Nicky Cheese

This weekend I left Texas-home for Chicago-home to be apart of SamSphere, a new media forum put on by the rich fat cats that pay my salary. Lots of good people with lots of great tips, tools and strategies for bloggers. But more on that another day…

As I rode the el from work to the airport yesterday, a bum gets on the train and, after offending everyone with his odor, makes a public plea asking passengers–section by section–for some change.

‘I’m a homeless man with no job, no money, no food–nothing. Please, find it in your hearts, help me get some food–a dollar, a quarter, whatever you can.’

No response. With arms out and hands open:

‘Please, please. Folks, I’m hungry and I don’t have a job and I need to buy some soap so I can get a job. Please folks, give some money to someone who doesn’t have nothing.’

Again, no charity. So he steps it up. Dramatically falling to his knees, he cries, pleads:

‘Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you please! I’m homeless and have nothing. So I’m begging you. Look, I’m on my knees. Would a person get on his knees if he wasn’t serious? Look what you made me do. You made me get on my knees. I had to get on my knees because of you. Now you know how serious I am.’

At which point I stood up and said:

‘Bullshit! We didn’t make you get on your knees; nobody here made you do anything. Don’t try and guilt us as if we’re are the bad guys, as if we’re responsible for your situation, for your life. As if you’re the victim, as if you are entitled to charity simply because you need it, regardless of why and how.’

Except that I didn’t say that and, instead, just rolled my eyes as four or five individuals offered the bum some money, a buck here, some change there.

There are many reasons not to blindly give out handouts. Perpetuating dependency and feeding the psychology of entitlement are good ones.

With that said, here’s a section of John Stossel’s now-classic 20/20 special “Freeloaders”.

[youtube]4teq7aKTNJ4[/youtube]

First one to figure out what my title is a take-off of is…

Coming from the CTA Tattler: “Funding woes got you down? Ride the Santa Train!”.

Really?

Riding the Santa Train will help alleviate my CTA-related worries? Supporting a completely unnecessary expenditure — cited in 2004 to cost about $200,000 by then-president Frank Kruesi — will extinguish my concerns of the endless doomsday-bailout-doomsday-bailout cycle?

Or, maybe just inflate them…

Call me crazy, but I think the CTA needs a heavy dose of internal reform, a sort that — yes — goes beyond getting rid of the Santa Train. Something like what our friends at the Illinois Policy Institute having been touting for some time now. A couple weeks ago, the Chicago Tribune cited their work in an article by Dennis Byrne entitled, “No guts in Springfield, no transit fix”.

Great stuff. Like I said, it talks about internal reform. Not simply relying on external revenue sources as Illinois lawmakers have been proposing — most recently Mike Madigan via casinos. No, these are meaningful, sustainable solutions. The cessation of expansion projects. Using competitive contracting and independent audits. Yes, even increasing fares and cutting some buses.

So how about it Springfield? Give free markets a chance! Hey, once that happens, for all I care every train can be a Santa Train.