Comments on: Wall St. Journal Calls Out Tuscaloosa Mayor for Big Govt. Tornado Recovery Plan http://yellowhammerpolitics.com/blog/wall-st-journal-calls-out-tuscaloosa-mayor-for-big-govt-tornado-recovery-plan/ Alabama’s New Home for Politics. Sun, 19 May 2013 04:36:59 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Carol Hendrickson, PhD http://yellowhammerpolitics.com/blog/wall-st-journal-calls-out-tuscaloosa-mayor-for-big-govt-tornado-recovery-plan/#comment-403 Carol Hendrickson, PhD Wed, 25 Apr 2012 03:56:18 +0000 http://yellowhammerpolitics.com/?p=1496#comment-403 I am still waiting for Express Oil to rebuild. I am having to drive farther and at times pay more for those services. It should have only taken 3 months for them to rebuild and each time I drive by I still didn't understand what the hold up was. Now I do, it is more important to look good than to have a business up and running with employees working and getting paid. The intersection still looks trashed a year later! Why the city of Tuscaloosa is not working with local businesses to help them rebuild is beyond me. I did not consider the area that these business' were in to be unsafe. They provided services (Express Oil, CVS, etc) and I wish the Mayor would remember that these business people don't deserve the be held up and neither do their customers. I am still waiting for Express Oil to rebuild. I am having to drive farther and at times pay more for those services. It should have only taken 3 months for them to rebuild and each time I drive by I still didn’t understand what the hold up was. Now I do, it is more important to look good than to have a business up and running with employees working and getting paid. The intersection still looks trashed a year later! Why the city of Tuscaloosa is not working with local businesses to help them rebuild is beyond me. I did not consider the area that these business’ were in to be unsafe. They provided services (Express Oil, CVS, etc) and I wish the Mayor would remember that these business people don’t deserve the be held up and neither do their customers.

]]> By: Ed Foy http://yellowhammerpolitics.com/blog/wall-st-journal-calls-out-tuscaloosa-mayor-for-big-govt-tornado-recovery-plan/#comment-367 Ed Foy Fri, 20 Apr 2012 14:25:46 +0000 http://yellowhammerpolitics.com/?p=1496#comment-367 Please, enough of the ad hominem name-calling. Ms Smith if you don't buy the central thesis of these scholar's article, why don't you refute it with facts? In my view, small businessmen trying to rebuild their businesses don't really deserve to be called "greedy developers". But what the hey, maybe property rights, a resumption of employment and economic prosperity are not nearly as important as a good looking street scene --- even if it takes years. Meanwhile, let them eat cake. If top-down planning by the political estate elite, featuring a dependence on federal and state subsidies is so desirable, perhaps Tuscalloosa should try to hire some former SOVIET central planners. Personally, I think that the electorate is starting to wake up to the fact that big government is as objectionable and unsustainable at home as it is in Washington DC and that eventually voters will come to see that what they want out of their local officals is more than being the biggest pig at the trough of government subsidies. A dependence on subsidies is fraught with risk, when their existence is based on unsustainable federal and state deficits. Please, enough of the ad hominem name-calling. Ms Smith if you don’t buy the central thesis of these scholar’s article, why don’t you refute it with facts? In my view, small businessmen trying to rebuild their businesses don’t really deserve to be called “greedy developers”. But what the hey, maybe property rights, a resumption of employment and economic prosperity are not nearly as important as a good looking street scene — even if it takes years. Meanwhile, let them eat cake.

If top-down planning by the political estate elite, featuring a dependence on federal and state subsidies is so desirable, perhaps Tuscalloosa should try to hire some former SOVIET central planners.

Personally, I think that the electorate is starting to wake up to the fact that big government is as objectionable and unsustainable at home as it is in Washington DC and that eventually voters will come to see that what they want out of their local officals is more than being the biggest pig at the trough of government subsidies. A dependence on subsidies is fraught with risk, when their existence is based on unsustainable federal and state deficits.

]]> By: Laura Smith http://yellowhammerpolitics.com/blog/wall-st-journal-calls-out-tuscaloosa-mayor-for-big-govt-tornado-recovery-plan/#comment-350 Laura Smith Mon, 16 Apr 2012 16:19:51 +0000 http://yellowhammerpolitics.com/?p=1496#comment-350 This was a very slanted, short-sighted view of a city trying to build back safer and smarter, while providing long term relief to many problems that were previously plaguing the city prior to the storm. Developers who want to take shortcuts and be allowed "exemptions" from upgraded safety requirements have been touting this same "spill" in order to make a "quick profit" at the expense of the city's and it's citizens' long term SAFE, recovery. Shame on Mr. Beito and Mr. Smith for pandering to these short-sighted, greedy, "developers". Sounds very much like the "carpet bagger's" philosophy of rebuilding the South. This was a very slanted, short-sighted view of a city trying to build back safer and smarter, while providing long term relief to many problems that were previously plaguing the city prior to the storm. Developers who want to take shortcuts and be allowed “exemptions” from upgraded safety requirements have been touting this same “spill” in order to make a “quick profit” at the expense of the city’s and it’s citizens’ long term SAFE, recovery. Shame on Mr. Beito and Mr. Smith for pandering to these short-sighted, greedy, “developers”. Sounds very much like the “carpet bagger’s” philosophy of rebuilding the South.

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