I know a lot of the folks that read here could care less about what’s going on with lowly district of KY01 Rep. Ed Whitfield, but this is what my congressmen is saying and by doing so you might want to take a look at yours too.
Ed Whitfield who just a few months ago sent me a letter about the need for fiscal responsibility in Washington….
Whitfield Calls for Return of Fiscal Responsibility to Government
“During these tough economic times, Kentuckians have been forced to tighten their belts and cut back on spending to make ends meet,” Whitfield said. “The federal government should be required to do the same thing. It is essential Congress curb its runaway spending habits before our national debt becomes an insurmountable burden for future generations.”
Blah-blah-blah Ed… so tell me if we need to be fiscal responsible then why are you porking up the spending bill?
Now before I go on my rant I want to say I called the congressman’s Washington office about this and they seemed more interested in getting me off the phone than answering questions so I called the Paducah office and no one answered then I called the Hopkinsville office and spoke to the congressman assistant … we spoke for about 1:30 or so on a range of political topics. So I will include some of his commits regarding some of my pork complaints… he was very nice and answered most of my questions or directed me to where I could find the answers.
Whitfield’s Fiscal Year 2010 Requests
Here are a few…
Monroe County Fiscal Court
1194 Columbia Avenue
Tompkinsville, KY 42167
$500,000
These funds will be used to construct a new market facility that will promote economic development and provide added benefits to the local community.
A half million dollars for a farmers market in a town of a population of 2609 as of July 2008? They need a $500,000.00 farmers market? Now I live in a rural community and the local farmers market is nothing more than farmers with their pickup facing tailgate to tailgate and my rinky-dinky little town is 5 time the size of Tompkinsville!
Congressmen’s office really didn’t have good answer for this one.
Let’s look at some more…
Senior Citizens Housing Project
Hickman County Fiscal Court
110 East Clay Street
Clinton, KY 42031
$1,250,000
These funds will be used to construct a two-story, eight unit senior housing complex. This construction will aid the City of Clinton and Hickman County as they work to revitalize the downtown area to facilitate economic development and community well being.
WTF? Ok I know what you’re thinking “Dave you just don’t like old people.” WRONG! One building with 8 units for $1.25 million bucks! That’s $156,250.00 per unit… do you know what a house cost in Hickman population 2239? You can buy houses all day long for $25,000.00 in Hickman and might I point out that the only way to get to Hickman, KY is to be going there. You just don’t stumble upon Hickman. You what this is? It’s about political payout by the country judge executive David Gallagher who made the request… I have no proof of that its political payout I just know how small town politics work.
Oh there is more…
Installation Chapel and Multi-Purpose Facility
Fort Campbell
39 Normandy Avenue
Fort Campbell, KY 42223
$14,000,000
These funds will be used to construct a 1,200-seat chapel/family life multi-purpose facility to serve the soldiers and family members at Fort Campbell.
$14,000,000.00 for a church? I thought we had a separation of church and state in this country? Since when is it the government job to build churches? I have no problems with churches at all, I even go on occasion but I’ve never been in a $14,000,000 church and to top that off Fort Campbell already has a church. And as a constitutionalists I believe if you are going to have a separation of church and state then do it… nothing say that other church or groups of churches can’t fund the building of a multi-denominational church as most military services are multi-religion and multi-denominational and all the taxpayer has to do is pony up a little space. Remember a building isn’t a church
Then we have…
Fort Campbell
39 Normandy Avenue
Fort Campbell, KY 42223
$14,400,000
These funds will be used to construct an Army Standard Physical Fitness Center to serve soldiers and family members at Fort Campbell. The existing facility is inadequate and fails to meet Army requirements.
What the hell are the putting in a Gold’s Gym franchise? Which by the way you can get for $550,000 – $3,635,000.
Now the Congressman’s office said COULD be use for rehabilitation of returning wounded vets, that’s all fine the noble but that’s not what the request says and it doesn’t change the fact I could build 4 high end Gold’s Gyms for the same amount of money and they’re only building one.
Clean-up Activities at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant
Department of Energy
1000 Independence Ave SW
Washington, DC 20585
$144,729,000
These funds will be used to accelerate the removal of over 50 years of legacy waste and environmental contamination stemming from the production of enriched uranium.
