Mark Small

Let’s skip over, for a moment, “cut spending” and “balance the budget,” as important as they are. Just what the hell does she mean by “reform welfare to empower, not suppress low income individuals”? That’s gibberish. 3/16

If she means we need to eliminate welfare for the very rich - e.g., tax cuts that only heaped MORE debt on the rest of us, or subsidies for pro sports owners and venture capitalists - then I would say: “Here! Here!” Of course she means: “There! There!” 4/16

She employs hollow phrases. A DCS person said she is “grateful to be given the opportunity to utilize my knowledge of child welfare to empower staff members...” WBIW, 9/30/19. Empowering DCS staff members doesn’t put food on poor people’s tables. 5/16

The Fresh Vision Group of Chicago wants to “create innovative programs and initiatives that utilize the arts, the technology scene, entrepreneurship and overall community welfare to empower the under represented people of Chicago.” 6/16

From their website I believe it is reasonable to infer they seek to empower people in ways that Ms. Spartz probably would find objectionable. I am pretty sure they would find a candidate who backs trump as anathema to their group’s goals. 7/16

That is a basic problem: trump’s programs oppress - and suppress as well - people who are poor. Ms Spartz likes those problems - she likes trump. 8/16

As precinct committee person for the part of Indy in which I live, I say let’s address the first part of her statement: “We must cut spending.” Bravo! The next few words - “reform welfare” - show her ignorance of the source of our national deficit. 9/16

Welfare is not the cause of our deficits. “The size of the national debt in the United States has almost always been a function of war, including the Cold War.” Prof. Thomas McCraw, Harvard Business School, “The American Scholar,” winter 1994, p. 50. 10/16