I found an article in this newspaper interesting. You, the taxpayers, are paying for local businesses to borrow money for their businesses. To quote the article, "A $75,000 loan fund, made available to the town of Selma through a USDA grant, has made it possible for six Selma businesses to finance their operations in the midst of a tough market." This is not the first such program I have read about here in Selma.
Let me start with this disclaimer. I have absolutely no issue with any business or business owner that would take advantage of a program for them to finance a business. I get it. I was a business owner, myself. I just have a problem with a government that would use taxpayer money for such purposes.
I owned three small businesses that were running concurrently. Two of them were profitable. The third made a profit, as well, but was more of a hobby with which I made a few dollars or did work pro bono. My two main businesses were both at the point where I had to either expand or get out of business, since the growth was overwhelming on one and as a result, the other was being neglected and was more of a nuisance to keep running, though profitable.
I owned a used book business that grew huge on the internet and I really needed to either open a brick and mortar retail location or get some warehouse space. I had more books than the town library stuffed in my home. Like all businesses, the revenue was in direct proportion to the amount of effort expended in the endeavor. Already having a decent full time job, I could not afford the time to make book sales a full time job in addition to my regular one. Unfortunately, my business partner decided to be a slacker and failed to put any appreciable effort into the venture, although it was rather profitable and easy to do. If I had been more engaged full time in that business as a livelihood, I might very well have considered the revolving loan program provided through the USDA grant to the Town of Selma.
I am looking at the US Department of Agriculture web site right now. There are many programs that they administer for rural areas. They are involved in water and environment programs, housing loans, tourism promotion, rural economy loans and grants, utility services, etc.
I have been racking my brain trying to find where the US Constitution authorizes these activities. The 10th Amendment seems to reserve any such things for the individual states. Furthermore, since these programs are administered through the USDA, I am trying to figure out what business development in downtown Selma has to do with agriculture. The last I knew, we did not grow corn, wheat, tobacco, hogs, or cows in antique shops, bridal stores, and furniture factories. Again, it is hard to blame a business for taking advantage of a program. It is not hard to fault a government entity for violating its constitutional authority, forcibly taking billions of dollars of tax money and giving it away to towns, and earmark that money for private enterprise.
From a taxpayer perspective, there is possibly one good part to the program. The money from the USDA is a grant and not a loan to the town. If this were a loan to the town, we would have been taxed on the one end to provide the original funds and then taxed on the other end by the town to pay back the money. Being taxed twice to provide loans to small business is just plain unethical; not that taxing us once for the program is exactly in and of itself ethical, either.
Are you fed up with the level of federal taxation? Look no further than programs such as this. Not every good idea necessarily should be implemented or is fair to all. Multiply this single grant of $75,000 times the literally thousands of rural areas in the country that have similar grants, and we have budgets of billions of dollars. If we are to ever get spending under control on the federal level (not to mention state, county, and municipal levels), then we have to start somewhere. I, for one, am tired of paying for others' businesses and households to operate. I have my own household to keep rolling financially.
When does it all end, people? With how much public debt and taxation are we going to saddle future generations? When are we as a nation going to abide by our own constitution?
Showing posts with label grants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grants. Show all posts
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Column for July 31, 2008
Are wastewater reclamation efforts actually bad for the American family?
I read with interest recently about how the Town of Benson was going to move forward with a three million dollar waste water reclamation and recycling project. The US Department of Agriculture is lending Benson $886,000 towards building an eight mile wastewater reclamation pipeline to one customer. The customer, a plant nursery, would use the water for irrigation of decorative and other non food source vegetation. Other possible future use could be for watering golf courses, sod production irrigation, and pasture lands.
Water reclamation is not a bad idea. I am all for recycling used water, often called "gray water" for purposes of irrigation, construction, and other non-potable purposes. If the water is just going to waste anyway, then I say it is a great move to do so. However, I have a slight problem with the US government paying for a small town like Benson to build a pipeline to reclaim said water for the benefit of one customer and the hope of adding more. Why should people in Arkansas or California be contributing to the project here in North Carolina?
Projects like this are what I consider to be pork barrel spending. Sure, some people may benefit. However, it is not the job of the federal government to act like an unending pool of money to be siphoned off for special or experimental projects.
