The Little League

The North Shelby Times is a free weekly paper found around the Memphis area. It is one of those papers that is long on want-ads in the back and civic boosterism in the front. Several weeks back, they published an interview with State Senator Marsha Blackburn. There is no byline. We publish this one in its entirety, for the many instructive lessons it contains. They are so clear, we think, that no comment is necessary:

The Senator is pretty and has a great personality. As a candidate for congress [sic] she seems to be a one issue candidate. She is against a payroll tax. I asked her how she would handle the deficit without a tax. She said she would cut every department by 5%. I asked how much this would save, she said 400 million. I asked her where would the 700 million for next year come from? At this time she said shw was only interested in this year. This is just another band-aid solution.

The 5% cut may be good arithmetic but, it doesn't make good sense. We have already cut education to the bone. Some of the state's parks are already closed. She said she want to keep child care affordable, but I saw where the state now has 800 licensed day care centers with only 30 inspectors. Recently four children were killed in a wreck here in Memphis. The driver was a pot-smoking $6.50 day care employee who by law should have never gotten a license to drive a day care bus, so we cut this department by 5%? Across the board cuts don't make any sense, except maybe to people who have put their heads in the sand and will vote for anyone who will take [a] pledge not to raise taxes.

Yep, no comment necessary.

Until next time, that is all.