Posts Tagged ‘government’
The magical stimulus millionaire
I know the Stimulus package has been said to create a few well paying jobs… but this one just boggles the mind. According to Recovery.gov, a site which we’re supposed to have great faith in because it falls under the control of the government, a lucky American got a job created by $3,203,404 in stimulus money.
And this individual should feel even more lucky considering the fact that it was the one and ONLY job created in his/her congressional district!
Speaking of congressional districts… I wonder if Illinois is the only state with a 00 district? Who represents IL-00 and is it an open seat for 2010?
Indiana Mitch Daniels rightfully points out why Illinois Government is totally failing its citizens.
As if we actually need more examples of big government Republicans leading the charge in building a nanny state, right?
But this story is well worth the mention…
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has decided he, along with the big California government, is going to choose for you what you can and cannot eat. You see, he just signed into law a bill that will ban trans fats across the entire state of California.
LOS ANGELES — California, a national trendsetter in all matters edible, became the first state to ban trans fats in restaurants when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill Friday to phase out their use.
Absolutely fantastic job, Governor. We freedom advocates are so proud of you!
Not.
Count this as my quote of the week.
“Hardly anyone today thinks the quality of education has increased considerably over the last several decades. Yet from 1961-2005, per-pupil education spending in the United States increased by 247 percent, adjusted for inflation. In fact, per-pupil spending hikes on public education from 1961-2005 were so massive they dwarf the rates of price increases in housing, automobiles and even gasoline, and have outpaced increases in personal income as well.”
- Patrick Gibbons, Nevada Policy Research Institute, 7/24/08
More money and a much bigger government bureaucracy has produced… well… nothing new.
Fabulous.
H/T: NPRI
This story is a little more local than most of our pork reports, but it still warrants a heads up.
Maggie Thurber has discovered an amazing abuse of tax dollars in the City of Toledo. Apparently,Toledo is gearing up to spend a whopping $600,000 to open several pool locations.
As Maggie points out, the City is taking the nanny state approach by deciding the costs are not relevant when it comes to providing comfort for citizens.
Kattie Bond, director of Toledo’s department of neighborhoods, said the benefit of operating city pools outweighs the cost.
“It is important to provide recreational opportunities for citizens,” Ms. Bond said. “We live in a city where we do get hot weather, so it’s important we provide a place for kids to at least get wet and cool off.”
Maggie also tosses in some pretty convincing numbers that lead to the conclusion this $600,000 project will only serve less than 2% of the population.
Last year, the pools served 25,151 entrants. The city did not keep track of how many of those ‘entrants’ were the same individual. They also charged $1 for entry.
In 2007, there were six pools open (one was a splash pad) compared to the 12 facilities opened in 2006. Despite the increased attendance at two of the pools, overall attendance at the six facilities declined 18.5% from 30,841 to 25,151. This clearly indicates that individuals who had access to a pool in 2006 did not travel to other locations in 2007 in order to “get wet and cool off.” (I just can’t imagine how they survived!)
As these numbers are visits and not visitors, it’s hard to estimate just how important this cost is to the general public. For sake of argument, let’s estimate that individuals likely to use the pool facilities will do so five times during the season. This seems a reasonable estimate considering the number of days the pools are open.
Using this assumption, the pools had about 5,000 unique visitors. The 2006 Census data shows that there are 74,896 children (under 18 years of age) in Toledo. Even if every visitor to the pools was a child, we would be serving less than 7% of the kids in the city. If we consider total population, those estimated 5,000 unique visitors represent less than 2% of the population.
Lovely, isn’t it?
Cross posted at The Oink Report and Conservablogs.com
A good friend of mine lobbed a link my way showing that Oklahomans for Responsible Government had put together a blog and were looking to promote their ideas into the new media realm. I found this to be very encouraging, and the content of the blog is superb.
There for, I decided to put together a list of freedom movement blogs. Enjoy!
-State Policy Network Blog
-Oklahomans for Responsible Government
-Pacific Research Institute
-Pioneer Institute
-Global Warming
-Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs
-Citizens Against Government Waste
-North Dakota Policy Council
-The Heritage Foundation
That’s it for this post. I’ll start doing one of these every Friday with the intent to highlight good center-right blogs.
-Eric
It’s double trouble for a Rock Hill family. First they lose their house through eminent domain. Then the city sues them for removing items from their house before it was demolished. FOX 2’s Elliott Davis asks what’s really behind the lawsuit in this You Paid For It report.
H/T: Izzy Santa
