Oklahoma City's government needs to stay on its diet

Two examples of improper use of government in this week's Oklahoma Gazette:

Optimistic thoughts
Next fiscal year’s city budget might provide for the restoration of public safety positions.

The city is hoping to restore several police, fire and other city positions and services in the municipal budget set to be presented to the Oklahoma City Council at its Tuesday meeting.

‎While the city’s revenue has not returned to pre-recession levels, Freemen said it is making progress.

A police department is a legitimate function of a proper government as long as those police are restricted to protecting individual rights. Oklahoma City could afford all the police officers it needs for this purpose if it would spend its budget only on the legitimate functions of government, which do NOT include corporate welfare under the guise of "economic development". If the City would restrict itself to legitimate functions, it wouldn't need as much revenue.

Living arrangement
The city is using incentive funding to encourage development of diverse downtown housing options.

An apartment complex currently under development in the Deep Deuce neighborhood may get $1.25 million in assistance from the city.

"Economic development" means the government picks and chooses which businesses go where. Laissez-faire Capitalism institutionalizes entrepreneurs' rights to run their businesses as they see fit - including their right to buy property where they choose and their rights to use that property as they wish. Could this be the reason why the supposedly much-desired downtown grocery store has so far failed to materialize?

Oklahoma City needs LESS government, NOT more revenue: laissez-faire Capitalism, not "crony" capitalism!