Grow your own damn water!
While he has a minute.
It’s not a “handout” though to get electricity and water that you pay for. Public utilities aren’t “handouts,” they’re what it says on the tin. Water, sewer systems, garbage removal, recycling, electricity – we pay for them.
I also wonder how he thinks people are supposed to “think outside the box” to “supply water” on their own. Outside the box is likely to kill you, especially when you can’t boil anything because the power is out.
Word is he has decided to stop being mayor of Colorado City, Texas.
He probably thought he was saying something brilliant that would eventually land him in the Governor’s mansion. Or even the White House.
Unfortunately they are no longer “Public Utilities” but you still pay for them. Private corporations and Stockholders are responsible for your services now.
Ah yes. Seattle City Light is still a public utility, so I lost sight of that part.
Personal anecdote here. Some years ago I missed a water bill, which is easy to do here because they arrive so rarely (once every couple of months, at best). However, they must be paid PROMPTLY, or else your water is shut off. I was late by two weeks, so the city shut off my water.
Now, I’m a rather prepared fellow. I have backpacking water pumps and purifiers, and I keep 15 gallons of water on hand at all times now (the amount recommended by my city for my household in the event of an earthquake). However, when the city shut off my water, I had nothing immediately on hand. I paid my bill right away, but they took their time getting my water turned back on–a week, to be exact. I lived off of bottled water for drinking, which I bought at the store and which was A PAIN IN THE REAR to pick up and haul around, and I have a car! I did not shower at home during that week, so I began to stink a bit. Also, I couldn’t flush the toilet, so I had to drive to my gym to take care of that necessity. (Yes, I showered at the gym, but that wasn’t every day, so I still got a bit stinky.) Let me tell you, a week of that was seriously inconveniencing.
I cannot imagine how people in Texas are getting by without power to boil water on their electric stoves, or what they’re doing for sanitation, especially if they rely upon public transit to get around.
Markham Warburton, not everywhere. Here in the snowed in part of Nebraska where I live, we still have public power and public water. Our garbage? That’s privately funded.
And a lot of the people without power are not “lazy” people waiting for a handout; they are working class, middle class, and maybe some upper middle class people that have jobs and pay as they go, and pay taxes. As for those who don’t fit in that group, the truly poor? Damn, if your attitude is like this guys, you don’t belong as their mayor. They are people too, and many of them wish they could pay for things.
This “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” thinking has been grating on me most of my life. So many of the people spouting this nonsense did not pull themselves up by their bootstraps, they had the good fortune to be born into a family where the boots were provided for them, and they were pulled up by connection with wealth and power of their parents.
If you really want to take on people sticking their hands out for government largesse, look no further than large corporations. Is there a WalMart in your town? What handouts did you give them….what do you continue giving them?
> Word is he has decided to stop being mayor of Colorado City, Texas.
It appears that his wife has “been defending him,” and she got sacked from her school job as well over it.
I do hope neither of them will be looking for handouts, and he has a game plan for financially supporting his family…
He will have them sit on his bootstraps and then he will PULL THEM UP.
Regarding pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps, I’m reminded of the oft-repeated joke that “every politician wants you to believe that he was raised in a log cabin that he built with his own two hands”.
I actually used to work in city management of a small town that was regularly besieged with requests for concessions from various corporations and developers. I used to explain to whoever would listen that if you can’t make a profit without government help then you’re doing capitalism wrong and should probably rethink your business model, or your life.
Heh! Yes but it’s so much more fun to let government do the work while corporations and developers take the profits.
A while back someone wrote about how in some particular sector over some period of time (it was a while ago) the posted profits of the industry exactly matched the subsidies the government provided the industry. How conveeeenient.
That bit about socialism making people think that the FEW will work while the rest get handouts?
He means that the wealthy industrialists (like power utility owners) are working, doesn’t he? Not, you know, the, uh, workers? The working class? The nurses and plumbers and school teachers and delivery van drivers and grocery store clerks.
Also, if the people decide to get off the “handouts” that are power you pay for and become fiercely independent and produce their own power with a backyard windmill, solar panels or diesel generator, how’s that going to impact the power utility owners? I wonder what happens to all their “work” then? Hmm.