Brandon Lacy Campos, talking of the ills in society, says in part, > We can only scapegoat people living in poverty for so long before > we start > to wonder about the circumstances that create poverty and maintain people > living in poverty for generations. Treat the syptoms, cure the disease. > Actually, curing the disease requires treating the root causes- not the symptoms. A good education and hard work goes a long way toward reducing poverty-- and is much more effective than welfare checks and subsidized small business loans for poorly thought-out business endeavors. When parents allow their kids to drop out of school in the ninth or tenth grade, what do they expect in terms of that child's future? Who shares responsibility and to what degree when such decisions are made? How about twenty years down the road, when that student is a middle-aged undereducated, unskilled and under-paid or unemployed guy with a family? Who bears responsibility? You can lead a horse to free water, but you can't make it drink!
Michael Hohmann Linden Hills > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of > Brandon Lacy > Sent: Thursday, October 10, 2002 4:04 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [Mpls] City budget woes- a microeconomic view from Crack > Street North > > > I think Dyna's post has some merit with regards to the need of > the city to > invest in housing redevelopment, small business development, etc. And, > anyone who has lived in Minneapolis for the last twenty years can > see that > Minneapolis has most defintaley come a long way in terms of inner city > rebuilding, etc. > snip > ...Now that the economy is > in the proverbial outhouse thanks to George Bush, the crackpot spending > schemes of Jesse Ventura (how many of you who supported his lame idea to > send all Minnesotan's 200 dollar checks in tax rebate money are still > happy?), September 11th, and whole list of causes, crime will > most likely be on the rise again. > > Minneapolis doesn't have a reputation for being lax on crime. And I don't > believe Minneapolis is lax on crime. But what we have done is dismantle > almost every safety net that we have to sustain our communities. > For those > of you who believe that welfare is just handing out checks and folks are > able to live and thrive on that system are seriously delusional. Povery > leads to desperation. This in turn leads to crime, which in turn > leads to a > decrease in property value and assessed taxes, which then results in less > revenue for our city and adds to our budget woes. Provide jobs > and support > for our communities and our communities will support the city. > > If we want to sustain our city, then we need to STOP giving out enormous > subsidies to corporations... snip > ...and we need to redirect our spending to where it counts. We need > to focus on > small business development, improved tranpsortation > infrastructure, decrease > of urban sprawl, job creation, debt reduction, education, affordable > housing, and mixed use development. How many jobs could have been created > with the financing that went into Block E Development and > Target's downtown > store? How about the money to move the Shubert Theater? > > We can only scapegoat people living in poverty for so long before > we start > to wonder about the circumstances that create poverty and maintain people > living in poverty for generations. Treat the syptoms, cure the disease. > > -Brandon Lacy Campos > -Powderhorn Park snip _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
