Private Citizens to the Rescue

I watched the town hall meeting with President Obama in the State of Florida as he was describing his philosophy of a need for greater Government intervention into our economy and I was struck by two of the participants in particular while he was taking questions from those gathered there.

Unless your head is buried deep in the sand, you have undoubtedly seen these questions played on every network news show, and just about every blog in the Blogosphere.

My first reaction was one of sympathy for Ms. Hughes, but by the time the Mcdonald's guy asked his question, I was thinking how sad it is that our nation has become reduced to a people seeking handouts from the Government. After it was agreed by just about everyone in the nineties that the social experiments of the 60's were a dismal failure, and the Welfare State and giant entitlement programs were trimmed in favor of personal responsibility, people were once again out begging for government handouts. Didn't we learn anything from the past America?
Ms. Hughes remarked she would have to wait 2 years for the Government Housing Authority to do anything for her, and she repeated her need was urgent. 2 years. That's Government for you. Slow, ponderous, expensive and ineffective.

I included the following video from CNN that tells us what happened after that Town Hall meeting. Private citizens, not the Government, stepped up to the plate to help both of these people out. Ms Hughes actually has a house to live in, thanks to the kindness of a fellow citizen. She has had employment offers, and other offers from the kind heartedness of people who heard her story. What did the president do? As befitting a slow and ponderous Government, he gave her empty promises of help in the future. She told him her need was URGENT, but he was powerless to do anything real and meaningful except to have his staff "work on it".

The lesson here is that Government is not the answer. We are.