Welfare

            As Peter Rogers indicated on 8/29, when the city subsidizes a municipal golf course, it is providing welfare for the members of that golf course.  If you asked among them, each one would probably proclaim opposition to government welfare.  But there it is.  When you think about it, the city is providing welfare to citizens by maintaining public parks and pools too.  We non-golfers who like the occasional park picnic don’t have a problem with that.  So, we’ve established that government welfare is acceptable, if often unacknowledged.

            The problem is that golfers share an image with many sports enthusiasts of being people with a little pocket change to spare.  Is welfare for these people in our present day Ebenezer Scrooge economy OK?  A plethora of politicians, also encumbered of a financially happy reputation, are striving to steal away the food security of thousands by scrooging shut their SNAP purse.  And who hasn’t felt the energy sting, thought of old Scrooge, and tried to use fewer lumps of coal?  Amid all the tribulation, should government provide welfare to golfers?

            Well, we certainly don’t want them putting through our picnics.  So at least welfare contains them, like a Jurassic Park might do.  Seriously though, Rogers identifies that the problem really is in the prognosis—not whether, but how much subsidy is prudent.  Right now it is a LOT of welfare, without much prospect for reduction.  Around here, we think taxpayers should consider this dilemma and express their opinions on the issue.