Federal "grant money" is still tax payer money

There is no such thing as public money; there is only taxpayers’ money. - Margaret Thatcher

I have long decried the local municipality paradigm of looking to the federal government for a source of funding for every pet project.  Not every single "good idea" or even "nice idea" needs to be funded at the public expense.

I remember one local mayor that was praising a US Congressman for constantly helping get road funding for his little town from the national coffers.  I have a better idea.  Instead of extracting the money from local taxpayers to begin with, why not leave the money in the pockets of the populace so that the local governments can finance their own expenditures?

I am so tired of the mentality that keeps people and lower levels of government dependent upon Washington, DC for their monetary needs and desires.  I have seen this here in my little town of Selma, NC.  For years the town has repeatedly looked to the US Government for loans and grants to fund water, sewer, roads, building renovations, and now even a civic center.  Our town only has about 6,000 residents.  We already have a parks and recreation department, a local Lions Club building that the public can rent, and an entire former school complex that is used as a gymnasium, workout center, meeting place, and can be used for civic events.

An old gymnasium has been re-incarnated as a utility contractor's building and was later given to the local American Legion, who in turn sold it to the town under the guise of building a civic center.  OK, this is a nice idea for our little town, but I sure don't want to spend our tax dollars on it.  The town was already hoodwinked into paying $60,000 for the facility.  Well, that facility needs an additional $300,000 in renovations in order to be usable.  The concept was sold to the town that private fundraising could bring in the money necessary, but a couple of years later, no such thing has happened.

The town has applied for and is waiting on the results of the grant application from the USDA.  The USDA?  Why is the US Department of Agriculture involved in any way, shape, form, or fashion in the funding of a small-town civic center?  Of what importance is this to the topic of agriculture?  For that matter, why has it been the USDA that has been involved in our town's loans for sewer line projects?  I fail to see a single provision in the US Constitution that allows for Congress to make provision for any such program or projects.  Why should someone in Montana be paying tax dollars to help renovate a civic center in Podunk, North Carolina?  I commented on this very project on my TV commentary as far back as 2015.

Whenever a town gets money from the federal government, it is still money extracted from the pockets of taxpayers.  When a town borrows money from the feds, it is even worse.  We have to be taxed to supply the funds lent to the town.  Then we have to pay taxes to the town to repay the loan to the feds at interest, so we get doubly taxed on all such subsidies and loans.  The only good thing about a grant is that we pay the tax money once, not twice.

I, for one, am tired of seeing small towns attempting to suckle off the federal government teat and often settling for the crumbs that fall from Caesar's table, instead.  I am tired of seeing our government run money laundering schemes and overtaxing the citizenry for the sake of retaining power over people and local governments.  I am tired of local politicians agreeing to be beholden to the national pork barrel spending projects that are bleeding us taxpayers dry.  And I am tired of seeing the national government spend money upon projects that are wholly unconstitutional.

Mortgage bail out bothers me as a matter of fairness as well as legality

I have written about this before and I probably will again. I am tremendously bothered by the idea that the federal government is about to bail out mortgage lenders and mortgage payers. I busted my tail to get good enough credit and income to be able to have a house. I did not buy more house than I could afford. I settled for a house that was within my desired price range and within the quality, size, and comfort levels I desired. Overall, I have been happy with that decision and I have never failed to be able to pay my mortgage as a result. As with any older home, there are things I have needed to dump money into for repairs and improvements. I would obviously prefer not to have to pay the money for such, but that is part of home ownership.

Neal Boortz wrote about this very concept this morning on his news page. It echoes my sentiments.

ANOTHER GUMMIT BAILOUT

This one could cost $25 billion, but what the hell. Actually ... that's a minimum estimate. Some analysts think the mortgage bail-out that Bush is oh-so-eagerly going to sign this week could cost $300 billion. The politicians who curry favor and buy votes with this money don't have to worry about where the money comes from. They're going to be long-gone when the bill comes due. They only have to worry about doing what they need to do to buy votes so they can enjoy the prestige and privileges of power until that time.

Who are these people who are going to be bailed out?

* People who knew they were buying more house than they could afford, and who thought that they would be bailed out by rising equity.
* People who got home loans in spite of bad credit ratings ... loans spurred by media and government anguish over the unavailability of home loans to bad credit risks.
* People who bought the house, took out the loan, and moved on in knowing full well that they wouldn't be able to make the payments when the interest rates went up. But what the hell .. they would just ride the cheap rates until then, and throw in the keys.

Yes...I know that there were some bad actors in the mortgage business. There are bad actors in every business. Me, for instance. But I can remember a dozen or so years ago when almost every major newspaper in the country was running investigative reports on the evils of the mortgage business. These reports told us that these evil mortgage companies were not doing enough to bring the American dream of home ownership to poorer people. The nasty mortgage lenders were actually using criteria such as income, job stability, credit ratings, loan-to-value ratio and other anti-inclusive measurements to intentionally keep minorities, single women and other poor, poor pitiful victims out of the home market. So --- before the feds stepped in and made them do it – the evil mortgage lenders started lending to people that should be renting. And here we are.

