Our View: To snowbirds: Don't worry

It’s fun listening to the returning Longboat Key snowbirds.

“What’s going on here?”

“I leave for a few months, and the whole place falls to pieces.”

“When I saw (Vice Mayor) David Brenner, I asked him: ‘What are you guys doing over there at Town Hall?’ Everything was fine before I left for the summer.”

OK, October on Longboat Key was pretty much of a month-long “Fright Night.” And not everything unfolded the way you might have scripted it.

But in light of the events — Town Manager Bruce St. Denis’ resignation and the placing on leave of Planning, Building and Zoning Director Monica Simpson — it is becoming increasingly apparent these changes were due, even past the time.

Reading the chronology and notes of Police Chief Al Hogle, you can hardly come to any other conclusion than he handled the Simpson situation the way he should have. His notes affirm that Simpson, while a competent planner, was miscast in her role as a manager of people. What’s more, Hogle’s report confirmed that this was not a new problem. It had existed for years and was dealt with, shall we say, superficially.

Do not be alarmed, returning Longboat Key snowbirds. While town commissioners may have been “Quick Draw McGraws” hiring St. Denis’ replacement and firing their guns to remove Hogle from the acting town manager’s job, what happens next should be good overall for the town.

If new interim Town Manager David Bullock is as competent as advertised, and if he has the courage to say there is no longer a position for Simpson — and beats back the commissioners who feel otherwise, Bullock and the commission can focus on what is needed: moving the town forward, rebuilding Town Hall morale and ending the fiscally choking pension plans.

+ Your grandchildren’s burden
Remember all of the panic and hubbub back in June and July over the nation’s debt-limit debate?
The sky was going to fall if Congress didn’t raise it and if Congress couldn’t figure out how to get spending under control.

So here we are, Nov. 3, and twice since then — Aug. 1 and Sept. 21 — Barack Obama has raised the national debt limit by $400 billion and $500 billion, nearly $1 trillion!

Just last week, with little notice from Congress, the president or the mainstream media, Congress had already spent and used up $603 billion of the $900 billion.

Did you digest that?

Your government in Washington has raced in only three months to continue outspending its revenues and borrowing against your grandchildren’s future beyond the debt ceiling that existed three months ago.

Against this spending spree, the so-called “super Congress” is expected to present a plan at the end of this month to cut from the federal budget up to $1.5 trillion in spending over the next 10 years.

Did you get that — over the next 10 years?

In other words, in fewer than three months, U.S. debt has risen by almost half of what the super Congress will propose to cut over 10 years.

No wonder Florida Gov. Rick Scott says we need more graduates with math degrees. In Washington, they have no clue.

+ More debt: a fool’s strategy
At what point will they get it in Washington?

We know the European debt crisis is far from the shores of Longboat Key — and a subject we don’t normally address on these pages. Nonetheless, we are all connected economically, and we should be paying attention to how the Europeans are addressing their debt problems. It affects us.

But sadly, the debt-deal the European Union has devised is more of the same from policymakers. It involves issuing more debt and forcing private investors to accept only 50% of what they are owed in repayment for the loans they made to Greece.

More debt? More obfuscation.

In contrast to this, we came across two economic analysts this week who watch the world’s economies and who prescribed exactly the same prescriptions for economic rescue and revival — for every nation.

The remedies are quite logical, but they require one ingredient that our political leaders apparently do not have: courage. To wit:

• From William Buckler, author of the Privateer newsletter, in his most recent edition:
“The principles of bringing about a sustainable economic recovery are very simple. The Privateer wrote about them in our late March 22, 2009, issue. This was two weeks after the Bank of England announced its QEI and days after the Fed followed suit:

“There are three fundamental economic requirements. The first is massive cuts in government expenditures with matching cuts in government jobs for civil servants. Unemployment will certainly climb — temporarily — as former civil servants look for other jobs in the private economy.

“Then, when and ONLY WHEN the government budget is back in at least near balance, the follow-up is genuine tax cuts to leave more funds in private hands for increased production, savings and new investments.

“Finally, the credit expansion must end and interest be set free so that monetary savings are viable and rewarded.

“It does not take a wise man or woman to understand the necessity for these “policies” and the order in which they must take place to be effective. It does, however, take a fool to deny or ignore them … ”

• From Edward P. Lazear, former chairman of President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, in the Oct. 31 Wall Street Journal:

“ … Our financial crisis was caused by factors that affected the entire system, just as all corn kernels pop when they are warmed by the same flame. This lesson is important because interpreting our crisis as primarily a contagion event leads to the wrong strategies for dealing with potential disasters.

“After Lehman, Europeans seem to be so taken with worries of contagion that they are failing to emphasize remedies that actually have a chance of making things better. In their case, and in ours, the solution is primarily a reduction in the bloated size of government expenditures that come about by making promises that cannot be kept.

“Especially in Italy and Portugal, as in Greece, the government has grown more rapidly than the economy, which has meant unsustainable government borrowing. Preventing a Greek default will not reverse the lackluster growth that has plagued the other vulnerable countries for many years now.

“As for the U.S., our economy will be stronger if Europe’s health improves, but we must address our own underlying structural problems that are associated with a doubling of our 2008 debt levels by next year. No bailout of another economy will restore our fiscal health or that of Europe.”

Florida Gov. Rick Scott and the Legislature get this. At what point will they get it in D.C.?

Saints of st. armands
It’s probably safe to say there weren’t many Longboat Key residents trick or treating Monday night at Fright Night on St. Armands Circle. In fact, most Longboaters are lucky to have even one trick or treater ring the door on Halloween.

But if you happened to drive through St. Armands Circle between 6 and 9 p.m. Monday, you encountered a great community success.

Congratulations to the St. Armands Association and all of the merchants and property owners. Fright Night clearly has become one of the Circle’s signature community events — and a great service to the community.

As many present and former parents know, what a pleasure and relief it is to have a safe, happy place for children to enjoy one of the most exciting days of their year — All Hallow’s Eve, the “prequel,” of course, to All Saint’s Day.

On Oct. 31 in Sarasota, the saints are the organizers of “Fright Night.”