Columnist: Why Is Philly Spending $500,000 to Build Another Statue?

Philadelphia is nearly bankrupt but city officials have decided to spend $500,000 for a statue. And you wonder why so many Pennsylvania taxpayers are sick and tired of subsidizing the city. Might as well dig a hole and bury the money.

From a column in Philadelphia Magazine by Victor Fiorillo:

Whether the city wants to admit it or not, we are on a long and painful road that terminates in bankruptcy — unless we change direction. And in addition to the fat union benefits, unconscionable D.R.O.P. payments, and the huge contracts that go to political cronies and the good old boys, we need to look long and hard at all of these "small" expenses — no matter how feel-good they are or how many votes they guarantee—because they add up.

I don't want to be the one to tell the thousands of inner-city kids who depend on the community pools for recreation, No, I'm sorry. No swimming this year. We decided to build a statue. In fact, the city is desperately searching for money to keep the pools open this summer, and that earmarked $500,000 would guarantee that 58 of the 70 pools in question would be filled with splashing kids for one more season.

My proposal: Sink that $500,000 into the pools (or any of the other cash-strapped programs that benefit our kids), and I'll personally give each city library a copy of Inquirer reporter Daniel Biddle's new book, Tasting Freedom: Octavius Catto and the Battle for Equality in Civil War America. That way, the children of Philadelphia can actually learn something about Catto. Assuming the libraries are still open, of course.

Why Are We Spending $500,000 to Build Yet Another Statue?