Spending Your Money So Someone Else Can Make Money
It used to be that companies were “incubators for skills.” But why bother getting on-the-job training when the government will cover the cost of getting you up to speed? For one, The Buffalo News adores the idea of making everyone pay to school a few workers, as evidenced by the Mark Sommer-authored mash note to liberalism titled “An incubator for skills in inner city.”
The feature about a Buffalo-based vocational center was totally unbiased, except for the way the entire article is about how awesome it is to spend federal and state money on jobs training aimed at people whom the paper considers to be disadvantaged. To quote an entirely fair passage:
It’s part of the preapprenticeship program at the Outsource Center, 1649 Fillmore Ave., on Buffalo’s East Side, where primarily minorities and women go to learn skills in the construction field. The program is a rarity in the inner city, especially since unions have relocated to the suburbs and taken their training programs with them.
“East Side,” “minorities,” and “women:” the story checked off the publication’s three favorite politically correct categories of victims in one sentence. That’s an accomplishment in its way. Still, maybe The News should instead be analyzing why unions flee the city in the first place; the answer might explain why it’s such a labor to find employment here. That’s especially since all’s not well in the workers’ paradise:
The Outsource Center suffered a major loss of income earlier this year when the Buffalo Employment & Training Center, which paid $2,225 for each of the 39 trainees who went through the program, stopped making referrals in March.. . James Finamore, executive director of the Buffalo & Erie County Workforce Investment Board, which oversees the BETC, said that it was because the Outsource Center failed to reach its required 70 percent placement rate, and has yet to get accredited.
So, what is this Buffalo Employment & Training Center that picks who gets what funding? Their page notes that they are “Funded by: Buffalo & Erie County Workforce Development Consortium, Inc.” In turn, the site for said consortium identifies who’s footing the bill for all this:
Primarily, the organization administers Federal and State Workforce Investment Act funds, youth funds, Welfare-to-Work Grant funds and such other funds as approved by the Workforce Investment Board of Buffalo and Erie County. It may also administer other government or private grant funds for employment and training program purposes.
Great: there are some “private grant funds” in there. Regardless, the mostly government-backed micromanaging and macro-spending on training amounts to a waste. It’s true no matter how well-intentioned the efforts are. Such programs are themselves the problem. Endowing them draws cash from the same economy that’s allegedly being helped, which won’t precisely help trainees’ work prospects.
The only way to ameliorate the situation is to decrease bureaucratic interference. Let taxpayers keep the money in question so that businesses will have funds to teach their own people; even better, it would allow more companies to exist, period. Cutting job training from the state and federal budgets is the best way to increase the quantity of jobs. It sounds counterintuitive, but Buffalo’s dire status proves that the opposite doesn’t work.
Sadly, unhelpful trainee courses have received sanction from what’s supposedly a news story in Buffalo’s daily rag. It’s the one whose staff largely ranges all the way across the political spectrum from liberals to leftists. The paper can brag all it wants about being named the state’s “Newspaper of Distinction;” in fact, they’ve been doing so daily above the nameplate. Of course, the clumsily-named New York State Associated Press Association granted the award, so take journalists awarding trophies to themselves for what it’s worth.
But it couldn’t have been much of a competition. The triumphant paper is either oblivious to how deeply it’s in the tank for left-wing goals or knows and shamefully doesn’t care. Too many editorial workers resemble adult versions of schoolchildren victimized by pro-Obama lyrics. They adore Barack Hussein Obama, Mmm Mmm Mmm.
Their de facto endorsement of Outsource Center embodies it all. Just in case anyone’s not sure if the story in question could serve as a textbook example of bias, it closes with a quote from apprentice Joseph Cole that concisely summarizes the paper’s stance:
“You know how President Obama will say, like, everybody got a job to do? So everybody has some accountability?” Cole said. “Well, with this program right here, it will prepare us to do our part.”
The president could use this quote in a speech advocating his next stimulus package; unfortunately, that’s not an honor any real journalist should want. Those News minions connected to the article don’t trust people to find an occupation and strive upward on their own; instead, they think working stiffs need the help of the city, county, and of course the paper itself. The Buffalo News is happy to let you know that “Yes We Can” and “Hope and Change” have officially replaced “Get a Job.”
Anthony Bialy is a freelance writer and “Red Eye” Conservative in Western New York. He also blogs at Smart Girl Nation. Follow Anthony on Twitter.
3 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
Leave a comment
[...] our money on properties that should rightly be owned by individuals or companies. Unfortunately, we shouldn’t expect much from a piece authored by Mark Sommer. Regardless, the most effective counterstrategy is to vote for candidates who have the sense and [...]
[...] the News really wanted to come across as impartial, they could stop injecting left-wing junk into news stories. They could even hire a second [...]
[...] some reason, wholly impartial News reporter Mark Sommer never bothered to follow up by asking why the fabric was torn in the first place. Failing that, [...]