Cut 'em off

A city in southern California is turning off the street lights to save money. Other towns should follow suit. Automobiles have, for years, had these things on the front of them which are known as headlights. They work amazingly well at lighting the area directly in the path of the operational automobile. They cost basically nothing to operate. They are the sole source of light at night on most roads throughout the country. Yet, cities insist on burning street lights at all hours of the night when there are very few cars on the roads.

A generation of children has grown up without knowing what the night sky looks like. A good start in most places would be to turn street lights off no later than midnight. If there is a compelling safety reason to have them on for shift workers (which I doubt), you could leave them off from midnight until 6 a.m.

More American Recovery Act Waste

Here are some photos from downtown Bristol, TN. First, there is the huge sign with the taxpayer funded "O", to remind us that King Barry is providing us with this (let's not forget that).


Then, it is time to take a look at the project:


In short, this is a red light project. Or, as the "shovel-ready" folks like to say, an "intersection infrastructure improvement project." One photo shows the wires on the ground and the other photo shows both the old and the new red lights. As you can see from the photo, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the old red lights. They work fine. I pass through this intersection periodically and have never seen a malfunction. The new red lights are on the large black bars. You can see one of them on the upper left and another bar can be seen just behind the old red lights.

What will happen to these perfectly decent red lights that are being removed? They will likely be tossed in a landfill. Why should we remove perfectly usable infrastructure and replace it with something else, just to "make jobs" for people. This is incredibly wasteful. We don't need to be spending money to fix things that are not broken.

This isn't the second time I've seen junk like this. Last summer, I saw a perfectly fine that was being repaved. There was no reason that I could see to repave the road. It was probably at least 5 years away from needing paving.

Why does our government continue to blow money like this? And they think they know how to better spend my money than I do. Good grief.

Why is Winnipeg hiding the red light crash data?

It's all about the money, of course. Here, they have a red light program that is causing more and more crashes, but they do not care. It is all about cashing the checks so they can spend money on pet programs.

We've had enough government. We need to starve it at every opportunity. Tea Partiers need to get on the anti-camera bandwagon as well because these cameras are a symptom of a larger problem - government ignoring our rights, confiscating money from us without due process and spending that money to increase the size of government. ENOUGH!

More Stimulus Waste

Elizabethton's "bridge to nowhere" is now complete and open to the public. This bridge was build with federal stimulus money. It is a five lane bridge with a bike lane and sidewalk that replaces a two lane bridge that "did not even have room for a sidewalk." There was no need for a sidewalk and no need for five lanes.

This bridge goes to the Old Bristol Highway. So, we now have a five-lane bridge that runs into a crooked, two-lane road that was replaced many years ago by a modern highway. Can these people find nothing better on which to spend taxpayer's money? I think the lack of need for this is apparent from the map.


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Negative Tax Liability

For the unitiated, "negative tax liability" refers to individuals who receive a "refund" even though they owe no tax. In other words, it is welfare by another name. The Enterprise Blog has an interesting graph that shows this and the dramatic increase in the number of people who pay no tax or get welfare in the form of a "tax" refund. (via Instapundit).

You can't create wealth by destroying productive assets

Someone ought to tell the government. Cash for Clunkers was stupid. The WSJ has more on the subject and includes an estimate that $2,000 in wealth was destroyed for every one of these transactions.

The problem is that people in government consider it a great success and therein lies the problem. The PEOPLE aren't completely stupid all of the time. I believe that people who might otherwise be trading cars presently are waiting to see if the government reinstitutes the program. I am suggesting that the business that car dealers might otherwise be getting is not happening because people think another program might be just around the corner. After all, it was a "successful" program, right? If it was so successful and since the economy is still stalling, why not bring it back? Why trade now if the government might play Santa Claus and steal $4500 from someone else to put into my pocket in a few months. I think I'll wait. How's that for stimulus?

Pork for Local Pork

Wampler Sausage in Lenoir City is getting $46,875 from the USDA, $75,000 from the State of Tennessee and $56,250 from the federal government so that it can install a solar power system.

If I paid less in taxes, I might be able to afford solar panels on my own home. Instead, these various governments steal the fruits of my labor and give it to a more favored constituency.

Is this the kind of government we want?

FEMA Trailers

Would someone please tell me why these people are still living in government-owned trailers a full two years after Hurricane Katrina? It has been two years people. Why are you still living on the government (i.e., my) dime? The government could have paid to move these people anywhere in the country for less money. I hear that there are jobs that Americans won't do. Well, if you don't have a place to live, it is time to get a job doing whatever you can find someone to pay you to do whether you like it or not. It is not "beneath you."

These people need to be evicted and not because of the formaldehyde, but because they need to be given a time frame for getting a job and becoming independent. Instead, our brilliant government moves them to hotels. After all, taxpayers have plenty of money.