You laid out completely what is going on. I bet most people have no idea. Essentially, the states have been prostituting themselves for federal dollars. And that is how the Federal government has crept into every aspect and regulation of our lives, all the way into our local communities and schools.

Great diary. I am going to start printing out your stuff. I tend to like my files like this on paper.

It’s a big country, you know. I’d double the number.

I wrote a diary not long ago about social services, CPS, the health bill, and their cash cows in the form of America’s children. They always have some lofty goal that typically turns into fraudulent and wasteful entities, funneling money into their own pockets and into the pockets that direct other people’s money into the organizations.

I once heard that something like an average of 14 cents of every dollar is what actually gets spent on the thing that the dollars are supposed to fix. That ought to enrage anybody if true.+Somebody certainly needs to make government and the entities it funds live by the same rules as everyone else. Even more so. If an individual goes bankrupt, it doesn’t affect many people but a country going bankrupt devastates everyone inside that country.

You know, this stuff always seems to lurk in the back of our minds as we focus on the issue (read: distraction) du jour and nothing ever seems to be done about the underlying problem – the “non-profit” money factories that support the Dems and their America-hating agenda.

It’s time for us to focus on the underlying causes of our seeming inability to get much accomplished through “regular” government channels.

As I started reading the diary, Fred Thompson came to mind. While you are writing about state level programs, he wrote “Government at the Brink” back in 2001, concerning Federal level overlap. You talked about all of the agencies formed at the state level to cover job training programs. One of the examples Fred gave, as to Federal level programs, he claimed that there are 7 different federal agencies to administer 40 different programs aimed primarily at job training. Other Federal level overlap includes- 8 fed. agencies to administer 50 different programs to assist the homeless(I guess Bloomberg will transfer his fed. dollars to the states that took the homeless from NY streets), 9 agencies operate 27 teen pregnancy programs, 100 different funded programs serve at-risk or delinquent youths. You get the picture. “Hence, Ronald Reagan’s axiom that the closest thing to immortality is a government agency or program.” That most definately also applies at the state level. Achance, aren’t all federal and state government employees required to join unions? This year, with unemployment so high, the only job sector that grew was government employees. As you have indicated, it is a viscious cycle which survives only to support Democrats. And yes, GWB did absolutely nothing to reduce the Federal Government rolls and roles. He in fact expanded the federal government with the start of No Child left Behind, the DHS, Schip, and Medicare Part D, which also required states to set up agencies to oversee his ever expanding government programs.

Achance, do you see any optimism in the citizens now becoming much more aware of just how inefficient and ineffective both parties have been in governing. My optimism comes from the current administration pushing so much, so fast, and causing so many more willing now to speak out against all of those in Washington. With the current ACORN debacle, and the fact that they are everywhere, in every state, being funded by the Federal Government, being the biggest most corrupt organization in history, which have woken many up to the fact that the entire government is corrupt. Don’t you think people are going to ask alot more questions now before they send another vehicle of corruption to Washington, as Governors, as state Attorney Generals, as local city council members? You mentioned Sanford, and “that woman” (haha) as Governors that refused some of the stimulus funds, and, I believe there were a few more. Didn’t Perry in Texas also refuse some monies? Weren’t the stimulus monies, sent for Unemployment Extensions, the biggest part of what was rejected? McDonnell, running for Gov. in Virginia, has said that he will push for drilling for oil and gas off our coasts. That would bring alot of much needed money into the state, which would make it feasible to refuse federal monies. Is it the Governors role, as well as the state legislators role, to accept or refuse any federal monies? Because we have had the very Liberal Kaine for the past 4 years, can a new Conservative Governor turn over what has been put in place by the former Governor? What exactly does it mean to reclaim a states sovereingty? Sorry, my head is spinning, I have so many questions.

Hope your mouth is pain free soon. Just be careful with the Asprin, it can be deadly! LOL

I had several ‘AHA’ moments reading this. It is time to start playing by ‘chicago rules’ with these thugs who run our country now (and have done for much too long).
I don’t care if we are liked, I want us to be feared.

but the states are too dependent and handcuffed by Fed Govt money.

It’s time to return much more power to the states/local and cut the power to the Fed Govt.

50 experiments in ‘democracy’ rather than one potential big blunder in DC.

Great explanation of the problems.

All of which happened because way too many of us for far too long were complacent and were not participating fully as “we the people” citizen watchdogs. Simply put, keeping abreast of issues and voting in the primary and general elections was not enough. I’m guilty as charged.

What to do? What single thing should be at the top of our personal priority list? I humbly submit it should be active involvement in the Republican Party as a precinct committeeman. Do that first. Then something else, too, that you’re good at and that you think will make a difference.

Go here for more info:

http://www.redstate.com/coldwarrior/2009/06/30/lets-change-the-world-now-like-the-obamabots-did-or-not/

http://www.redstate.com/martin_a_knight/2009/05/05/the-committeeman-project/

http://www.redstate.com/erick/2009/07/02/the-power-of-small-numbers-a-butterfly-effect/

Thank you.

ColdWarrior

www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com

And I think you know what I mean by that. At one level the newly muscular new media and blogosphere, led by (of all things) FoxNews, the ambulance-chasing tabloid magazine network that fortunately has an evening lineup of right-wing agitators.

Noisy and motivated voters gives us some important backing. But the second level of this is bloody, house-to-house Fallujah-clearing style war. And this part of what I have signed up for.

