BEFORE the Lancaster Newspapers, Inc. was the business partners for convention center Marriott Hotel, on January 4, 1997, the then Editor of the New Era, wrote the following against Scranton’s convention center/hotel.
“But $10 million is not a grant. It is a windfall. It is a lottery jackpot. It is an unconscionable amount of money for one facility in one city.”
If $10 million is unconscionable then what is $165 million?! The editorial also makes the point that Lancaster County Hoteliers (Heroes of the FREE MARKET!) made in their lawsuit:
“How can they (Scranton Hoteliers) compete, they ask, with a hotel that is being infused with $10 million of public funds? How can they pay the going rate for renovations in their own hotels, and pass those costs to customers, when the operators of Casey’s project don’t have to worry about recouping their renovation costs?”
It’s too bad that Lancaster Newspaper sold their soul and lost their moral bully pulpit when they decided to stop being a newspaper and instead decided to suck from the government teat!
I see no immorality here, although I once did.
Alexis de Tocqueville predicted this in his 1841 book “Democracy in America”. He noted that once people see they can get easy access to the public purse they will do so. Better still is the fact they don’t need to pay it back. According to some vague concept called “the social contract”, they can let future generations, who never got a vote in the matter, pay for it.
LNP’s editorial was a local wake up call asking, “Where is my cut?” Their cut was apparently $165 million. Many others are asking the same question.