Phil Ryan - Letter to the JSEB

Jack,

What a great letter to the editors of the Journal Star.

We need thousands more who think like you do.

Thanks for telling us what we should already know, but evidently don't know.

Merle

> 10 Tough Lessons of Recession -
>
> Posted Sep 24, 2010 @ 11:14 PM
> Last update Sep 26, 2010 @ 07:18 PM
>
> Hard times teach hard lessons. I've had a front-row seat for the great
> economic downturn as a homeless shelter director. Here are 10 things I've
> learned in the last two years:
>
> 1) The web of entitlement programs enacted since 1935 has shielded the
> least
> productive elements of society from the worst effects of the recession, at
> the expense of society's more productive members. This is not a
> prescription
> for job creation. With rare exceptions, individuals who don't add value to
> the economy over a lifetime should not draw value from it. This isn't
> ethics. It's arithmetic.
>
> 2) What passes for a level of poverty that merits public relief in the
> United States is a vastly higher standard of living than in most of the
> world. A third of those who moved into YWCA shelter programs last year
> owned
> automobiles. Half brought TV sets. Nearly all had cell phones. It's
> possible
> they have exercised their economic free will imprudently in purchasing
> non-essentials instead of housing. Perhaps they should be expected to live
> with the consequences of their choices.
>
> 3) In a modern, market-based, democratic republic it should not be the
> task
> of government or private charity to shield individuals from the worst
> consequences of their behavior. A number of drunkards will die in the
> gutter; it's not the business of a free society to tax the sober to
> prevent
> them from doing so.
>
> 4) When taxation becomes confiscatory and threatens to go higher - the
> impending expiration of the Bush tax cuts - and regulation becomes ever
> more
> tangled and complex, employers do not add to their payrolls.
>
> 5) Economic and political debate in the U.S. has shifted so far to the
> left
> that the most conservative, electable candidates are not much farther to
> the
> right than Ronald Reagan, who only managed to slow the growth of the
> welfare
> state, not stop or reduce it.
>
> 6) Major government spending programs never go away. They create their own
> constituencies and vested interests. In the 75 years since the Social
> Security Act became law, entitlement programs have grown to 64.3 percent
> of
> all federal spending.
>
> 7) The Keynesian concept of stimulating economic growth through borrowing
> does not work at the poorest levels of society. I have yet to see anyone
> get
> a real return on a title or payday loan. Why would the dynamic be
> different
> with state and federal spending?
>
> 8) Minimum-wage laws are wrongheaded and price less-skilled labor out of
> the
> market. Unemployment among our participants rose markedly when the minimum
> wage went up in July.
>
> 9) Interest rates held too low over too long a time discourage savings and
> encourage reckless borrowing.
>
> 10) "Value for value" drives everything my agency does. We are not a
> charity
> but investors of public/private funds in human capital, accountable to
> taxpayers and United Way contributors for realizing a quantifiable return
> on
> their investment in real economic productivity. Hold us to it.
>
> Phil Ryan
>
> Emergency Shelter Director, YWCA
>
> Peoria
>
>
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