Alinksy is my tool to disrupt their war. Revanchism is my tool to secure territory that we win back. And I’m not at all convinced that Sun Tzu is not my tool for how to retake that territory. Currently studying it for useful tactics. Surprisingly fascinating.

I hope some AG out there will take your advice.
I wish I had cash I would fund some kind of thing for you to teach people like the AG and govenors that could do something.

I don’t recall where I picked it up, but it’s always in my brief case. I probably picked it up at a gun show here in Phoenix.

It was compiled by Rod Alexander and is called “The Essential Precepts of Sun Tzu ‘The Art of War.’” A quick internet search finds it for sale here:

http://www.firingpin.com/forbidden.htm#artofwar

“Victory is the main object in war.”

Thank you.

ColdWarrior

So long as we have a functioning two-party republic (which is in jeopardy now, but that’s a different topic), there will continue to be ebbs and flows in which party dominates.

The party in power will spend federal money. The question is how that money is spent and who receives it.

Art’s point is that It’s the shadow structure what perpetuates the collectivist’s (=Democrats/Communists) stranglehold by
1) when the collectivists are in power, this structure is the means by which their power is expanded and their gains solidified, making an ever increasing percentage of the population nursing at the government teat;

2) when the opposition (Republicans/small government advocates) is in power, this provides the collectivists
(a) continued control of the bureaucratic structures by the underlings – lots of moles – to sabotage the opposition or find evidence to leak to undermine them; and
(b) a structure through the NGOs and state agencies to keep the leaders and key strategists in the loop and well positioned to take over when their turn comes.

And Art, as you continue to argue, the solution is not surgery (because of regrowth of remaining cells or metastatis) but rather to use anti-angiogenic agents to cut off their blood supply (money) so that they will wither away on their own.

I’ve seen it from the Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers, State Dept of Wildlife & fisheries, but I’m sure the game is played in just about every regulatory body.

After about 15 years, the “lifers” get up to a fairly responsible position, one where they’re actually setting & enforcing policy. They all of a sudden take on a policy “initiative” that involves a byzantine set of codes, regulations, audits, what have you, that take 4-5 years to implement.

Then, bingo, they’re at 20 years of service & eligible for retirement.

Then they say Hello to a second career as a consultant, “helping” industry navigate the byzantine set of codes, regulations, audits, what have you, that they implemented in the first place.

Art, y’all best get published before Teh Wun bans all free-will and independent thought from being printed.

pay a visit to your local ACORN chapter! All kidding aside, this is brilliant advice.

Lot of great discussion.

Good luck fishing next year. Hope you don’t find yourself hauling out too many of our carcasses.

I work for my state’s Dept of Transportation. Yes Millions of Fed $ flow in, but it flows into everystate, because the Federall Motor Fuel tax is the source of allocation.
My states’ hourly labor employees are unionized, but white collar is NOT. Our paycheck doesn’t get “shared,” just reduced recently by 2.5%.
On a POSITIVE note, the task that I do for my DOT USED to be done by outside consultants at an incredible fee structure. I now do that as an hourly employee, waiting to become salaried (No overtime in my section). I know that what I do is important for the department. My information is used by a wide breadth of both internal and external CUSTOMERS. You heard that right, I call them CUSTOMERS. They rely on me doing my job well so that they can make better informed decisions. My anaylsis of the data sets that are my responsibilty was never even addressed or conceived of by the expensive, so called EXPERT consultants. More people have aksed better questions of me, gotten better answers, made better and cheaper decions because I care about the product and service I provide.

Here’s another shocker – I’m trying to find ways to do my job BETTER with systems that we already have in place, rather than asking the department to spend money we don’t have, and if done right, it will do exactly what I want it to do. If it doesn’t work right the first time, I will turn the crews INSIDE the dapretment to get it right and not go limping to the outsiders.

Call me a fool, but I belive in the respoonsibility of good stewardship of the taxpayer dollar, and I’m on the inside!

If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you can still read it in English, You’re Welcome
Deskpilot, AM(H)1 (AW), USN (Ret)

Join the RedState Strike Force

announced he was cutting all MN funding to ACORN. Got a few states to go yet!

A great piece that succinctly lays out part of the problem with the way money is both allocated and used.

While I am skipping ahead a little, I see no real permanent solution to the problem than to beat the statist beast back into it’s cage. In other words, part (most?) of the problem lies with the government (at all levels) trying to do too much.

“The education department funds all sorts of before school, after school, ESL, juvenile delinquent, and on, and on programs. It’s also putting up all sorts of money to teach teachers this year’s new indoctrination scheme fresh from the Ed Schools. ”

My radical dream is that funding to America’s pub ed be drastically cut. What are those odds?

It was back in the Newt Gingrich/Contract with America days that I realized that we conservatives really could not count on Republicans to do the right thing. If there was ever a time when we could have defunded the National Endowment for the Arts and National Public Radio it was then. We had control and both of these organizations were rocked by scandals. They couldn’t bring themselves to do it. That was when I realized the power of the Washington society. That influence is what saved these two organizations.

all for keeping it at the top of the recommended diaries for almost four days. I was honored by that! Now, go get your governor to cut off some programs!

I once heard a preacher talk about the “sin of Eve,” taking the forbidden fruit, unfairly getting all the press. He pointed out that the sin of Adam was cowardice – to stand by and watch as Eve parlayed with the devil. He was referring to husbands not leading their families, but he could just as well been talking about the Republican paid management not leading the party as the government literally parlays with communism.