Today there is a big headline in our small-town newspaper: 
“$200,000 Available in Special Event Grants”. It was “submitted” by the Montana Department of Commerce. I guess that would be an advertisement, right? Our government is so desperate to give money away, they have to advertise in small town newspapers.
Anyway, they want us to have parties. “Any Montana event is eligible to apply and the funds must be used to advertise and promote the event to target markets outside a 100-mile radius of the event site.”
I think I’ll have a beer kegger and invite the motorcycle dudes from Butte. Those guys know how to party!
“Since its inception in 2002, the Special Event grant program has been able to provide $757,500 in grant money to 89 events across the state”, the article continues. Gee, that is so generous of the program to give us all that money! Oh wait, where did that money come from?
This “grant” thing has become an epidemic. Taxpayers in Fargo pay for a party in Milwaukee, and Little Rock pays for a party in Phoenix, and Kansas City pays for a party in Missoula, and everybody thinks their parties are free. Now multiply this by thousands and thousands of grants awarded in every city of the United States every day. Grants for trails. Grants for home improvements. Grants for trees. Grants for seminars on how to write grants.
There are people in Montana state offices (paid by your tax dollars) who think having community parties is a good thing. Maybe it is, but then why shouldn’t the community pony up the money to advertise its own party?
Unfortunately, our dumbed-down citizenry thinks that grants really are free money. They repeatedly hear mayors and city councils say, “No local money is being spent on this project – we received a grant.” In my small hometown we have a lady who makes a nice living doing nothing but writing grant requests. Local officials love them because it gives voters the impression that they are “doing something” without spending our hard-earned money. How can anybody turn down free money?
It’s embarrassing how easy it has become to fleece the average American.
Well, I guess if the keepers-of-Montana-cash decide it should be spent on parties, so be it. But I don’t want to hear any whining about how we “can’t afford teachers or firemen.”
Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side
Money ! It’s a gas!
Grab that cash with both hands
and make a stash!
while another 85,000 workers dropped out of the labor force to join the ranks of the disabled. As fewer people can find or keep jobs, our federal government continues to take former workers onto the “dole” to artificially hide the true unemployment rate.
independence from King George and Great Britain. The document they presented to the world included a list of grievances against the King that justified their bold action.
The proponents of the Act act one time publicly insisted that the mandate is not a tax. Then the solicitor general insisted to the Supreme Court that it is, in fact, a tax. No one can know exactly what Roberts’ motivations were, but the result is the same. By labeling the mandate a tax, Roberts ensured that President Obama is the proud owner of an enormous tax increase, a deceptive one at that, and this will likely cost him a second term. The frosting on that cake is the fact that tax laws are easily repealed, requiring only 51 votes in the Senate, so ObamaCare will likely be tossed to the ash-heap of history anyway.
Tom Balek - Rockin' On The Right Side 