Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Libraries slashing; who's out of touch?

Two items arrived in the e-mail inbox of our department today. One was from former N.C. Sen. Robert Pittenger, a Mecklenburg Republican.
He wrote:
"The liberal big government machine grows larger and larger, as it did
when I served - continuing to raise taxes and public spending at
alarming rates. The amazing thing is, whether the public favors their
actions or not, they do it anyway."

Not too long afterward, we received this, from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library:
"On Tuesday, March 16, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library learned that Mecklenburg County would be reducing the Library’s funding for Fiscal Year 2010 by 6.3 percent, or $2 million dollars, before June 30, 2010. To absorb a $2 million reduction in such a short period of time, the Library will need to lay off at least 140 employees, resulting in the closure of at least twelve Library locations, pending final library board approval."
While we agree with Pittenger that our governments need to root out any waste and fraud they can find, it's hard to see how closing 12 county libraries, or laying off up to 600 teachers for next year, as Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools may have to do, equates to the "big government machine" growing "larger and larger."
"What will it take for the out of touch liberal establishment to
understand that they cannot go on brazenly
behaving so irresponsibly?" he asks.

Er, maybe the liberal establishment isn't the only one you could say is "out of touch"?

- Posted by The Observer editorial board

13 comments:

Bill said...

Call the library and ask about the waiting list for Palin's "Going Rogue" book. Last I heard, over 400 people were on the waiting list. A good percentage of those people are using a govt-funded program to read a book on the dangers of govt. funding. They won't even support the free market system by buying her book.

Unknown said...

It is hypocrisy in the highest degree. There are plenty of "conservatives" who rail against social programs, but are happy to get their social security check when they retire.

Algernon said...

The real motives of liberals have nothing to do with the welfare of other people. Instead, they have two related goals: first, to establish themselves as morally and intellectually superior to the rather distasteful population of "common people", and second, to gather as much power as possible to tell those distasteful "common people" how they must live their lives. If a policy moves them closer to those two goals, they will find a reason to advocate it, regardless of how harmful the consequences of that policy may be.


Liberals can ALWAYS be reduced to zero and be made to scream with fury, and level to sophomoric name calling when they realize their pretenses have been stripped away......

The failure of liberal politics is best explained by pointing out how far off the mark obama and co. are by taking their eye off of the economy and focusing on "health care reform" in a package no one wants.

JR said...

This is a typical move - slash & burn the services most used (& needed) by citizens and they will eventually accept tax increases. Sadly, this has been our local politician's primary move rather than do the real hard work of cutting non-critical programs.
Do we really need to spend $400k on the CIAA tournament?
Is firing 800 teachers yet leaving CMS-TV and a 1million-dollar+, 16 person CMS PR staff really the best use of our dollars?
How about middle school sports? It was said elsewhere in today's Observer removing middle school sports would "only" save $1.3 million - like that is not good enough, so we might as well keep it in.

How about a 20% reduction in pay for the top 10% of execs in CMS, City & County government? Also, get rid of all bonus & options for this fiscal year. No more dropping $16,000 bonuses on Harry Jones and others of his ilk.

Hard choices & better decisions need to be made, or ALL elected officials will be looking for a new job next election...

Unknown said...

How can some idiot equate rcvg a SS check to Social Programs. One is a retirement program that the retire paid into his entire life. The other is govt. handout paid for by the tax payer, often the same person who worked his entire life.

Bobbi said recieving what is yours is hypocrisy to the highest degree. Hmmm, maybe Bobbi needs to get a job, because your govt. has no handouts left.

Jumper said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Agreed. Maybe I can help support the libraries as one of my selected charities to give to. Wish me luck.
"Doing good for me, you, them"
www.domedoyoudothem.com

JR said...

@Jumper,
Dude, you need to check your ego because you sound like the typical whiny liberal egotist who thinks he is better & smarter than everyone else. Hint: you're not.

Listen to the pompus windbag spout off:
"What I do agree with is that I am superior, in many aspects of intellect, to Algernon."
"I have never been interested in proclaiming my superiority to anyone."
Seriously. Get. Over. Your. Self.

Oh, and regarding which side "lies" the most, you may want to check yourself. Even the AP, ABC News & Seattle Times are calling out Obama and his ilk for their whopper lies about what their health care bill will & won't do. He's the biggest liar right now.

Just Bill said...

Isn't it amazing how these things almost always degenerate into Liberals, Conservatives, Socialism, and name calling? Nice examples for the young.
And now, a word or two from Thomas Jefferson:
"Though [the people] may acquiesce, they cannot approve what they do not understand." --Thomas Jefferson: Opinion on Apportionment Bill, 1792. ME 3:211

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." --Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey, 1816. ME 14:384

"Convinced that the people are the only safe depositories of their own liberty, and that they are not safe unless enlightened to a certain degree, I have looked on our present state of liberty as a short-lived possession unless the mass of the people could be informed to a certain degree." --Thomas Jefferson to Littleton Waller Tazewell, 1805.

"No nation is permitted to live in ignorance with impunity." --Thomas Jefferson: Virginia Board of Visitors Minutes, 1821. ME 19:408

There. Now you can flame me and Thomas.

Lana said...

The Disturber editorial board is guilty of condemning the speck on another's eye while ignoring the log in their own.

They single out one tiny budget cut proposal - one that is as dishonest a display of demagoguery as you are likely to see - and cite it as proof that government is not spending and taxing more. What idiocy! Have they checked the federal budget lately? $3.8 trillion with a $1.8 trillion deficit! The state budget? The same. The county budget is in trouble because of debt payments caused by out-of-control spending for the last decade.

Of course these chimps will just trot out an old copy of their "taxes must be raised for the sake of the chilllll-run" editorials and condemn anyone with a lick of fiscal sanity as "cro-magnon naysayers".

EuroCat said...

It's interesting to read Pittenger's whine...

When Pittenger "served" in the NC Senate, one of his grandest accomplishments was pulling his legislative strings to get a 550-acre tract of land, part of which he owned and part of which he'd sold to a developer, annexed out of the county and into a municipality so that he could triple the allowable density on the property and make himself a nice, tidy, multimillion-dollar profit.

The annexation was not legal under current state law, and Pittenger had to get this "special" bill, that applied only to his tract of "spec" land, passed just to enrich himself.

Isn't it ironic that Pittenger got this rammed through, in spite of considerable public opposition to this "24-karat-gold" windfall to Pittenger himself? Yet he has the nerve to send an email saying "The amazing thing is, whether the public favors their
actions or not, they do it anyway."

Well, even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day, and Pittenger was right about one thing: he ignored public opinion and "[did] it anyway".

The result was the almost immediate need for a new high school and middle school to support all the excess houses that were built on Pittenger's former land, at a cost to Union County taxpayers of nearly $40 million.

Your self-serving action certainly helped cause Union County to "raise taxes and public spending at
alarming rates", Mr. Pittenger.

Jumper said...
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Algernon said...

Jumper,

As though a bell was rung and you began salivating without realizing it, your response does nothing but strengthen my point.

As for intelligence, tread not upon waters you have not tested, less you drown in your own ignorance.

Considering your over use of one of the three shortest word in the English language in an attempt rebuke a rather broad, though disturbingly accurate, generalization with a pointedly ineffective personal rebuttal you may want to take the time to reconsider peddling your "intellectual" prowess in public arenas.

You are out of touch!