Symptom of the Disease
Local budgets depend on state and federal grants for larger and larger portions of their funding. State budgets depend on federal hand-outs even more so. Soon, those grants become unfunded mandates. The finger is pointed at the federal government for leaving states and communities high-and-dry as politicians demand even more money to replace lost funding.
This – for lack of a better term – is our disease. Our politicians in Washington are rated on how much money they can steal from the residents of other states to be redistributed back home. This continues while most of you don’t even know the names of representatives on your town’s finance committee.
The following posts are from our Symptom of the Disease category, and these symptoms (posts) can easily referred back to our country's disease.
Do you have an issue with Google driving around the world capturing personal information? While many countries are holding Google to a high standard and taking them to court, claiming private information was stolen, Google management raised $1.8 million for Democrats at one dinner … and four days later…
I mentioned health care mandate waiver requests on Oct. 6 (two days ago). The big discussion was centered around McDonald’s and their mini-med health care programs that would not meet medical loss ratio requirements in the law. Now we learn a branch of the American Federation of Teachers – who campaigned and donated big dollars…
Small businesses are somewhat resilient when it comes to dealing with state and federal regulations, and to a certain extent, large businesses can deal with the new rules and rule changes a bit more effectively since they can absorb additional costs across different business areas. What small and large businesses both have more difficulty with…
ACORN still exists, they were never put out of business. They simply changed the name of the organization, continuing their abuse of the system. Another symptom of the disease since any sort of federal funding of programs like this is completely unconstitutional.
I’m not surprised at all. I’m not exactly certain if a call like this is illegal or an ethical issue, but last night, Big Government posted a voicemail to a reported lobbyist left by Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) looking for a donation. Another symptom of the disease that leaves a bad taste in your…
Sure, she’s got an election coming up where she hopefully will get tossed out of office, but the revelations today in the Dallas Morning News is incredible. She requested scholarship checks be re-written and made out specifically to family members.
I’ve been thinking about writing a book. Have discussed the project with Jim multiple times during the last 18 months. I’d call it Symptoms of the Disease of course, and it would highlight stories like Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) dishing out scholarships from a charitable foundation to family members.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) is reminding Arkansas voters she brought back – more or less stole – millions of dollars from other states in federal pork spending. I’ve mentioned this in the past … states are getting into the habit of voting for incumbents as long as they bring back more pork dollars then the…
This “Race to the Top” thing is totally stupid. From what I remember, Connecticut failed to get an application in on time and lost out, now New Jersey inserts 2008 budget numbers into a binder – instead of the required 2010 numbers – and they miss out [oh well] on $400 million?
Symptom of the disease I tell ya. Corruption is everywhere in Washington and the solution to solve the beltway-critter’s cash redistribution efforts is to move power back to the states. Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) sponsors a bill which would provide federal grants to overseas wildlife protection for lions and cheetahs. Rogers’ daughter likes cats.