A government grant can sometimes be a very good investment. For example, for what I received in grant money my senior year in college, I paid back three-fold in my first year income-tax payment.
PuzzledInTX: “A government grant can sometimes be a very good investment.”
Government handouts sometimes result in positive outcomes. I’m not denying that. But you’re comparing individual outcomes versus the generalized impact of government handouts. For every success story, there are far, far more negative outcomes. Government simply cannot do anything efficiently. It’s not possible. Bureaucracies, by their very nature, are inefficient.
Government grants are essentially theft. You are taking money from other people against their will. It’s just not the same thing as a grant from a private charity. In that case, the givers are rewarded for their (voluntary) sacrifice, the charity is typically much more efficient both in picking who gets the aid and how they use it, and the recipient is rewarded by not using the force of government to take from others.
Government mandated wealth redistribution, in any form, is always theft. The fact that your outcome turned out great is irrelevant. You basically took money from me and mine so that you could benefit. Like I wrote, the tuition I paid for mine was higher because government handouts made it easier for the colleges to raise tuition rates.
I’m not condemning you. I just want you to understand what really happened. Government programs are very, very deceptive. When the government takes money out of my pocket to give to someone else, it masks what’s going on. Most Americans would NEVER go up to someone, open their wallet, and steal cash, but it’s all cool when government does it. After all, it’s a government program not someone’s money—but it IS other people’s money.