include the 'cut somewhere else, but not us' comment.

If this is the type of logic utilized by our elected officials - and supported by voters - is it any wonder our nation is broke?

1 comment:

Mad Jack said...

Ben and a lot of other people have failed world history back in junior high school. That's where an adult expects the students to ask questions like:

(on WWII)
Why not just print more money to pay the war debt?

What do you mean by inflation?

What do you mean by runaway inflation?

(on the civil war)
Why didn't the slaves (down South) get together and revolt?

(on Upton Sinclair and labor)
If the workers weren't being paid enough, why didn't they just go somewhere else and get a job there?

(on the great depression I)
Why did the government let the banks make all those bad loans and lose everyone's money? Isn't the government supposed to protect the people?

I vividly remember the outrage expressed by a class of young teenagers when the cause of the first great depression and subsequent bank failure was made clear. The instructor was unable to explain why the federal government allowed this to happen and couldn't explain the government's inability to fix the economy. A very few of us, myself included, were worldly enough to understand that since members of the government were not directly affected, they would do very little to actually fix the problem or fix the cause of the problem.

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