Food Police or Snow Removal?

2011 will be called the Year of Austerity. Spending with abandon is now oh so passé. Belt tightening, both for girth and fiscal management, is de rigueur. Thank God for the French!!

The question that all levels of government is going to have to face is just what is it government is supposed to do? President Obama, and those of his ilk, think social engineering should be at the top of the list. That idea goes in and out of favor. Beginning midterm of the Bush administration, it was in favor. States like California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and even Ohio expanded the role of state and local government way to unheard limits. And now it has bitten them on the ass!!!! And now I hope that all of you are learning a hard lesson.

Two stories jumped out at me this past week. The first had to do with New York City’s snow removal debacle. Mayor Bloomberg, who has more money than God in his own right (Bloomberg TV??) went on a holy crusade to clean his perception of New York’s ills. First, he went after trans-fats, and hired public employees to enforce trans-fat limits in food. New York restaurants are now required to post all sorts of stuff relating to fat content, sodium content, and trans-fat content. Of course, enforcement of these rules takes public employees. Then, he goes after salt. He actually tried requiring restaurants to take salt shakers off of tables in addition to them meeting sodium requirements in their food.

Is he nuts? Well, he got a big kick in the derriere (there goes those French again) this past week when a blizzard dumped snow on New York City when the snow reached derriere levels, grinding the city to a halt. And you know what? They didn’t have enough road crews to clear the street and people died. Bloomberg claims the unions slowed the work down in protest of layoffs. The unions claim Bloomberg deliberately delayed plowing the streets in an effort to save on overtime.

Notwithstanding, I am sure the money Bloomberg spent on the food police could better have been spent on city maintenance workers. What is wrong with him? First and foremost, citizens of a city expect three things: pot hole patrols, snow removal, and trash removal. The city is responsible for essential services, not trans-fat/calorie/sodium monitoring. And now Bloomberg will pay the price. He won’t be the first mayor to lose his job over snow removal. Just ask some of the mayors of Chicago. And he gets exactly what he deserves. Before you go out social engineering, take care of essential business first!!

Story number 2 has to do with the Boston School System, which just closed ten schools because of budget concerns. Yet it continues to provide extraordinary perks to its teachers’ union. Included are free legal services for basic wills, house sales and the like. It also provides for funeral assistance and picks up the cost of a soft ball league. All of this largesse will cost the school system $8.4 million placed into a “trust fund” while the school system has a $64 million deficit. Teachers respond that this was agreed to in 1968 in lieu of a salary increase. Of course, now it has both the perks and the salary increases…not to mention standard health care benefits way beyond what the average American gets. The City response is “It’s time to rethink this!” Do ya think?

Folks, the priorities of government are out of whack, and if not fixed, will cripple this country for the next 100 years. I think it is time to get rid of Mayor Bloomberg, and time for a new school board in Boston…one with some cajones. (That’s not French…that’s Spanish!!!)