By John Mitchel
RE: “Officials to review coalition’s funding”, Dayton Daily News, December 18, 2010: For years
our public servants have been writing blank checks to the Dayton Development Coalition on the
pretense that they and they alone are responsible for “saving” jobs at Wright Patterson. Rarely, if ever
do the Coalition or the politicians give credit to Wright Patt leadership or the folks that actually do the
work that has established Wright Patterson as a national treasure.
Instead they heap credit on themselves and the Coalition’s President and CEO who was paid $285,000
in 2005 — that’s about double what the Governor of Ohio earns and more than the Vice-president of the
United States. And don’t believe the lie that those exorbitant salaries and bonuses are not funded with
taxpayer dollars. You see, a basic principal of finance and economics teaches us that money is “fungible,”
or is universally exchangeable between two obligations, in this case between public corruption and national
defense or local infrastructure. Unfortunately the corrupt politicians and their insider sycophants at the
Coalition are the big winners here.
However it looks as though enough is enough and at least some elected officials are demanding transparency
at the Coalition and elsewhere. It’s time to clean out the barn and shutting down the Dayton Development
Coalition would be a good place to start.
Other commentary and analysis by John Mitchel may read at www.reformcongress.com.