Hypocrisy in Action

By Robert Wilonsky Thu., May 25 2006 at 2:46 PM

So Mayor Laura Miller was able to muster a majority on the council to rescind the city's longstanding policy on giving away federal "block grant" funds to political cronies. For as long as anybody can remember, community development block grants from Washington have been City Hall's main source of steam control, cash handed out to various slicks and ward-healers in South Dallas to keep minority council members happy. And, hallelujah, a majority of the council now agree with Miller that giving away millions of tax dollars to be spent on non-public real estate deals is bad and encourages corruption.

But take the same principle right across the river. Ask all those same council members, especially Ed Oakley, if it's just as bad and just as corrupt to give away millions to people like oilman Ray Hunt or real estate developer Neal Sleeper. They'll say, "What, are you nuts? That's totally different."

Yeah. Different for two reasons. Rich. White.

A bitter irony here is that Miller gets slammed for being anti-black on this stuff. But she's the only one who's consistent. She's against sluicing out the public funds on both sides of the river. The real hypocrisy is from the rest of them, who see nothing unfair about cracking down on money for blacks but continue to shovel it out the door like manure for the white boys. A tale of two cities? --Jim Schutze

Email to Friend