Portland’s Mayor Wants To Fix Government Failures With More Government Failures

40 years ago, as a radio reporter for KXL, I went to a news conference heralding the 10 year plan to END homelessness.

Guess what?

It didn’t!

Since then, Portland and Multnomah County have spent roughly 4 billion dollars on services for the homeless: 80 million a year, 1 billion every ten.

And under the government’s programs, the problem only got worse.

Now, Mayor Ted Wheeler has now decided to rearrange the deck chairs on the city’s Titanic failure to keep thousands of drug addicted and mentally ill people from making the streets their home…and their garbage dump and their toilet.

Wheeler announces he’s declaring an emergency…and, get this, he’s opening a new government office and hiring more government employees.

Yeah, that will fix the problem for certain.

Wheeler admits that the city’s own government creates contradictions and duplication of services…so, Ted’s solution is to add even MORE government.

You know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Since you’re paying the bill, you should know that Feckless Ted is adding more cash and more bureaucracy to a problem that grew to the size it is on cash and bureaucracy.

My suggestion: enforce the laws on the books and demand accountability from everyone, most especially the Concrete Campers.

But Captain Ted of the Titanic won’t do that, and we know how this movie ends.