On Thursday, January 22, 2009, an article by a CINDI ROSS SCOPPE---entitled Scoppe: Government has to make choices families, businesses don’t ---was published. Cindi Ross Scoppe is the Associate Editor for The State (a SC newspaper publication, available both online and in print). This particular article appeared on the website http://www.thestate.com/ (and may have also appeared in the actual paper, as-well). Of course, as is evident by the title, this is an article concerning the real or perceived distinctions between the choices (especially in a financial sense) of government, family, and businesses. More specifically, this article tackles the question of who should be making decisions on behalf of who. That is to say, who should be blamed (if anyone) when a wrong choice is made, and who should be burdened with the worry? Therefore, it can be said that this article was written to make the public aware of the pros and cons, and the ins and outs of every important decision of the sort, so as to form educated opinions on the subject.
It goes without saying, this article was directed towards the citizens of South Carolina. Ms. Scoppe asks the readers numerous questions regarding their economy such as, "Is it better for fewer people to have more money (give out pay raises, while laying off employees) or for more people to have less money (no layoffs, but wholesale furloughs)?" She also offers her own opinions too, as follows, "I feel pretty certain that we ought to cut out pay raises in order to reduce layoffs — as Education Superintendent Jim Rex proposed for teachers, and as the Legislature should have done in writing the current year’s budget." The basic argument of this article is that while it is true that each individual citizen plays a role in his/her state (particularly SC) and thus bares a sort of responsibility for the prosperity of it, it is the state's government which actually needs to take the lead, by doing right by us (its citizens) first. However, the author of this article seems to be aware that the ideals of great decision-making sometimes are not all that simple. Hence, so many of these questions are left unanswered. Thus, all that we can do is ponder. And, ponder it, we shall.
