Mayor Stacy Ritter

June 8, 2009

Mayor Stacy Ritter
Broward County Commission
115 South Andrews Avenue
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301

RE: “A modest proposal” – several birds with one stone and a chance to be both right and good.

Madame Mayor,

Broward County, as modern American Liberal as a county can be and a county whose profile is increased by your pursuit of Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans as the paradigmatic template for efficiency and good government, is in trouble.

Today’s civics lesson is also a lesson in empirical evidence; i.e. the evidence of your own eyes.

Property taxes pay for the necessities of government plus the goodies that the enlightened Broward County Commission likes to dole out. Any attempt to cut taxes by tweaking the tax code is doomed to failure for two reasons. #1 – The Constitution guarantees equal protection of the law to all citizens. Thus the favoring of one group of citizens over another group is inimical to good citizenship. #2 – Any attempt to cut taxes without reducing spending is offensive to Logic. It is akin to pushing in one side of a balloon filled with pancake batter. The batter moves to another side but the volume doesn’t decrease. The way to cut taxes is to cut spending. It is what Orwell called “obvious and true”.

Broward County schools, an entity over which you have no direct control, have had decreasing enrollment for 4 years. In the real world, that would suggest a similar decrease in operating expenses. Silly me! The key to understanding government in Broward County is to disregard all History, precedent, and laws concerning gravity.

Now we have had successive trip hammer blows of unusual ferocity to our economy.

The real estate market is suffering from a biblical case of the dry heaves. Foreclosures mount. Meanwhile, the needs of the undeserving poor, the underemployed, the old, the halt, the lame, and the object of everyone’s affection and attention, the woman of color who is a single mom with children in need of a good Ritalin program, a constant victim of the pernicious campaign of WAL*MART, to crucify the least of us with low prices, are still with us. Alas, the drive for manatee suffrage will have to be shelved temporarily.

Broward Sheriff Lamberti, and what else could you expect from a Republican, has said that he will close some prisons and release prisoners as his contribution to cost cutting.

Camp Gitmo, America’s first adult sleep away camp for misguided bomb throwers and beheaders, is scheduled to be closed. It seems that nobody wants the Uighurs.

Foreclosures, released prisoners, peripatetic terrorists…can you see where I am going here?

Herewith my modest proposal.

Release the prisoners, both foreign and domestic, into Broward’s foreclosed properties forthwith.

This may require some Federal stimulus assistance

Here’s where you being a modern American Liberal bastion can come in handy.

You did some heavy lifting for Lord Barack the Beneficent, blessed be his name and may his number increase, before his divine origins were apparent to all. Two weeks ago, he took his wife, a dish as snappy as you are, to NYC for dinner and a show. Last week he took her to Paris. If the trend line holds steady he’ll have her on the space shuttle next week. [I’ll say this for him. Price is no object when someone else is paying.] Get to him soon. Tell him you have a plethora of “shovel ready” projects in Broward County. It may be time to give Midnight Basketball the shot it deserves.

Here’s where the free market comes in.

Hire you husband, AKA “Slick Ron”, to lobby him.

You like to get furniture and tshatckes from your husband’s clients. Since he’ll be working for me I’ll send you a used futon, a lava lamp, some randy sheets, and a lavender bean bag, OK? I’ll send it to you care of the Broward County Commission. That way we cut out the middle man. Who needs the pain in the asses from the IRS with all their questions about income taking up your valuable time?

I know what the Broward prisoners position on same sex marriage is. I don’t know what the Uighurs stand on it is. Broward County, being the capital of diversity for which it is justifiably proud, will be able to accommodate it though. Their morning wake up chant of “Kill the Jews” may be disconcerting to some residents of Margate but if speech is free speech is free, right? You’ll probably want to make them ban beheading also. That’s the Uighurs, not the Margatians.

A win/win all around.

Help the real estate market. Help those “unlucky in life’s lottery”. Put your husband in the way of a few dollars. Get to re-do the guest room.

Don’t you love it when a plan comes together?