Quality of Life Brought to You by the MessAPolitico

I was watching the news magazine Dateline NBC over the weekend.  One of their big stories was about how children raised in poverty are three times as likely to have asthma.  They showed an in depth view of two particular families with children suffering with frequent asthma attacks, and they showed that the asthma is generally initiated by triggers in the environment.  These kids both lived with their families in housing projects operated by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), and both had the same environmental triggers:  cock roach infestation and mold.

It's a shame when little kids come into this world with parents that live in such conditions.  It's also a shame that the government provides this housing in the same way that everything is done by the MessAPolitico:  very poorly.  While the report mentioned the cock roaches several times, the focus was on the heavy mold in the bathroom that was caused by plumbing leaks in their apartments or their neighbors' apartments.  The conditions were really deplorable, with the shower walls and ceilings covered with green splotches.  I wouldn't have lived in those conditions for days, much less months or years.

The parents struggled and fought with NYCHA over many months trying to get the mold problem resolved.  Various bureaucrats gave them scheduled repair dates over a year away.  They complained in the media repeatedly, and various workers were sent in to clean up the mold with bleach and repaint.  However, the underlying cause of the problem was dampness from plumbing leaks, so the mold quickly returned.  Finally, after months and months, NYCHA sent over a plumber and fixed the leaks.  Then the mold was cleaned up and did not return.  Thankfully, the young girl told us that her asthma attacks had stopped, and she was doing much better after the mold was eliminated.

This entire story was intended to tug at your heart strings.  The point was that the federal budget cuts were reducing maintenance staff in the projects.  The children are suffering because of these cuts.  There was no thought that the parents had any responsibility in this.  Of course, I saw things a little differently.  Lester Holt described the families as hard working with both parents working.  He also described them as growing families.  Mr. Holt said that New York City was expensive, and these hardworking, growing families couldn't afford anything better.  They deserved to have a good place for the families to live.

There are several questions I would like to have answered that weren't addressed in the story:

• Were these families citizens of the United States?  Everyone mentioned in this report had a Hispanic name.  Most of them had a Hispanic accent as well.  I know it's not politically correct to ask this question.  In fact, it is considered racist in the media today.  I still want to know if my tax dollars are being used to support non-citizens.
• Since Mr. Holt said these were growing families, how many kids did they have?  Were they two parent families?  Only one parent of these kids was the focus of the report.  Liberals are always pushing birth control and abortion to limit the size of these families and stop out-of-wedlock births.  Why weren't these antidotes used to prevent these folks from having more kids than they can afford?
• If budget cuts were responsible for poor maintenance, was the maintenance a lot better before the cuts?  Let me guess, everything was wonderful in the projects under Bill Clinton and a Democratically controlled Congress.  Now everything has gone to pot, and the children are suffering with asthma so that rich people can have a tax cut.

Now I have several observations:

• If the government can't fix plumbing leaks in the projects, do we want them handling our health care?  Should we expect great service and great health care under government run insurance, or should we expect a giant MessAPolitico?
• If these people are legal immigrants to the United States, why would we let them in if they don't have the financial means to live here with no skills?
• If these folks can't afford the rent in NYC, why don't the move to a small town in the south or the Midwest?  If there was less demand for housing in NYC, the price would go down.
• If the people in the story are legal citizens that grew up in the NYC, the public schools must be failing them.  They weren't educated enough to get a job that pays for living in NYC.  Another example of the results when the MessAPolitico runs anything--in this case the schools.
• Wouldn't it be better if the MessAPolitico stopped creating excessive costs and regulations that drive good manufacturing jobs out of the country.  Then these people wouldn't need government assistance to live.  If they weren't locked into the publicly supported housing, they would just leave for greener pastures if the landlord didn't take care of maintenance.
• If you put your life in the hands of the MessAPolitico, you are destined to be disappointed.