Spending Money

I've been hearing for years about how the City of Omaha is in dire financial straits. Even before the general population knew much about it, my friends who worked for the city would complain that their legally negotiated contract was broken by the City, which claimed it could not afford to give them the miniscule "cost of living" raises that contract had promised. The union would negotiate a three-year contract, and its members be lucky if they actually got the promised raise in one of those years. This happened several times.

Of course, the City Council members couldn't countenance going without a raise two years in a row. None of the mayors in the past decade have been the least bit embarrassed about hiring Personal Assistants for an exorbitant salary. And somehow, they've come up with the money to build a new sports arena to replace a recently renovated sports field.

That's not the way I was raised; when you don't have enough money to pay your bills, you don't go out and spend even more. Maybe that's because I'm working class, not a business person like the mayors and most of the council members. Spending money you don't have seems to make sense to businesses.

Working class people who are in a financial squeeze tighten their belts and delay purchasing anything they don't absolutely HAVE to have. When they do buy, they may buy cheap. Yes, they know it won't last as long, but they're looking for something to get them through the bad time, until they can consider spending a little more for better quality.

Business people who move into politics just don't make sense. They declare finances are a shambles and demand that every department tighten its belt – old fire trucks and cop cars are not replaced, and then the mechanic who can keep them running is let go. But on the other hand, a replacement for a perfectly good sports field somehow becomes a necessity.

And they wonder why the citizens are ready to rebel.