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The Plain Speaker responds

Category: The Diner Industry

Published on Monday, 10 August 2009 00:00

Written by The Plain Speaker

I stand by every thoughtful word I carefully wrote. I happen to support Carol, and the struggle I see firsthand with many diner operators. But Carol already collected the RI sales tax money once. If the issue were in regard to the collection of income tax, I would accept the position that these could be delayed, and that a forced close of the business would be heavy handed and too much. Over the top. But in this case, Carol not only has unpaid income tax, but she has also collected sales tax that she has not remitted. That money was never her money. There is a difference. I am sympathetic, but there are limits.

No doubt we are all free to give away our money to whomever we want. No argument there. But please don’t use the media and the community in such as way as you position yourself as a “victim”. Brian O’Rourke had a similar situation in Middletown, CT two years ago. Prior to the fire that almost destroyed his diner, he cancelled his insurance to save money. Then his diner burned. He then received a great deal of community money and goodwill to rebuild. There is a pot of money in every community for charity. But this money is very tight these days. Every time you give it out, there is less remaining to deal with other problems.

We have a capitalistic system in place (or at least we used to) where commercial enterprises are treated as one thing. They succeed or fail on their own. Desperate community needs such as homelessness and poverty, homelessness, emergency medical care, shelters and food banks are dealt with /​financed in other ways. Apparently now we are to treat GM, CitiGroup, Chrysler, BoA, Wall street investment firms, AIG and all the rest as worthy of bailouts and freebies, gifts and “loans” — many of which will never be repaid. What’s next? Consumers should be able to default on their credit card debt, and no one should have to pay their taxes?

We in America have gotten disturbingly soft. We all want to be coddled. You said it! No one is responsible for anything anymore apparently. What we do best these days is blame others for our problems — problems we have no one else to blame but ourselves. Believe me, don’t get me wrong, I’d rather see you subsidizing a diner operator, than our government playing nurse maid to GM.