February 05, 2009
More money for what?
The Congressional Porkfest -- masquerading as the stimulus bill -- is a grab-bag of giveaways, a Democratic (and RINO) dreamlist stuffed full of your money to pay for every possible program and special interest that has gone unloved and (supposedly) underfunded for the last twenty years.
John Hawkins is particularly incensed by the more than $170 million set aside for taxpayer-funded "art."
Folks, we are over 10 trillion dollars in debt. That comes out to almost $35,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country. So, if you're married and have a couple of kids, you're responsible for almost $140,000 of our national debt. Do you have a $140,000 to spare?
Additionally, we are on track to run TRILLION DOLLAR deficits for the foreseeable future. This stimulus package alone is now over 900 billion dollars, and the interest on it over the next decade will cost us another 300 billion dollars -- if we're lucky.
[...]
Which brings us back to this article. We're going to spent $122 million dollars, plus another $50 million on top of that, for art projects. Now, if we had no debt and let's say a $300 or $400 million dollars a year surplus, spending that money might merely produce an eye roll. "Geeze, couldn't we be spending the money on something more important than that? After all, in a rich country like this, it's not as if there is a shortage of people capable of supporting the arts."
However, going into debt, in order to spend $177 million dollars on the arts is sheer, screaming insanity. Seriously, we're going to go more than a billion dollars into debt over the next decade so that a bunch of bureaucrats can dole out of money for poetry readings and giant statues of koala bears made out of rat feces and old car parts? What the hell is wrong with this picture?
This sort of spending -- and this only one incredibly wasteful expenditure among thousands -- is a large part of the reason why the American people have so little confidence in their elected officials. It's because despite all the high and mighty rhetoric we get out of Washington, the people in charge are not competent, serious statesmen who have the nation's best interests at heart. Instead, Washington is teeming with frivolous, shallow, bush league, out-of-touch, Mary Antoinette "let them eat cake", fiddle while the whole country burns incompetents, who will claim everything's fine right up until the moment when the Federal Government's checks start bouncing and we can't even get other nations to loan us money any more.
There's a temptation, as we consider the TRILLION dollars Congress is willing to spend on this mess, to say that $177 million is a drop in the bucket; the elimination of the entire amount designated to fund mimes, "poets" and "performance 'artists' " (double scare quotes) won't make a dent in the overall size of the Pork-pa-looza.
But that's not the point. I disagree with Hawkins in this respect: I'd be against taxpayer funding of the arts if we were running a budget surplus and the streets were paved with gold. It's simply beyond the scope of what government ought to do to take -- take money from taxpayers and transfer it to so-called artists.
Want to donate to a local theater? Great! Get out your checkbook. Want to help fund a local orchestra? Terrific! Where's your checkbook. If we decide that we'd like to encourage this kind of charitable giving, we can amend the tax code to make these contributions tax deductible.
You are free to become a patron of the arts; Congress has no business forcing you -- via the taxman -- to do so.
Sure, $177 million may seem like chump change to some, but slashing $177 million here, $177 million there, and before you know it you're talking "real" money.
Posted by Mike Lief at February 5, 2009 07:38 AM
| TrackBack
Comments
I have a better idea. There are roughly 303 million people in the US. Why don't they give each of those people 400k. Talk about a stimulus plan.
177 million for the arts is stupid.
Posted by: RW at February 5, 2009 06:08 PM