It's Only Electioneering

At the behest of Senator Carl Levin, the City of Detroit will receive a $22.5 million dollar grant which will be used to rehire around 108 of the 164 firefighters who will be laid off. The money won't be available until September, so that won't happen immediately. But Mayor Dave Bing said he had hoped for the grant, and that it's good news for Detroit.

Well, it's good news if you like electioneering.

Isn't it fascinating how much money Washington can find for Detroit in an election year? Especially as President Barack Obama is having such an uphill battle that even Michigan might be in play come November, here's a few bucks to help keep Detroit voters in the fold. It goes very nicely with the 10 million given over recently for bike paths.

You might ask what is so wrong with this, and that's fair. Fire protection is always good; does it matter who pays for it, or how, or why?

Certainly it does. Fire protection is a local responsibility, not a federal. If Detroit has to make deep cuts in order to keep more police and firefighters on the streets, then the city must do that, for starters. Further, allowing Washington to ante up insults taxpayers in Oregon or Wyoming, part of whose money is thus going to prop up a Detroit city government which is simply not attending properly to its own needs.

But more than that, the money is coming from the Department of Homeland Security, under its SAFER program (Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response). How is this justified? In case terrorists go around Detroit randomly and wantonly setting fires in order to disrupt town? Ridiculous.

Perhaps even most galling, or most stupid, is that this recent cash (32.5 million bucks, total, counting the bike paths) are going into a city which is going to vote for Obama anyway. It more likely will anger outstate Michigan, which already has a chip on its shoulder against Detroit, while paying for votes the Obama Administration will get anyway. It could hurt the President's re-election chances rather than help.

Maybe the President and the Senator are really just being nice guys simply trying to help Detroiters. Maybe it's only incidental that it's an election year. We'll end with that bizarre hope. It entirely too funny of an idea to leave out.