Byzantium's Shores: chronicling the misadventures of an overalls-clad hippie

One bit of political rhetoric that has become supremely annoying to me is the old canard "We can't solve the problem by throwing money at it", which implies that whatever the particular problem in question happens to be, increased spending is in no way part of any possible solution. This statement is always intended to simply shut off debate and cast the other side as wasteful spenders who just want to flush money down the toilet. What the money would actually be spent doing is not even relevant, then, because no more money can possibly solve the problem. "Throwing money at the problem" is simply rhetorical hand-waving that usually means: "I just don't want to spend any money on that problem, but since saying so directly makes me look like a meanie, I'm going to phrase it in such a way that makes you look like a dolt."

Case in point: Erie County Executive Joel Giambra has come down as opposing any addition sharing of the county sales tax with the City of Buffalo, even though Buffalo's finances are such a train wreck that services are being cut with a chainsaw rather than a scalpel (several hundred teachers were laid off last week, for starters) and a control board is being appointed by the State of New York to get Buffalo's cash flow fixed.

Sales tax in New York state is seven percent. However, years ago Erie County decided to increase revenues by adding one percent on top of that, so in Erie County sales tax is eight percent. It's a yearly thing, and it's always billed as "temporary", but the County Legislature re-approves the additional one percent every year. And the County keeps all of that extra money, to be used throughout the county. The City of Buffalo gets thirteen percent of that money. However, the City of Buffalo accounts for a third of the County's population. But when asked if Erie County would consider helping with the City of Buffalo's dire budget crunch by giving it more of the County's sales tax take, County Executive Giambra's response was: "We can't solve the problem by throwing money at it."

How wonderful to hear such rhetoric coming from a guy who originally ran for County Executive on the idea of "Regionalism", claiming that "we're all in this together"…i.e., that the City of Buffalo's economic health is essential to the overall economic health of Erie County. How thrilling to hear from one of the key people in the whole business to boil his leadership down to, "You made the mess on your own, you clean it up." (Which isn't true, but hey, there are elections to be won and stuff.)

Consider: you're a physician, working in an emergency room. A patient is wheeled in who has been in an auto accident and has lost a limb. Blood is gushing everywhere. Sure, you're not going to help this guy by throwing band-aids at him. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to stop the bleeding.

(Buffalo News columnist Donn Esmonde wrote about this the other day, and he gets it exactly right.)