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Seth Piccirillo: Good Man, Bad Idea

By Frank Parlato

As you read these articles on the plan of Niagara Falls Community Development Director Seth Piccirillo to pay college graduates to move into certain neighborhoods, it becomes clear that the Niagara Falls Reporter does not endorse the plan.

That said, we want to make it clear we do not condemn Piccirillo, the originator of the plan.

We regard Piccirillo is an honest man who believes his program will help rejuvenate the city. 

However, we have a different point of view and possess a different philosophic perspective: We don’t believe it is the role of government to solve social problems or manipulate population. We don’t believe it desirable for government to act as social or moral engineers.

That should be up to a free people.

Government social engineering, which the Piccirillo plan clearly embodies, invariably enlarges government and because of the inefficiency of government by its nature, it serves to impoverish people and in the end take freedom away.
Higher taxes also take freedom away since more time of a person’s life is taken from him in order to work harder to pay those higher taxes. 

Piccirillo obviously leans the other way. He thinks government can solve problems of a social, moral and economic nature. He supports a philosophy of an ever-expanding government doing more and more good, where he is charged with addressing community development challenges through government.

If it were up to us, we would immediately eliminate his position in government and encourage a bright and talented young man like him to enter the private sector where he could do some real good.

We applaud Piccirillo for his energy and effort but condemn his ideas.

We like the man but frankly hate his idea to pay people to live in Niagara Falls. We shudder at the thought of this disease becoming catchy and governments everywhere thinking that   their population is made up of ugly, weak fools like we do in Niagara Falls and start bidding for certain kinds of people to live there.
It strikes us as a sort of reverse prostitution. 

We are so ugly we have to pay to get people here.

We don’t think government should pay anyone to live anywhere.
Let the pioneer spirit prevail.

It built a nation.

Still, it should be possible to be sincere and good and intelligent and plain flat out wrong about something.
We think Seth Picirrillo is all of these things.

 

 

Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com Aug 28 , 2012