From the Needy to the Greedy

Years ago, a local sportscaster joked that Dallas would host a Super Bowl “when Hell freezes over.” His joke is now our reality, on both counts. Dallas has experienced some of its worst freezing weather in more than a decade in this week leading up to the first Super Bowl to be played in North Texas (sorry Arlington – apparently, nobody likes you well enough to give you credit for the Super Bowl).

The reliably incompetent Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) enforced rolling electricity blackouts throughout much of the state a couple of days ago. Several hospitals and nursing homes lost power from several minutes to (accumulated) hours throughout the day, but the lights never winked for a moment at Jerry World (Cowboys Stadium) or any of the other metroplex locations hosting pre-Super Bowl events. Sadly, that’s the state of our state, our city, and our country these days. Our government turns a blind eye while stealing from the needy to enrich the greedy (the taxpayer-financed Wall Street bailouts are a perfect example of our imperfect mentality toward corporate America).

Governor Rick Perry and our Texas legislators are studying ways to overcome a budget shortfall by cutting Medicaid payments by 34% to nursing homes and reducing the funding to care for other disenfranchised and disadvantaged citizens, including children and the mentally disabled. However, these same lawmakers managed to hand out over $31 million to local communities to pretty themselves up for the over-hyped Super Bowl.

The North Texas Regional Transportation Council has proposed spending another $180,000 to provide transportation services to and from the Super Bowl. Many residents of this area would like to see a few potholes repaired for the safety and comfort of our local citizens before we spend transportation dollars to cart around a bunch of Wall Street fat cats to and from the Super Bowl.

Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert wants to get in on the action. He has done his best to hide the city’s blemishes, temporarily whitewashing the graffiti while the NFL wallets are in town. The police have done their best to round up all those pesky panhandlers and homeless people until the day after the Super Bowl honchos pick up their bar tabs and leave town. The Dallas police have placed another emphasis on knocking the local sex trade to its knees, but they’re looking the other way when it comes to the NFL-sanctioned Playboy Playmate and Penthouse Pet parties on Friday night here in Big-D. Mayor Leppert has a history of looking the other way, going back to his years on the board of directors for Washington Mutual (contributing to the largest bank failure in U.S. history).

Now, Tom Leppert is considering a run for the U.S. Senate.

I speak as one who has seen local roads go to pot while Leppert and his minions push for an unneeded city-owned convention center hotel and perhaps the ugliest bridge in history, each pie-in-the-sky project costing millions of taxpayer dollars.

I stand as a vocal opponent to Leppert’s decision to cut residential trash pick-up services to only once a week, shortly after foolishly spending almost a million dollars installing GPS units in all of the Dallas garbage trucks. I assume Tom has told the Sanitation Department to polish all the local landfills for the NFL brass, because in this Super Bowl week the city has decided we’ll be going two weeks before our trash is collected.

I cry out as one in the wilderness, who has shared the burden with other Dallasites in paying some of the highest tax rates in North Texas as a penalty for our Dallas addresses.

Dallasites can’t afford Tom Leppert in Washington, stealing from the needy to enrich the greedy at the taxpayers continued expense.