Friday, February 20, 2009

Don't waste it?

The President has warned America's mayors not to waste their stimulus packages. "Waste" is a subjective term in politics, but I usually interpret it to mean "expending more resources than necessary to achieve the desired result", "expending resources while failing to to achieve the desired result", or "my second year in college".

Here's the problem. These mayors are beholden to their respective constituents and nobody else. I suspect that these mayors will compete with each other to attract industries and professionals to their cities. Some mayors will win and some will lose.

I propose that cities and states should not be allowed to use public funds to steal jobs from each other. This is the sort of thing that the much abused interstate commerce clause in the Constitution was meant to address. If we really are all in this together, then there is no need for an economic zero-sum game.

3 comments:

Doug H 3rd Dist Rep LPIN said...

The big problem too is that fact that "waste" is a very loose term.

I consider Harrison Square to be a waste.

I consider the failed proposal by FWCS to be a waste.

I consider a lot of things government wants to do to be a waste.

However, waste is in the eye of the beholder. What is waste? My "waste" is someone else's "economic development". My waste is someone else's "economic stimulus". My waste is someone else's "necessary bailout".

Besides, what is President Obama going to do? Really? Fire elected officials? Like the great question in the movie Aliens, "What are we going to use, man, harsh language?"

The money should be returned with a "Thanks, but no thanks". We are too far in debt. This will only make things worse farther down the road.

And I'm afraid we're quickly running out of road.

Regards,

Doug Horner

Anonymous said...

The most disingenous slogan to come out of this whole perpetual campaigner in chief is "we're all in this together".

No we're not.
I sure as hell am not.

Robert Enders said...

Tim,
I sympathize with your sentiment. But I like to use my adversaries' rhetoric against them.

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