Posted on 09/05/2009 9:45:04 AM PDT by AJKauf
There’s a shell game in government that makes it nearly impossible for you and I to stop the runaway spending. Worse, it’s designed to get you to focus on a seemingly insoluble problem far away, while the real solution lies just down the street, practically in your own backyard.
Let me use the concrete example of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, to show how this masterful diversion plays out. I’m sure it works much the same where you live. [Disclosure: I'm currently running for Lehigh County executive, which is why I'm learning about this.]
How they avoid tar and feathers
Three-quarters of the Lehigh County budget ($305 million) is “pass-through” money that comes from the state and federal governments. We send our money to Gov. Ed Rendell. He launders it, it shrinks, and then he sends it back to us with careful instructions on how we may use it. There are 67 counties in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that operate by the same principle. Multiply that by 3,141 counties (or parishes, etc.) nationwide and you get a sense of the scope and impact....
(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...
The first thing that ought to go is the federal gas tax... just keep the money local ,, starve the pig in washington and quit playing the “80% of the money for this project came from Washington” game.
“He launders it, it shrinks, and then he sends it back to us with careful instructions on how we may use it.”
That, folks, is the first and foremost problem with this country. Why on earth should we send our money to the State or the Feds, let them take their cut for overhead, corruption, allowance for reelection goodies, earmarks, and high living, wash your fingerprints off of the dollars so you will not be able to recognize them when sent back to you and send them back with imprints of their Marxist agenda with restrictions and mandates on what you can do with them. Are we stupid or what? Somebody said the best government is that which takes place closest to the people. No truer words were spoken.
“He launders it, it shrinks, and then he sends it back to us with careful instructions on how we may use it.”
That, folks, is the first and foremost problem with this country. Why on earth should we send our money to the State or the Feds, let them take their cut for overhead, corruption, allowance for reelection goodies, earmarks, and high living, wash your fingerprints off of the dollars so you will not be able to recognize them when sent back to you and send them back with imprints of their Marxist agenda with restrictions and mandates on what you can do with them. Are we stupid or what? Somebody said the best government is that which takes place closest to the people. No truer words were spoken.
A fundamental reform which should be made to bring the Federal Government to heel is for states to collect the income tax revenues and then issue money to the Federal Government as necessary. That way each state would get its say as to how the money is spent. And if the money is not spent, it is then returned to the taxpayer.
It is my experience in California that the County collects property taxes and forwards them to the state. In return, county government and local districts combined get about 16-20% back. A larger share goes to schools.
Out of a $135 million county budget, our local general fund for operating government is about $32 million. (Sheriff, DA, PD, clerk, assessor, treaurer, assessor, planning, building, library, admin, county counsel, ag/animal control, auditor.) Most of the laws governing these functions are mandates from the state.
Our Road Dept.’s budget is about $11 million. Of the gas tax that largely funds this Dept., the county gets 3 cents of every 18 cent tax charged per gallon. The rest goes to the state and feds.
The remainder of the budget is pass through for mental health, human services (CPS/APS/welfare to work) and public health. These are essentially state accepted federal programs that the counties administer according to a contract.
If the Treasurer does not send in our property taxes, the state deducts them as owed from the other program monies.
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