The Empire State Crumbles

New York State is rapidly becoming the poster child for failed liberal policies, results being swept aside using the Obama Administration’s tried and true techniques of diversion, outrage and finger pointing….all the while maintaining the status quo of redistribution, entitlement and no accountability.  

Exhibit A:  Republicans, a tiny minority in the New York State legislature brought to the floor proposals for welfare reform in the Empire State.  To set the stage, let us bear in mind that New York has some of the highest property taxes in the nation, taxes set so exorbitantly high to subsidize the outrageous benefit packages offered to welfare recipients, perhaps the state’s largest import.  It is well established that New York ranks number one in the country for expenditure per welfare recipient….and if that news isn’t bad enough, they spend more than number two (Texas) and number three (California)…..combined.  And with the digital age we have come so far.  We have evolved from actual food stamps to SNAP, strategically renamed by the left to avoid any stigma associated with public welfare, but essentially a credit card with food dollars on it.  Similarly, these same welfare recipients receive their monthly redistribution check on a credit card to spend as they please.  Consequently it has become common knowledge that these cards have become the currency of the indigent, traded for cash and with no checks and balances, and are being used to purchase everything from lap dances to liquor, theme park tickets to junk food.  Isn’t America just grand when hard working people have their money taken away so it can be used for the entertainment indiscretion of the indigent and the irresponsible. But when these points were made on the floor of the state chambers, the Republicans were summarily dismissed by the Democrat majority with no discussion.  Bravo.  Way to serve your demographic and simultaneously [expeletive deleted] the New York taxpayer.  Notice to working New Yorkers: the queue to a better life south of the Mason Dixon line forms here. 

Exhibit B:  Syracuse New York has once again failed to meet national standards for students grades 3 through 8, bested only by Rochester in that dubious distinction.  So much for “no child left behind”. Rather New York prefers to leave virtually all of them behind.  Syracuse actually had just a tad over 6% of students meet national standards for math and about 8% meet standards for English.  For those of you educated in Syracuse public schools, that means upwards of 90% of students failed to meet standards in math and English. Seriously.  And what did Syracuse’s liberal administrators and the liberal teacher’s union have to say about this performance?  Why, the usual barrage of excuses ranging from refusal to “teach to a test” (translation:  inability to teach, or just to lazy to do so) to finger pointing at “demographics” (translation: too many poor, minority students), “family dynamics” (translation: single parent households), and lack of resources (translation: pay us more).  As if the rest of the country is somehow devoid of minorities, single parent households and poverty. All this coming from overpaid administrators and their six figure salaries and exorbitant benefit packages.   As local Syracuse conservative talk show host Bob Lonsberry observed: the Syracuse public school officials are essentially saying to public school students:  The welfare line forms that way.  But more troublesome is the reaction from the officials: we will not hold the teachers accountable for this dismal performance.  Excuse me, but exactly who is accountable for educating our public school children if not the educators?  And what other job in America is not judged on performance standards?

How can it be that Americans have become so stupid that when obvious failure stares them in the face, they fail to recognize it.  Liberal bastions of utopian socialist policies like Detroit , New York and California continue to teeter on the edge of insolvency and yet we respond with more liberal policies,or in the case of Detroit, a simple refusal to alter our course, try something, anything different.  And it’s not like we haven’t had a blueprint for this before: as Canada’s government-run healthcare starts to crack, services are denied, patients die on waiting lists for treatment, Europe flails under failed immigration policy and socialist governments, and unemployment remains staggeringly high while government services and benefits  become unsustainable.  Are we so blinded by the promise of a government that supplies all our needs that we are willing to sacrifice our independence and skew our work ethic towards sloth? Apparently.  I have seen the enemy and it is us.