From: coyote@leland.Stanford.EDU (The White Blackbird)
Subject: Clinton and the ADFA( was Re: . . ."didn't inhale" remark)
Organization: Nevermore, Inc.
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 92 08:51:57 GMT

In article <-hfmzh_.crisp@netcom.com> crisp@netcom.com (Richard Crisp) writes:
= 
= I beg your pardon, but how will public works programs pay for themselves?
= One thing that always troubles me about the uninformed democrats is that
= they simply do not understand economics.

Richard, if you would like, I could post a Newsweek article about the
Arkansas Development Finance Authority and how it paid for itself.
The gist of the article was how pooling and placing bond issues under
a single statewide office and processing them their rather than
allowing certain priveleged firms to process them actually made the
state money.

The second thing I would like to address about this post is the
"government is business" philosophy that several people tend to fall
upon.  "If it doesn't make a profit," these folks say, "then we should
drop that program."

The fact is government is not a business.  Sometimes you do  have to
spend money to do what is right.  For example, the federal government
used to fund a school breakfast program.  In order to get it by these
"gov't = business" folk, the proponents of this program used faulty
logic.  

"Look," they said, "if you give kids a hot breakfast, they'll do
better in schools, if they do better in schools, they'll get better
jobs, with higher pay, and pay more taxes.  Heck, it'll pay for
itself."

Of course, if you could eradicate the effects of poverty on education
with a hot meal, that would be a good deal, but of course, that isn't
the case, and studies showed that the children didn't improve
performance, and the program was cut.

Yeah, the program failed, if you thought the program's goal was to
improve performance (if so, then you need to do a lot more than that)
but if the programs goal was to feed hungry kids, then it succeeded
masterfully.  And feeding hungry kids is the kinda thing that our
government should do.  

But because of the gov't=business crowd, we can't anymore.

I have a better sort of paradigm for government than your economical
one, Mr. Crisp.  I'll call it the "government = family" model.  Which
works something like our government should treat its citizens as if
they were a member of its family.  Sometimes that means helping them
out at the expense of the whole family, because the pain of an
individual sometimes outweighs a small burden on the whole.  Sometimes
it means givin them the hard end of the boot, take responisbility, or
get a job.  

Mostly, it doesn't mean spending more, just spending smarter.And it
also means abandoning the notion that somehow every government program
has to make more money than the taxpayers put into it.

Because sometimes these programs produce things a lot more valuable
than money.  They produce hope and better lives.  And that is what a
government should do.

= 
= -- 
= Richard Crisp         Cupertino, Ca.         crisp@netcom.com
= (415) 903-3832 wk    "what, me worry?"    (408) 253 4541 fax
= 
= To say that Bill Clinton's alleged successes as Governor of Arkansas
= qualify him to be President of the US is like saying the shoeshine
= stand operator in the airport is qualified to be CEO of IBM.

This sig reminds me of a failed haberdasher who became one of the
greatest presidents we know, Mr. Harry Truman.

(at least, I think he was a haberdasher :)

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The White Blackbird		|      Because I love my country. . .
Nevermore, Inc.			|	Clinton and Gore in 92
coyote@leland.stanford.edu	|
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