Why we Need the Private Sector

Tuesday President Bush announced a program to help those with mortgage problems including a hotline. He accidentally gave out the wrong number. Instead of the correct number 1-888-995-HOPE he said 1-800 which rings to a small Texas Christian group that provides home schooling material. The woman who answers the phone for Freedom Christian Academy tried to give callers the correct number but so many calls came in that she finally disconnected the phone. What I find disappointing is that with so many solutions available the government chose to do nothing. If they really considered these calls important they could have hired an answering service to sort out the calls. Since they planned to take these calls with a hotline they could have the number forwarded and do it themselves. A permanent solution would have been to buy the number from Freedom. Pay the cost for publishing a new number and a little extra for inconvenience. Freedom Christian Academy would have to agree to any solution, but as overwhelmed as they were it sounded like they would have accepted any reasonable offer.