Lars Larson: Insane things government subsidizes

By Lars Larson
NW and national radio host,

The Northwest Nonsense

The city of Portland constantly claims it lacks the money to even get the basics right:

Police

Streets

Parks

Things like that.

But strangely, the majority socialist government of Portland never runs out of money subsidize failure in the private sector.

The Taxpayers Association of Oregon points to the latest examples.

A food court called The Flock sits in the heavily subsidized Ritz-Carlton hotel. The Ritz managed to make it one whole year in business before it went bankrupt, despite all the tax subsidies.

Now we have the James Beard … a fancy food court subsidized by taxpayers.

When it got started, it was supposed to cost 20 million bucks…with half of that from taxpayers.

Now just two years later, its costs have soared 75 percent … to 35 million bucks … and it’s not even finished, and with costs up by 15 million, you wonder if it ever will get done.

Private enterprises like the hundreds of food carts Portland brags on either make the bottom line, or they go out of business and get replaced by more capable players.

Like the Late Lady Margaret Thatcher famously pointed out… The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.

So far, Portland still has 8 billion of your tax dollars to blow every year.

— That’s the Rose City Rap. Join me at noon on KXL for 4 hours of Honestly provocative talk. I’m Lars Larson