When building or expanding the town's water supply is the time to innovate and include the gray water reclamation lines. I remember that the proposed ethanol plant in Selma was planning on using gray water for its plant. However, there was no such line or reclamation efforts existing anywhere. One would have to be built from the far side of Smithfield all the way in to Selma's fringes. That of course would have been funded by tax dollars in one form or another.
Government grants are TAX DOLLARS. Never forget that fact. Whenever some town applies for a grant to revitalize its downtown, for people to renovate their homes, or whatever, we are talking about tax dollars. Multiply those local expenditures times the tens of thousands of other communities in this nation and you can see why we have such a huge budget in our federal government.
Government loans are probably even worse than grants. Why do I say that? Because the federal government taxes us citizens to get the capital. Then they turn around and lend it to municipalities like Selma or Benson, as is the case in this instance. Then the town has to pay back borrowed tax dollars with funds it derives from...yup, you guessed it, tax dollars. In essence, we are being taxed twice for the same funding.
The federal government has no business being in the lending industry. It has no business redistributing the wealth of its citizens. People wonder why I am passionate about such waste and why I decry it so. It is because it truly impacts each and every tax payer in this nation. There are some who pay no taxes. Even people who pay very little taxes often get back more money than they paid the government by nature of the earned income tax credit and the recent tax rebate incentive package.
In the 1950's, women were primarily stay at home mothers and wives. The man of the house went to work in the morning and came home in the evening. They usually lived comfortably on one salary. Nowadays, that is virtually impossible for many Americans. It means that more and more families can not survive on a single income so now both parents have to work. It means that children are placed in day care so that a stranger can raise the children instead of their own parents. It means that there is a lot more economic pressure that stresses out couples and fractures their marriages. It means that women have lost the sense of femininity and compete with men in the work place instead of glorying in the role of a mother that they were created to perform. It means that the high taxation rates have short changed our youth instead of helping them. It means that welfare queens can have more babies and get more money instead of marrying a man and settling down. It undermines the family. The ironic thing is that such pork barrel spending is intended to benefit the population it destroys by driving the cost of government and subsequently taxation higher and higher.
I am not adverse to spending money on actual infrastructure projects that benefit everyone. For instance, I saw a lot of apparently sewer line construction going on in my neighborhood over the past few weeks. That is something we need to maintain since it serves a vital interest of the entire town. I am all for improvements and replacements when needed. A gray water pipeline, however, would not benefit most citizens, much less all of them. It would be a small population deriving benefits from the pockets of the majority. That is why we have so much spending in our nation and why we can not have "The Donna Reed Show" type family arrangement anymore. The squeeze has been put on the traditional family model and that foundation has been cracking for decades now.
I read with interest recently about how the Town of Benson was going to move forward with a three million dollar waste water reclamation and recycling project. The US Department of Agriculture is lending Benson $886,000 towards building an eight mile wastewater reclamation pipeline to one customer. The customer, a plant nursery, would use the water for irrigation of decorative and other non food source vegetation. Other possible future use could be for watering golf courses, sod production irrigation, and pasture lands.
Water reclamation is not a bad idea. I am all for recycling used water, often called "gray water" for purposes of irrigation, construction, and other non-potable purposes. If the water is just going to waste anyway, then I say it is a great move to do so. However, I have a slight problem with the US government paying for a small town like Benson to build a pipeline to reclaim said water for the benefit of one customer and the hope of adding more. Why should people in Arkansas or California be contributing to the project here in North Carolina?
Projects like this are what I consider to be pork barrel spending. Sure, some people may benefit. However, it is not the job of the federal government to act like an unending pool of money to be siphoned off for special or experimental projects.
When building or expanding the town's water supply is the time to innovate and include the gray water reclamation lines. I remember that the proposed ethanol plant in Selma was planning on using gray water for its plant. However, there was no such line or reclamation efforts existing anywhere. One would have to be built from the far side of Smithfield all the way in to Selma's fringes. That of course would have been funded by tax dollars in one form or another.
Government grants are TAX DOLLARS. Never forget that fact. Whenever some town applies for a grant to revitalize its downtown, for people to renovate their homes, or whatever, we are talking about tax dollars. Multiply those local expenditures times the tens of thousands of other communities in this nation and you can see why we have such a huge budget in our federal government.
Government loans are probably even worse than grants. Why do I say that? Because the federal government taxes us citizens to get the capital. Then they turn around and lend it to municipalities like Selma or Benson, as is the case in this instance. Then the town has to pay back borrowed tax dollars with funds it derives from...yup, you guessed it, tax dollars. In essence, we are being taxed twice for the same funding.
