THE HELL WITH FACTS,
WE WANT THE MONEY!
My Encounter with a Riley Minion
by Holden McAllister
08-20-03
Tuesday evening,
at the very professional League of Women Voters Forum in
Tuscaloosa, I had the privilege of asking a question of Neal
Wade, Director of the Alabama Development office. This was not my
first political forum, and I knew that to ask a question,
I’d have to print my question on my knee on a tiny sheet of
paper with a three-inch pencil. I also understand that if you
want to ask a politician a question, you better make your point
within the question, because these people will ramble,
filibuster, and do just about anything but respond.
So I brought my
own questions already neatly printed: about a dozen of them. Good
questions too, like "Which comes first? Throwing seniors out
on the streets, or the $38 million a year ABC board?" or "Are you
planning on first releasing rapists, or stopping the planting of
million-dollar bushes on the highways?" My one question that
made it through to the panel dealt with the rise in Alabama
spending from 12.39 to 17.65 billion dollars since 1997. These
figures came straight from the Alabama State Budget office (http://www.budget.state.al.us/stgovfin.html). In my
question, I also pointed out tax collections were running about
5% ahead of last year.
Upon hearing my
question, which brought the first applause of the evening (in
fairness, led by me), Wade simply lost his cool, claiming he
"didn’t know where these figures came from." He
said this is the "sort of misinformation we have to deal
with" all the time. He even said my question "was
written ahead of time," insinuating that not only had I made
up the figures, but somehow my question wasn’t worthy of an
answer, and that, I suppose, I was evil for having a question in
advance of a community forum.
This seemed to me
to be a totally inappropriate response, hardly an answer to my
question, and frankly quite insulting to me personally. There was
no audience participation allowed, but having grimaced silently
through over an hour of completely one-sided pro-tax propaganda,
I couldn’t restrain myself any longer, so I raised my hand
and said "these figures come from the state’s own
budget office." He mumbled something about how small the
education budget was and then moved on to another puffball
question. My concern was aired, but tossed aside as
unimportant.
Mr. Wade has every
right to ignore my question and dispute the state’s own
figures, for it’s still a partially free country. And I
fully admit that my question was as loaded as his big-government
statements throughout the evening. However, because I don’t
want him to continue to spread "misinformation,"
perhaps he should refer to the web page and office listed above.
There he’ll see the phenomenal increase in Alabama
spending: almost 50% in the past six years. Perhaps if he knew
this, he’d be campaigning against this plan
instead.
Holden McAllister
writes from Tuscaloosa and is a member of the Libertarian Party of
Alabama.
|