This plant is ran by USEC a heavily unionized publicly traded company (NYSE: USU) which begs the question why do taxpayers need to pay to clean up there mess? I’ll admit I don’t know the entire story on this, but I do know that taxpayers are flipping the cleanup bill.
One more…
Lake Cumberland Community Action Bus Radio Project
Lake Cumberland Community Action Agency
23 Industry Drive
Jamestown, KY 42629
$70,000
These funds will be used to install emergency radios in buses that transport senior citizens to and from their medical appointments in an area that is currently undergoing a Dam safety rehabilitation project, which increases the need for emergency communications.
Even a cell phone without a contract can dial 911 and we’re spending $70,000.00 fro radios? How many damn buses do they have it’s not a populous area.
If the congressmen, his staff or those making these pork requests want to clear these up… you know how to contact me. And for the record I didn’t list them all, additionally I pointed out to the Congressman’s office that you can’t bitch about government spending if you are part of the problem… as I used the example there are things you MUST do to maintain your house, however many of the things you may WANT to do is not the things you NEED to do. There is a big difference between repairing the water line (a need to do) and painting the guest bedroom (a want to do).
You have to LEAD BY EXAMPLE and you can’t waste your time whining about not getting your fair share Ed!
I’ve talk about the stimulus spending in the Jackson Purchase, which is only a small section of the Kentucky Congressional District 1
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Just a comment on the Fort Campbell Chapel – it will serve the community as far more than “just a Church”. From my experience that sort of building will be used for a lot of family support activities, including deployment briefings and informational meetings for spouses. When I was last at Campbell they did not have a space big enough to hold an entire battalion’s worth of family members for a meeting. I’m willing to bet a building that big will also have a food locker, some child care facilities and space for counseling. The chapels are not pure religious buildings and the chaplains do a lot more than just preach, especially in the mental health and counseling areas.
However, if you can call it a chapel it lessens the odds of it getting taken over for office space or some other purpose than tending to families. Also, a chapel will not charge units for the use of the space, where a club is expected to. Those Family Readiness Groups don’t have money to spend on meeting space.
It’s not about separation of church and state – it’s about taking care of soldiers and families.
I understand that, but over $14 million dollars? It’s not like you have buy land on a military base just seems a tad high.
I agree about the price. I don’t know why it costs so much.
And there is the problem… the cost, the government spends a insane amount of money the amount they spend is way out of line with what you and I would spend.. just like $500,000 for a farmers market in Thomkinsville population 2600 sa-lute! It’s nothing but political favors and I’m sick of it, we’re broke STOP SPENDING.
Agreed! And I’d love to see some common sense applied to the process and an overturning of the mindset that a military government contract is a blank check for a civilian contractor. (Thus probably why the $14 mil bid to build the place.)
At least a building on a military base for the use of soldiers and family members is an expected and appropriate sort of thing for the government to spend on. Soldiers do look at base amenities when requesting assignments and it’s a big deal for retaining already trained soldiers at the NCO and Officer levels.
(As of 2004 we still had WWII buildings at Fort Campbell that soldiers were working in. My husband’s office floor behind his desk was a piece of plywood bought by a previous guy. Otherwise there was a giant hole and a drop of several feet to the dirt! At that point you could wrestle the raccoons and possums for space since they enjoyed living under there. The building was a “temporary” WWII barracks converted to offices.)
The spending on infrastructure for the bases (most of which were built either for WWII or Vietnam) does not bother me like the “art” subsidies or some of the other crazy things the government spends my tax money to support. The farmers’ market being a really good example.
Not everything needs to be done/built/created by the government. There are lots of places to cut the spending. I wish I could go at the budgets with a pencil and red marker. The government should not be a cash cow for anyone that wants money.
Just found you site and I’ve been enjoying it. Thanks!
I know when I was in the Marines my barracks were kwanset hut built in WWII still had steam heat and A/C in summer was open the door I didn’t stay there much I was always gone on tour. I agree the military should be taken care of I’m a hug advocate of that.. however I do not like wasteful spending anywhere and if I showed favoritism just because I’m pro military then my hypocrisy would be no better than the Party of Lie’s democrats.
Thanks for reading and I always enjoy feedback and comments… let’s me know someone is reading it and not all of my time is wasted. LOL