Remember...over 95% of the people in this country with home loans are making those payments each and every month. So what kind of crisis is this really? Can't it be said we're weeding out the chaff here?

It is NOT the job of the taxpayers of this nation to bail out those who have taken bad financial decisions in life. It is not my fault that others have taken loans they can not repay. It is not my fault that some people were stupid enough to take variable interest rate loans and are now paying the price for that stupidity. It is not my fault that people got mortgages that they had no intention of being able to repay over the long haul. It is not my fault or the fault of the rest of the tax payers who are or have been faithful in paying for our homes. Not only that, I do not recall any provision in the Constitution that would allow Congress or the President to spend taxpayer money on any such thing.

This is just another boondoggle in which we are getting screwed by our elected officials so that they can look like the knight in shining armor that came to the defense of the average citizen. No, they are the thieves who took from the average citizen and gave the collective wealth to corporations that should never have undertaken such bad business decisions and to other citizens who should never have been allowed to get such risky loans to begin with. Were it not for threats of government action to begin with, the mortgage companies probably would never have underwritten such loans.

We have the largest budget in world history. We have an unfathomable amount of national debt. We have spending on special interest projects that do not benefit the public good. We waste more money than some nations have as a GDP. We have confiscatory taxation levels that would cause a tea party and disgust the Founding Fathers. Quite frankly, I am sick of it all. Unfortunately, I see no end in sight. The world's system is corrupting our government and bankrupting our nation.

Here is a news article on the pending bail out. Bend over, grab ankles.

The measure, regarded as the most significant housing legislation in decades, lets homeowners who cannot afford their payments refinance into more affordable government-backed loans rather than losing their homes.

It offers a temporary financial lifeline to troubled mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- pillars of the home loan market whose losses have sparked investor fears -- and tightens controls over the two government-sponsored businesses.

Furthermore, the article states:

The legislation overhauls the Depression-era FHA. It requires lenders to show how high a borrower's payment could get under the terms of his mortgage. It provides $180 million in pre-foreclosure counseling for struggling homeowners.

The Treasury Department gains unlimited power, until the end of 2009, to lend money to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or buy their stock should they need it. The Federal Reserve takes on a new "consultative" role overseeing the companies.

The measure includes $15 billion in tax cuts, including a significant expansion of the low-income housing tax credit and a credit of up to $7,500 for first-time home buyers for houses purchased between April 9, 2008, and July 1, 2009.

This is just unfair to others who have been faithful in their mortgage payments and the tax payers who have to foot the bill. This sucks royally.

Water conservation and reclamation hurts American families?

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. Why should people in Arkansas 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 existing anywhere. One would have to be built from way out in 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, 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. Yes, building a gray water reclamation pipeline in Benson helps undermine its own citizenry.

Here is the news item from the WTSB news page.

Benson Receives Federal Loan To Fund $3M Reclaimed Wastewater Project
Benson is one step closer to start construction of a nearly eight-mile pipeline to take treated wastewater and deliver it to CPC Wholesale Nursery on Benson Hardee Road where it will be used for irrigation. The town has accepted a low-interest loan for $886,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help fund the $3 million project. Reclaimed wastewater can be used to irrigate decorative plants and other crops not intended for human consumption. Commercial-scale grass growing operations, including pasture land, golf courses and turf farms, are common beneficiaries of reclaimed wastewater. While no other area businesses or farmers have expressed an interest in tying their irrigation systems into the pipeline, officials maintain it’s an excellent incentive to prospective agribusiness owners. Benson Town Manager Keith Langdon said the nursery was chosen as the initial recipient of the water because of the amount of water they use for irrigation: between 300,000 to 350,000 gallons per day. The pipeline is part of a water reclamation project that would capture an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 gallons per day of water that would otherwise be dumped back into Hannah Creek. The town is currently restricted to treating and discharging no more than 1.97 million gallons per day. While the reclaimed water project will reduce the amount of treated wastewater being released, it will not increase the capacity of the water treatment plant, according to Martin Morris, the plant supervisor. Water reclamation is not entirely new to Benson. For the past two years, effluent from the wastewater treatment plant has been routed to South Johnston High School - about a mile from the plant - to be used for irrigation. Mr. Morris said the school uses about 24,000 gallons per day.

Wonder why our tax rate is the way it is?

If we did not have to send to much money to Washington DC or Raleigh, we would have more local dollars available to spend on local issues. I am all for paving roads and such, but there are some things on which I do not think we should spend taxpayer dollars. It is not a hard concept, folks. Small spending amounts, when added together, make many billions of dollars. In Florida, just as in Alaska, there are representatives who are adept at bringing federal dollars to their area for funding pet projects.

Want to see where your tax dollars are being spent in Florida? Remember, it is YOUR money taken from YOU. You might as well find out why you are heavily taxed under threat of loss of freedom or property and income if you don't pay the burden.