Too Big? Too smart? I don't think either of those fit here... - Granite Grok

Too Big? Too smart? I don’t think either of those fit here…

The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified."

        – President Barack Obama, Inauguration, 1/20/09

As government gets bigger, it keeps getting the tendency to view taxpayer money as simply as sand pebbles on a beach – hey, ya throw some here, ya throw some there – look, there’s still plenty of sand (hmmm, let’s really contemplate this, eh?)!

WHO: Gov. Chet Culver, D-Iowa

WHAT: When Culver was Iowa’s secretary of state, his office received $30 million in federal funds to update the state’s voting machines under the Help America Vote Act.

WHY IT’S AN OUTRAGE: The Des Moines Register reports that federal election officials will soon decide whether $2.5 million of that amount should be returned after auditors found that Culver spent it inappropriately on public concerts and festivals.

WHERE TO VENT: Call Culver at 515-281-5211.

To be sure, Gov. Culver is a a Democrat – but it really doesn’t matter in this case.  This is all about the disregard and the disrespect for the hard work that goes into taxpayers earning the money that is then taken from them and used, in this case, willy-nilly.  Appropriated for one use legally, and then just spent "upon the wind for bread and circuses" – you mean that there was a real purpose to this?

Yes, there is a truism at work here – people at the lowest level of government know best what the local needs are.  Thus, they should be the one solving it AND if the citizenry at that local level approve, fund it.  This is a wonderful case story of whether our government is too big – if it were at the local level, this would not have happened.  If the monies had not been sent to DC and then "homogenized" and then doled out politically downward (with each level of government taking a cut of that money for "handling and processing"), there would be more to actually do what is needed.

For instance, ARRA stimulus funds to repave Rt 106 here in NH in front of the Loudon Race Track (where the road was perfectly fine, having been done just a little while ago?) – spent on tar instead of a better purpose of fixing some of the "redlined" bridges" that I keep hearing about?

Money "from above" almost always has strings and strictures – and seldom seems to comport with the actual needs of the community.

In the above case of voting machines and concerts, it seems to be too easy for politicians to "repurpose" funds as they see fit.  Got any bridges that yer complainin’ ’bout there, Guv?

Wouldn’t it have been better to fix those instead of concerts?  After all – it’s what Government is supposed to do, right?

(H/T: Washington Examiner)

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