Is it money well spent right now?

Note: I urge the readers to please refrain from hastily dismissing the reasoning of my arguments in the following writing on the subject of Austin's animal shelters. As a pet owner myself, I fully understand the strong feelings that many people feel toward animals, and am fully aware of the inherent sensitivity pertaining to the following subject.


My critique is of the Austin American Statesman’s, editorial board’s opinion regarding Austin’s animal shelters, titled “Austin should make its animal shelter a no-kill facility”.

First off, what I find most frustrating about this editorial is that it is clear that the writer’s emotional involvement in the subject resulted in a complete and utter disregard of the stories inconvenient other side. The fact of the matter is that in our current difficult economic situation, Austin, like the rest of the nation is financially strained, and is having to make difficult governing decisions on all of its programs. This fact is ignored by the editorial.

The editorial goes out of its way, in what can suitably be labeled as “guilt tripping” the reader into blindly forming the opinion that they desire the reader to hold. They offer an impressive array of numbers and percentages that support their claim that Austin’s animal shelters are somehow not on par with the cities progressive beliefs on the issue. But in reality their figures do not really support their claims. If 10 years ago, the no kill goal embraced by the city led to a 30 or so percent decrease in the shelters kill rate, where is this new concern coming from? What kill rate percentage will be deemed satisfactory in the future?

Now, I'm not denying the legitimacy of their claims, and I don't disagree that we should do more, if not do absolutely all we can to keep Austin's animal shelters kill rate as low as we possibly can.

The issue I have with this proposal is that as dire as the animal shelter’s situation may seem, I doubt (as well as many of the readers might) that when compared to other cities are situation may not be as bad as one might think. More importantly I doubt that if this proposition were to be compared to a different proposition targeted towards the relief the local citizen populations human services needs.

What I'm trying to say here, is that a sad and depressing at the animal shelter situation may be, here are far more important issues at hand. Every day in Austin, and every other city in this nation - especially in these difficult times - there are countless issues relating to the far more important well-being of people that are not being addressed because of budget constraints.

At the end of the day, there is a finite amount of money that the government can spend, regardless of whether they raise taxes or not. Everyone must understand, every single penny of the estimated $1.1 million to be spent on this program, is money that (whether directly or indirectly) can be spent on far more pressing issues. This money can be going to programs that house the poor, feed the hungry, or provide desperately needed medical care to those who are ill and unable to afford it themselves.

So, I'm sorry, but you know what, with so many people in need of so much help - especially in today's difficult times - I would rather us be doing more to help them, rather than the animal's. I just don't know how the people pushing in support of this can justify it knowing that at the very same time their neighbor is also in their help.