The federal government has no business being in the lending industry. It has no business redistributing the wealth of its citizens. People wonder why I am passionate about such waste and why I decry it so. It is because it truly impacts each and every tax payer in this nation. There are some who pay no taxes. Even people who pay very little taxes often get back more money than they paid the government by nature of the earned income tax credit and the recent tax rebate incentive package.
In the 1950's, women were primarily stay at home mothers and wives. The man of the house went to work in the morning and came home in the evening. They usually lived comfortably on one salary. Nowadays, that is virtually impossible for many Americans. It means that more and more families can not survive on a single income so now both parents have to work. It means that children are placed in day care so that a stranger can raise the children instead of their own parents. It means that there is a lot more economic pressure that stresses out couples and fractures their marriages. It means that women have lost the sense of femininity and compete with men in the work place instead of glorying in the role of a mother that they were created to perform. It means that the high taxation rates have short changed our youth instead of helping them. It means that welfare queens can have more babies and get more money instead of marrying a man and settling down. It undermines the family. The ironic thing is that such pork barrel spending is intended to benefit the population it destroys by driving the cost of government and subsequently taxation higher and higher.
I am not adverse to spending money on actual infrastructure projects that benefit everyone. For instance, I saw a lot of apparently sewer line construction going on in my neighborhood over the past few weeks. That is something we need to maintain since it serves a vital interest of the entire town. I am all for improvements and replacements when needed. A gray water pipeline, however, would not benefit most citizens, much less all of them. It would be a small population deriving benefits from the pockets of the majority. That is why we have so much spending in our nation and why we can not have "The Donna Reed Show" type family arrangement anymore. The squeeze has been put on the traditional family model and that foundation has been cracking for decades now.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Column for Jan. 31, 2008
Remember, grant money is not free. We pay for it either way.
Is grant money from the federal government that is awarded to local towns or states free money? How about grant money that is given to private corporations or citizens? Is there any such thing as free money? Of course not. If it comes from our tax dollars one way or another.
I read with interest the news that the Town of Selma was awarded $850,000 in grant money last week. The money is intended for "community revitalization, infrastructure improvements, and the construction of affordable housing". Selma was one of eighteen municipalities that received grants. The money was supplied through U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and was doled out through the NC government. Also, I read that the towns of Pine Level, Henderson, and Dunn were awarded grant money through the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the purposes of safety, operational expenses, and fire equipment acquisition.
Perhaps we would have more ability to do things locally if the federal and state governments did not siphon off so much money into Washington, DC. Second, even though these are "grants", they are still coming from tax dollars. Furthermore, the purpose of the grants are to be for "rehabilitation of housing" and the construction of "affordable housing". The term affordable is subjective. The idea of my tax dollars being taken from me, a man who works a full time, skilled labor job, on the threat of force if I do not comply voluntarily to dole out my hard earned money, and having those dollars inefficiently laundered through the world's largest bureaucracy only to be filtered down to another bureaucracy, then to another, then to private citizens for them to pay minimal money for housing or to renovate their existing homes is just plain repugnant. It is insulting. It is unfair. It is a disincentive to succeed. It is communistic and evil.
There were 18 towns in NC that got the HUD grants and three FEMA grants in the state. Multiply this times hundreds of towns across the country each year and you can see how our tax dollars are being wasted on programs that are not even supposed to exist. Take this program and multiply it by the countless such programs that some communistic or ignorant fools have pushed through Congress, and some well meaning but selfish President who wants to get re-elected and play politics with our tax money have passed, and the amount of money is mind boggling.
Perhaps the only thing more insidious than the idea of a grant from the federal government to a municipality is the concept of the federal government providing a loan to a local municipality other local government for the purposes of infrastructure development and community revitalization. In such instances, we are taxed at the federal level to provide the loan and then get taxed on the local level to pay the loan back to the federal government.
I had an email discussion with a close friend about an article from 1955 in "Housekeeping Monthly". I have a copy of this article on my personal web site. The article was full of tips for women on how to take care of their husbands, how to run the home, how to relieve personal and family stress, and the like. This conservative lady asserted that the article was from 1955 and this was 2008. Below is my response, which is related to my disdain for such government spending.
