A Metaphor for Our State’s Broken System
I couldn’t believe it. I was spending some time in Florida and went to a Publix, the most popular grocery store in the state.
I was bowled over by their friendly service. There was even a young man at the end of the conveyor belt packing my bags. But the thing that really blew me away was that every single shopping cart that I touched during my stay operated absolutely flawlessly. No stuck wheels. No wheels that were constantly turning. No screeches. No embarrassing clunk, clunk, clunk. Just smooth sailing, clean carts.
Which had me wondering: Why the heck can’t we have that in New York?
At almost every supermarket I go to in New York, the carts are banged up and the wheels get stuck. There’s no one helping me with my bags. That is something I can live with, but darn it, I want a shopping cart that works.
I guess the reason Florida can do it, but we can’t, is that they just have a different mindset. We in New York have simply accepted incompetence as the norm. Even the rather liberal analyst, Fareed Zakaria of CNN, wrote an article recently about how blue states and cities are simply broken, and are run so less efficiently than their red counterparts.
Progressive policies have led to mass homelessness in blue cities, and an increase of 30% in violent crime since the “defund the police” measures were put into effect.
Building a mile of subway in New York winds up costing seven times what is spent in Atlanta, Paris or Lisbon.
Blue state roads are in a shambles and test scores hover below the national average, despite spending twice the amount than in other states.
How is it that Florida has 4 million more people than New York, and no income tax, and yet has a budget that’s half that of New York’s $252 billion behemoth? Its roads are better and student test scores are much higher.
And let’s not forget: they somehow know how to field a properly working shopping cart.
When did we in New York start settling for incompetence?
Maybe it’s because so many of our leaders know that, no matter how bad things get, we seem to be re-electing so many of the same people who got us into this mess.