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.

July 4 Tea Party information

By Steve McGough | July 2, 2009 |

For those looking for Tea Party events in Connecticut this weekend, there are three scheduled on July 4 in Hartford, Norwich and Stratford.

Symptom of the Disease: Senator calls regulators for “updates” (3)

By Steve McGough | July 1, 2009 |

Central Pacific Bank received a $135 million injection of capital from the Treasury Department two weeks after Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) had one of his aides contact the FDIC and ask about an application for TARP funds. Nothing illegal here, but doesn’t it smell rotten? Just another symptom of the disease example.

Symptom of the Disease: Politicians and their investments (Example 2)

By Steve McGough | June 29, 2009 |

For my next Symptom of the Disease example we review politicians and their personal finances. When politicians are involved with the regulation of business, they automatically are privy to a defacto version of insider trading. Cleveland.com reports members of the House Financial Services Committee were buying and selling banking and financial service stocks last fall.

Symptom of the disease: AmeriCorps (Example 1)

By Steve McGough | June 15, 2009 |

I’m starting a new themed series for future posts called Symptom of the disease, in which I will always refer back to this post. The current AmeriCorps story is example one, where it seems Gerald Walpin, the inspector general of AmeriCorps got fired for doing his job a bit too well and stepping on the…

Government does not always have to “do something”

By Steve McGough | June 10, 2009 |

I’ve been thinking about health care, the auto industry, mortgages, banking, housing and even the self-imposed energy crisis. With every one, Americans seem to have fallen into some desire for the federal government to step in and fix it. They need to do something!