Monday, January 19, 2009

The Financial Hit Nashville Could Take for English Only is in the Hundreds of Millions

Nathan Moore does the math:
  1. Nashville will already owe $500,000 for Thursday's special election.
  2. At best English only will save us less than $500 per year; at that rate, it would take Nashville 1,000 years to pay back the $500,000 on the savings alone.
  3. English Only could cost Nashville $280 million per year in federal funding connected to Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The real numbers reveal English Only to be the same empty, symbolic crap that Eric Crafton has always pulled as a council member. I have seen him openly challenge the receipt of federal funds for STDs and AIDs community education in order to try to attach abstinence declarations to what amount to federal dollars that support Metro services with no encumbrance whatsoever. His protests amounted to nothing since Metro had a simple choice: either accept the funds or send them back. Crafton's grandstanding was an utter waste of time.

That grandstanding makes Crafton look as if he cannot stand good things that come to or happen in Nashville. Federal money to provide assistance to help Metro employees do their jobs effectively? Forget about it. A Metro employee helping a first generation immigrant in distress when she has the skills to do it? Not under Crafton's watch. Exhausting Metro resources for his own purposes? His moral imperative, regardless of cost to this city.

1 comment:

  1. Yes, I agree. It will certainly be the end of our fine City as we know it (despite our new Savior being inaugurated today) if Metro Council has to conduct business in English.

    It seems to be the MO of the anti-English folks to put up false arguments and then shoot them down in order to convince folks that this is a bad Amendment.

    This statement here: "A Metro employee helping a first generation immigrant in distress when she has the skills to do it?" reveals that you actually haven't read the amendment.

    As does this one: "Federal money to provide assistance to help Metro employees do their jobs effectively".

    No one in the anti-English side has yet to provide a logical reason to oppose this amendment (much less Amendment 2, which the anti-English folks lump in with it, making those who vote based on yard signs even more ignorant).

    If the anti-English amendment fails, perhaps some of the people who were against it can go over to France and make them provide services to non-citizens in English. That way if I ever decide to move there, I won't have to bother learning French or even assimilating.

    ReplyDelete