Ugh. I went to Grokster Mike’s St. Patrick’s Day get together last nite and on the long trip down on WBZ, there was a little blurb about yet another group looking for yet another handout from the Federal Government. But first, some back ground as to my disgust: Our Federal debt has now exceeded our national output – From the US Treasury: the total Public Debt:
Jan 12, 2009: $10,609,790,681,008.44 March 15, 2012: $15,564,809,891,767.99
Debt added during the Obama Administration: $4,955,016,210,759.55
Our Gross Domestic Product (the measure of how much services and products our economy makes): $14.59 Trillion (Google Public Data). NO one, no official (either public or bureaucratic) is talking about this: how can this EVAH be paid off? So, what I heard on WBZ was a piece on a bunch of bikers from an organization called Bikes Belong.
Their own website shows that their main reason for being (see the red arrows, above, and the text below (emphasis mine)):
The federal transportation law is the largest source of U.S. bicycle facility funding. The main reason Bikes Belong formed in 1999 was to maximize federal funding for bicycling in this law, which is reauthorized every five or six years. Funding for bicycling also comes in other forms, such as through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act or TIGER grants.
Once again, we see people who wish to have government fund their hobby or preferred mode of transportation. From the chart at their own page, Federal funding was $20 million (1992), swelled to $1.4 Billion (2009) and was $791 million last year – a rise of 40 X over 20 years.
Oblivious – gimme mine from yours mentality. Look, you want bike paths? Fund it your self. Get your local entities (town, city, county) to fund them – most of the bike riding in your local areas IS local. Why make everyone else pay for it? Look, when younger, I used to ride all over the place, so I’m not anti-bike. But I am tired of everyone trying for all this free money (which NEVER is free) to build their own pet projects. Tell you what, Bikes Belong – your Hands Belong too (in your own pockets, not mine). If it is THAT worthwhile, your local taxpayers will vote for it. If not, stage a bike ride event to fund it yourselves.
I am still amazed that most people just don’t understand how dire our financial situation is and our Federal debt – they think it is simply “status quo”. When will the populace understand that each handout begging for more of other peoples’ money brings us just that much closer to the financial cliff? Will they simple keep marching forward, hands out, and walk into that thin air that will quickly show that there is a corresponding Financial Law to that of Gravity?
