Originally Posted by
3WC
There have been suggestions that the city should cease tax foreclosures, provide free water, and other socialistic responses. Won't work. Never has, never will. By adding the tax burden to others and shifting the [[very high) cost of water to those who do pay will only cause yet more people to leave the city.
What about examining the welfare revenue handed out to such a large segment of City residents to determine if working produces less revenue than welfare.
Detroit has received billions of dollars of federal tax dollars over the years, used by Democrats to buy votes. The City gets worse every year it seems except for the largesse of the Gilbert's and to a lesser degree, the Ilitches.
There are all kinds of ways Duggan could make the City really better but he never will. Try these. First, not one able bodied person may receive welfare unless he/she works; I'd put them to work cleaning the street, picking up garbage for example. Additionally, require every contractor working for the city to "hire" a welfare recipient and pay the wages the recipient would earn back to the city.
Establish work training programs that require welfare recipients to go to training schools teaching skilled trades, hopefully run by unions. [[I'm told that the unions have such training programs but it's difficult to get anybody to attend.)
Tax cigarettes and liquor so heavily they will be out of reach of the welfare recipients. People that can afford those things could still buy them of course. If the city can't tax those things directly, charge the sellers such fees that the result will be the same.
Every functionally illiterate welfare recipient should be required to go to school to learn to read and write and learn other basic life skills. There is little if any personal responsibility left in our society, not just Detroit. Responsibility must be forced on people since it's rarely taught at home. Duggan should make sure the State is on board for all these programs and institutes restrictive ones of their own.
A friend of mine owns several factories and advertised in Detroit for workers. Every applicant was required to take a drug test under the supervision of the prospective employer. Two of 40 passed. Therefore, anybody seeking public assistance of ANY kind should be required to be drug free.
Somebody should do something about the school system. It's not under Duggan's control, but he ought to take whatever steps are necessary to take control. How can the mayor of such a city as Detroit think he can make permanent improvements with the pathetic system [[worst in the country) in place now, a cancer in the city body. If he's such the genius people seem to think he is based on his short tenure at the DMC, why wouldn't voters demand he take responsibility for the Detroit City School System? Fix it up and privatize the whole damn thing.
I'm just sitting here bored out of my mind coming up with a bunch of common sense solutions to some basic problems and whether they're good ideas or not, they sure are starting points. Make Gilbert the mayor and let him show people how it's done,, or should be done.