[NEohioPAL] Libraries, opinions

[Tom Burnett]

Robert:

The trouble with policies that lead to more government spending is  
that you create constituencies -- the groups that receive the money  
and the bureaucrats that dole out the money -- that make it extremely  
difficult to cut spending when the times demand it. I agree, there is  
likely more than $200 million worth of waste in the state government.  
The problem comes in identifying the waste and that requires an  
active knowledge of state government.

In my years as a reporter and editor, I never covered state  
government regularly, but I supervised men and women who did and for  
my money there is no one better at untangling and explaining the mess  
in Columbus than the PD's Tom Suddes.

Tom

On Jun 24, 2009, at 9:43 PM, Robert Hawkes wrote:

> Our discourse in this culture does a lot of dignifying taste, gut  
> reaction, and prejudice with the name of "opinion". (Just watch the  
> local news, any sportscast, talk show, game show, etc.) A real  
> opinion, worth its salt, ought to be discussable, as taste, gut  
> reaction, and prejudice are not. A real opinion ought to be a  
> reasonable judgment based upon sober observation - "expert  
> testimony", in other words.
>
> In this particular case, I haven't enough information about where  
> we are spending State money to offer an opinion about how not to  
> cut funds to libraries. My feeling is that we shouldn't cut those  
> funds (or the funds to state parks, either). My suspicion is that  
> we over-spend in some other places. My actual knowledge of State  
> spending and its management is insufficient to support real opinion.
>
> RHH
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