Ed Guthrie, executive director of Opportunity Village in Las Vegas, inked an op/ed that was published in Tuesday’s RJ making a compelling case for continued taxpayer funding of its operations on behalf of the mentally disabled. But here’s the problem: EVERY taxpayer-funded program or service has advocates who make compelling cases for continued taxpayer funding.
At some point, those receiving public funding and subsidies – including those providing valuable, essential services and those that are not – need to be grilled as hard as those who say “no” to tax hikes.
It shouldn’t be enough to simply make a case for your continued funding in an economic vacuum; you should be asked to identify what other government service or program should be cut so that you can continue to receive your funding or detail exactly which taxes should be raised, on who, and by how much.