Morning. I have another project. Pet peeve. I would love to ask all the candidate, though I am sure a straight answer is like hens teeth, this question. Since there are still people from Katrina displaced and in those trailers (which I think have caused health problems) then why are we spending millions/billions in the space program. Its like a mother buying Jimmy Choo shoes and not having enough to feed her kids.
So with that sort of thing in mind. I ride to many barns in Maryland. I became curious about how much was spent on flowers on the highway. I mean its lovely but it just seems sort of frivolous when people are still hurting. So I decided to see how much , as a state , we spend. ($150,000) I don’t know if I should email the rest of the states or use that as an average. But couldn't this money be donated for one year for that purpose so actual people can bloom.
My Response
Well, if the ($150,000) would actually get to the people to help I might agree with you, however by the time the government got through with it maybe 10 cents out of the dollar might make it somewhere useful. I also bet that there are/would be private organizations willing to donate the resources to plant the flowers. However there are so many government regulations that they probably couldn't afford the liability insurance - let alone the flowers.
And sorry, but don't get me started on Katrina. Being a resident of a state that handles hurricane preparedness and the aftermath well what happened in Louisiana irritates the hell out of me. Everyone saw the 1000+ school buses sitting in the flooded lot. When the question was raised about why they were not used to evacuate people - Ray "Chocolate City" Nagin said, "We couldn't find anyone to drive them." yeah right. If a 15 year old boy could commandeer a bus, pick up people along the streets in New Orleans and get three fourths of the way to Houston before he was stopped then they damn sure could have found people who would have been more than willing to drive those buses. A few days before the hurricane hit - when it was pretty obvious the storm was going to hit New Orleans - the President asked the Governor of Louisiana to let the Louisiana National Guard be federalized so they would be under the direction of the federal government and she refused. Had that happened I guarantee you there would have been national guard people to drive the buses. So I put 98% of the human devastation caused during the storm directly on the shoulders of the Louisiana and New Orleans governments. That being said I lay a majority of the foolishness that happened in the weeks, months, and years following at the feet of the feds. Instead of thinking the darn things out and getting the people what they needed they Knee-jerked in response to the publicity and started handing out $2,000.00 cash cards - a lot of which got spent in strip clubs and on $600.00 designer purses, etc.
Again - so many government regulations and bureaucracies so big that one hand doesn't know what the other is doing just means waste and very little accomplished. And, again, there are probably many private concerns that could do better but too many government regulations.
As far as the space program goes, sorry, but I am for it. Actually their real dollars (when adjusted for inflation and in relation to other government programs) have shrunk. Still over the life of NASA the science in many fields (medicine, computer technology, etc.) have migrated into the private sector and returned more than the dollars invested. So I have no problem with it whatsoever. As far as your analogy goes about the mother buying the shoes and not having enough to feed her kids - I feel this way. There are always going to be people in this country who -either by birth or because of disease or accident - are incapable of taking care of themselves. I think it is our moral responsibility to take care of those people and we could do it well and very easily if it weren't for the fact that too many politicians are in the business of paying people for their own bad behavior/decisions - just to buy votes.
Well - I'm climbing down off my soapbox - for now.
Later,,
Dane
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