"In 1955, most women did stay at home and take care of the kids and do the house work. Unfortunately, our tax burden increased substantially necessitating a dual income family. Also, the women's liberation movement only hurt the family structure. The 1960's forward really hurt with the hedonism, atheistic, and hyper libertine agendas. That led to a decline in the family unit, an emphasis on self reliance instead of family reliance, a rise in births out of wedlock, single parent families, divorce, and the need for women to work outside the home." By family versus self reliance, I was referring to the idea of only thinking of one's own self, not supporting the family unit but instead believing that one can and should only rely on one's own self. For instance, a woman can and should be able to stay at home and raise her children rather than paying some low income earner with a different set of values to raise them for her.
It is bad enough that we have a high percentage of our money taken in the form of taxation of various types and from various levels of government. To have my tax dollars, which could be used to renovate my own home (which I have been trying to work on more and more lately) and have them sucked into a giant bureaucracy and given to someone else to renovate their home is a travesty. It angers me, and it should you, too. I believe that I know how to spend my money better than some bureaucrat does.
Is grant money from the federal government that is awarded to local towns or states free money? How about grant money that is given to private corporations or citizens? Is there any such thing as free money? Of course not. If it comes from our tax dollars one way or another.
I read with interest the news that the Town of Selma was awarded $850,000 in grant money last week. The money is intended for "community revitalization, infrastructure improvements, and the construction of affordable housing". Selma was one of eighteen municipalities that received grants. The money was supplied through U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and was doled out through the NC government. Also, I read that the towns of Pine Level, Henderson, and Dunn were awarded grant money through the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the purposes of safety, operational expenses, and fire equipment acquisition.
Perhaps we would have more ability to do things locally if the federal and state governments did not siphon off so much money into Washington, DC. Second, even though these are "grants", they are still coming from tax dollars. Furthermore, the purpose of the grants are to be for "rehabilitation of housing" and the construction of "affordable housing". The term affordable is subjective. The idea of my tax dollars being taken from me, a man who works a full time, skilled labor job, on the threat of force if I do not comply voluntarily to dole out my hard earned money, and having those dollars inefficiently laundered through the world's largest bureaucracy only to be filtered down to another bureaucracy, then to another, then to private citizens for them to pay minimal money for housing or to renovate their existing homes is just plain repugnant. It is insulting. It is unfair. It is a disincentive to succeed. It is communistic and evil.
There were 18 towns in NC that got the HUD grants and three FEMA grants in the state. Multiply this times hundreds of towns across the country each year and you can see how our tax dollars are being wasted on programs that are not even supposed to exist. Take this program and multiply it by the countless such programs that some communistic or ignorant fools have pushed through Congress, and some well meaning but selfish President who wants to get re-elected and play politics with our tax money have passed, and the amount of money is mind boggling.
Perhaps the only thing more insidious than the idea of a grant from the federal government to a municipality is the concept of the federal government providing a loan to a local municipality other local government for the purposes of infrastructure development and community revitalization. In such instances, we are taxed at the federal level to provide the loan and then get taxed on the local level to pay the loan back to the federal government.
I had an email discussion with a close friend about an article from 1955 in "Housekeeping Monthly". I have a copy of this article on my personal web site. The article was full of tips for women on how to take care of their husbands, how to run the home, how to relieve personal and family stress, and the like. This conservative lady asserted that the article was from 1955 and this was 2008. Below is my response, which is related to my disdain for such government spending.
"In 1955, most women did stay at home and take care of the kids and do the house work. Unfortunately, our tax burden increased substantially necessitating a dual income family. Also, the women's liberation movement only hurt the family structure. The 1960's forward really hurt with the hedonism, atheistic, and hyper libertine agendas. That led to a decline in the family unit, an emphasis on self reliance instead of family reliance, a rise in births out of wedlock, single parent families, divorce, and the need for women to work outside the home." By family versus self reliance, I was referring to the idea of only thinking of one's own self, not supporting the family unit but instead believing that one can and should only rely on one's own self. For instance, a woman can and should be able to stay at home and raise her children rather than paying some low income earner with a different set of values to raise them for her.
It is bad enough that we have a high percentage of our money taken in the form of taxation of various types and from various levels of government. To have my tax dollars, which could be used to renovate my own home (which I have been trying to work on more and more lately) and have them sucked into a giant bureaucracy and given to someone else to renovate their home is a travesty. It angers me, and it should you, too. I believe that I know how to spend my money better than some bureaucrat does.
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