BrianGarst.com

Supporters of big government want empathy in all the wrong places and never where it’s needed.

He sleeps under a bridge, washes in a public bathroom and was panhandling for booze money 11 months ago, but now Larry Moore is the best-dressed shoeshine man in the city. When he gets up from his cardboard mattress, he puts on a coat and tie. It’s a reminder of how he has turned things around.

In fact, until last week it looked like Moore was going to have saved enough money to rent a room and get off the street for the first time in six years. But then, in a breathtakingly clueless move, an official for the Department of Public Works told Moore that he has to fork over the money he saved for his first month’s rent to purchase a $491 sidewalk vendor permit.

“I had $573 ready to go,” Moore said, who needs $600 for the rent. “This tore that up. But I’ve been homeless for six years. Another six weeks isn’t going to kill me.”

The bureaucrat told Moore that she found out about his business after reading about his success in this paper.

…Christine Falvey, spokeswoman for Public Works, said the department’s contact with Moore was meant to be “educational.”

Oh yes, I’m sure the encounter was quite “educational.”

“What did you learn in class today?” Nanny state and regulatory governments are an obstacle to personal advancement.

It’s a testament to Mr. Moore that he has the strength of character to push through such an unnecessary burden placed on him by the state.  It could just have easily discouraged him from working to better himself and his situation.  That it didn’t is no excuse for letting government bullies off the hook.  Their permit protection racket is immoral and indefensible.