Thursday, October 20, 2011

BloggeRhythms 10/20/2011

The White House, Joe Biden and Dem's in Congress are jumping up and down again, demanding more federal money be spent on mini-stimulus packages, such as hiring more teachers and police in various localities. But they're forgetting two things. Those jobs are the responsibility of localities themselves and not the feds, and secondly, stimulus funds almost never get spent where they were designated, they mostly get frittered away on other purposes.

In the same vein, an article on Fox caught my eye this morning. Another $424,000 in federal stimulus funds were lost by TR Auto Truck Plaza off Interstate 40 in Tennessee.

The Tennessee Department of Transportation gave the company an Environmental Protection Agency stimulus grant for electrical hookups so truckers wouldn't have to burn diesel fuel while resting. Now, I honestly don't know if that's a worthwhile project or not. However, even if it's a good thing to do, here's what happened to the bucks.

Both the state and EPA were apparently unaware that the truck stop's owner, Rick Lewis, had a history of legal and financial problems and had filed for bankruptcy. And now, Tennessee's first electrified truck terminal is boarded up.

Representative Phil Gingrey, a Republican from Georgia said, "It is Solyndra in miniature. What I am questioning is the vetting and oversight and the fiduciary responsibility that the federal government -the people who run these programs- have to we, the taxpayer."

And, apparently, there's neither vetting, oversight or any other kind of diligence either because even before this bankruptcy filing, Rick Lewis had a history of financial troubles. He filed for bankruptcy in 2003, a year after a conviction on 31 counts of theft, and currently faces indictments for allegedly writing worthless checks, according to court records.

So my question for today is, while these clowns in the administration and Congress are screaming for more taxpayer funds, which of them are accountable for the billions they've wasted due to outright stupidity and gross dereliction of duty? What's more, giving them additional funds to waste is the same as giving it to Zippy the Chimp.

And I think that before they're allowed to spend another cent of other people's money, they should be forced to account for every dime they've already spent. And whatever the shortfall is, they should be made to pay it personally, and after that taxpayer's can consider whether or not they'll pay the rest.

That's it for today folks.

Adios

No comments:

Post a Comment