This is a serious Foolishness…Or Is It? about down right serious foolishness, seriously.
What if … I came to you and asked for a major ongoing donation to me personally that I would use to pay for the college education of gifted students who would otherwise never be able to go to college without my funneling them the funds you generously donate to them through me?
What if … You found out after ten years of your continuing sacrifice on behalf of these very worthy students that I had been using your donations to preserve the habitat for giraffes in Africa? Would you be mad?
Sure you would be mad. You would probably say to me, “If you wanted me to donate my money to preserve the habitat for giraffes, you should have asked me for donations for giraffes. I may have given the money for the giraffes and I may not have given you the money for the giraffes but that ought to have been my decision.”
It is not a successful argument that the poor giraffes needed help. What is pertinent is it is your money and my asking for it for one specific purpose and using it for another specific purpose is misappropriation of your money.
This kind of thing has been going on for an awful long time in our local, state and federal governments. How long I don’t know. Did it start in George Washington’s first term? I like to think not but it well may have.
Did it start in the current federal government administration? It absolutely did not.
It is part of how we do things and how we do things is awfully wrong.
Want a current and continuing example from the State of Georgia? …
In today’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution there is an article about how Georgia uses our “Trust Fund” monies. The article tells us …
“Lawmakers also created a Solid Waste Trust in 1992 to clean up scrap tire dumps, improve and expand solid waste collection and recycling, and eliminate open dumps on roadsides and along streams. Georgians shell out an additional $1 for each new tire they buy to pay for that effort.
In 2009, the fees brought in more than $16.38 million, but only $1.4 million will go toward cleanups.”
Did the paper find the only possible example of this kind of redirection of our taxes? You can bet there are hundreds or thousands of such examples but here are two more…
1) Hazardous Waste Trust Fund … $15,960,000 collected & $3,200,000 to be spent on Hazardous Waste.
2) Brain, Spinal Injury Trust Fund … $1,900,000 collected & $97,396 to be spent on Brain & Spinal Injuries.
Very appropriately the article says we need to put Trust back into Trust Funds.
Did I make all this up? Not this time. Go to … http://www.ajc.com/news/misused-fees-lead-state-189810.html and read all about it.
Would I kid u?
