Quid Pro Quo, Baby!!

This morning, I saw a news clip that blew my mind. Well, it blew my mind for about 2 seconds, until I realized the state of our culture here in the United States. Detroit is facing a disastrous fiscal situation right now, with a projected shortfall of $47 million deficit for this year. People have left the city in droves over the past few years, and city revenues have plummeted. This leads to the following clip, in which City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson called upon President Obama to provide a bailout for the city. She said, among other things,


"Our people in an overwhelming way supported the re-election of this president and there ought to be a quid pro quo and you ought to exercise leadership on that. Of course, not just that, but why not?"


Link to Video


Hmm, let me think about this one. First, who is 'our people'? Is that the city of Detroit? They did in fact vote over 75% to re-elect the President. So, should every city or county that voted for the President get preferential treatment and receive bailout money? And what does she mean by quid pro quo? Latin for 'this for that', I understand this to mean votes for bailout. Great idea JoAnn. How can we expect the average citizen to understand how to build an efficient culture and economy when our elected officials don't even get it? My favorite part of this, though, is her statement, 'why not?' Really JoAnn, why not. How about because it doesn't work. If Detroit were to receive a bailout like this, they would be asking for it again next year. Their economy is decimated right now and needs to be fixed from the ground up, through business investment and reduced public spending. With leaders like her, what viable business would want to invest millions and/or billions of dollars into establishing themselves in that jurisdiction?


The irony is, her request isn't much different than representatives and senators allocating federal funds for pork projects to take back home to benefit their core supporters and constituents. This is an attitude and expectation that runs across party lines, unfortunately. This is why I have such a problem with the current Republican party, because so much of our federal spending is on programs that should be managed and paid for at the state and local levels.


I'm just glad someone was brave (or dumb) enough to vocalize it the way she did, so that we can see what is going on with our government spending first-hand. Thanks JoAnn.