Portland’s mayor and a city councilor say they are donating taxpayer money from “their” office budgets to help Newport in its fight to keep a federal contractor from opening an immigration detention center at or near the Newport Municipal Airport, (“Portland mayor, councilor put up money to back Newport fight against ICE facility,” Aug. 10).
I happen to view this cause as a just cause. However, I am not excited in the least by the trend of politicians treating government money from taxpayer dollars as personal slush funds. I believe this avoids checks and balances on personal spending of taxpayer dollars; I hope these checks and balances still exist…