Recent revelations about preferred and legal insider trading by members of Congress ( see Throw Them All Out by Peter Schweizer) have led to a mini-outcry of disgust. Many citizens, rightly so, object to our $175 thousand dollar per year “public servants” enriching themselves through advance knowledge and ethical loopholes. In addition some studies have indicated that the public sector bureaucracy is paid significantly better than their private sector cohorts when their lucrative benefit packages are included. So, it would appear on the surface that our continually-growing government structure takes care of its own while expecting the rest of us to foot the bill. That is what we see “on the surface.” Their collectivist gobbling of our labor, property and wages is even worse than it appears. We taxpayers are also paying through the nose and the rectal region for government-endorsed “good works.”
Google this: List of US Federal Government Funding Programs.
You will discover an exhaustive compilation of programs, agencies, departments and bureaus in league with their NGO “partners” to provide innumerable services and outreach efforts through government-nonprofit partnerships. At first glance this would appear to be a form of privatization that most strict constitutionalists would welcome. Many of the studies and services, however, are directed in areas outside the federal constitutional mandate and constitute a cleverly disguised government intrusion. In addition because of the federal dollars that are funneled into the huge number of quasi private sector organizations, our taxes are being used for many specious illegal and unconstitutional activities.
Even more egregious is that realization that the executives and staff of the NGO’s are not direct government employees, and thus, are not subject to government classifications and pay scales. Their executives, researchers and employees can earn salaries that would make a Wall-Streeter blush with no accountability to the taxpaying public. We pay the tab, government issues the grant and the NGO’s and non-profits reap the benefits. As an example, Planned Parenthood receives $350 million in federal funds….roughly 35% of its annual revenue. It is estimated that the PP CEO receives in excess of $900,000.00 per year. We might ask: 1) Why fund Planned Parenthood?; 2) Why fund them so lavishly?; 3) Why allow their CEO to be paid so much when taxpayers are contributing such a large portion of PP’s revenue?; and 4) Why is there no publication of actual pay and benefits for Planned Parenthood executives and staff when there are so many public dollars flowing into their immoral coffers?
I’m picking on Planned Parenthood because I loathe them, but there are many other NGO’s that engage in the same type of shell game and profitable agenda setting using the sweat of your brows, the loss of your financial freedom and the siphoning of your tax dollars to feather their own nests and promote their ideologies. Their so-called “concerned leaders” are paid extraordinarily well, and their motives undermine the spirit of the Founders and the Framers. For those of us who urge that the private sector have a greater role in delivering services and goods versus direct government payment…we must insist that the enterprise be a totally private sector one and not a bogus cooperative scam. These public-private joint operations are an affront to our liberty because many of the groups promote ideals that conflict with our constitutional guarantees while allowing government influence and power to expand with so-called arms-length transactions. The bottom line is that you are by means of government force required to pay for policies, procedures and practices that are antithetical to our individual freedom.
Because government, primarily the House of Representatives, controls the purse strings, there is no justification for their funding such onerous and wasteful programs. In some respects government grants and underwriting violate the very laws that government itself implements. Partial birth abortion and some Planned Parenthood clinics illustrate the folly of using public money to subsidize private aims. Just as government should NOT be choosing winners and losers in the private sector, so too should government appropriations be forbidden for specific social policies and preferences.
Government is wasteful and has no conscience. If it or they can force you to pay money so they can give it to someone or something else, they will. We have witnessed that “right to work” is becoming an issue in many states. We must insist that the “right not to pay” for wasteful and dangerous government-NGO partnerships becomes a national movement.
Comment: cearlwriting@hotmail.com
private/gov't and non-profit/gov't partnerships go way back, and I suspect Republicans may be one of the big offenders. It's a way to have "less" government on paper, but still not reduce the budget. About 30 years ago I worked for JTPA, a Reagan program that partnered with business, which replaced CETA, a government training program. I think the results were about the same. The people who really benefitted were the people like me who had employment as trainers, researchers or planners or the subcontractors in the business community. I doubt that very many unemployed or underemployed benefitted that much.
ReplyDeleteI remember those, Norma. When I ran TV stations, the JTPA people usually came in at the end of their budget year and paid us to produce training films that were never used. They just wanted to empty the cash drawer for the next cycle. Thanks for your input.
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