It seems to be a common argument these days for government spending that the amounts spent are "trivial." I heard a liberal the other night describe 400 million dollars as trivial and the next night heard 3.3 billion described as a minorl amount. That thinking is called the slippery slope. We will never solve our spending and deficit problems until we realize that every dollar of taxpayer money is a public trust and must be spent wisely.
That said, there are legitimate functions of government that must be funded and we should make sure are provided with excellence. Public safety (police, fire. ambulance. military) have always been considered functions of government. And the Cat 5 hurricane is a catastrophe and needs a government response due to the occurance being unusual and the number of victims being huge. Freezing weather is a yearly occurance and the services needed are only for a very small percentage of the population. Charities can provide those services better and more efficiently than government.
So you really don't have a guess as to how much it is costing tax payers to open have a cold weather shelter open tonight in Defuniak Springs? If it isn't a trivial amount, surely you must know just how much it is costing taxpayers. If you don't know, how can you suggest that it is or isn't trivial in amount? You are making assumptions.
If you are saying that we should leave it to the charities to provide the cold weather shelter, perhaps you can inform us which charity has a cold weather shelter open tonight in Walton County.
You mention that gov't shouldn't be involved in something that occurs yearly such as cold weather. The gov't has things such as cots for those unusual occurrences like a hurricane, so why not get your money's worth and use them also for the occasional occurrence like extremely cold weather?
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