Where would we find the money to rebuild Delawares infrastructure and clean up our waterways? Lets start by examining some of the ways were spending money now, despite claiming we have serious budgetary shortfalls. $950,000 to purchase a sports shooting facility? $750,000 for a skate park? $300,000 for a development easement on private property? $150,000 to mount a WW2 era coastal defense gun? $800,000 to build a pier for New Castle? $250,000 for unspecified improvements to Carousel Park? $250,000 to fund capital improvements at a PRIVATE college? $8.3 million in basically unaccountable Capital Transportation Fund Accounts? We dont even have to go there again for $9.9 million to Delawares racinos or $6.3 million to build a new bike bridge near a crumbling highway bridge. Budgets are about decisions. If you lose your job, or your employer cuts back hours, what do you do? You concentrate on the essentials and stop paying for the luxuries first. Not if youre the State government. Instead of spending additional money on our public colleges and universities to upgrade or maintain facilities, over the past two sessions weve spent $750,000 to do so at a private college because one legislator is an alum. Instead of having police officers at all of our public schools, were building a shooting complex for hunters and a pier for a small town. Instead of trying to fully fund special needs children, were spending money on a park that MIGHT (nobody knows for sure) include a therapeutic riding program some day. Or, put it another way--just on the top of this article there are $26.75 million in taxpayer dollars that are not being spent to improve our infrastructure or clean our waterways. Heres an idea: were a corporate state. If we cant make DuPont pay for PCB pollution, or hold chemical companies and chicken farms accountable for fertilizer run-off, the least they could do is engage in some heavy philanthropy to build a skatepark or to mount a relic coastal defense gun, while the rest of us get criticized on a regular basis for not wanting to clean up the messes they leave all over the State. delawareonline/story/news/local/2014/07/19/delaware-lawmakers-find-cash-cover-pet-projects/12886935/
Posted on: Sun, 20 Jul 2014 13:48:02 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015