About every day at work I get a couple robo-calls inviting me to apply for ARRA funding. It is hard to believe any outfit could be so unabashedly power-thirsty. If the robots could listen, I would tell them the business is not for sale to the federal government. I do not want redistributions of taxpayer dollars. I do not want to fill out government reports. I do not want government people on the corporate board of directors. I do not like them in a box. I do not like them with a fox. I do not like them in a house. I do not like them with a mouse. I do not like them here or there. I do not like them anywhere.

In these days of climate change, the political climate verily appears to be vectored so as to put the John Locke Foundation in a better position to say, “I told you so.” State governments are often overlooked as boring for lack of mainstream media coverage, lack of interest from educators who think Washington, DC is the seat of all power in America, and pragmatists who argue, “All politics is local.”

Now, individuals are realizing the federal government is going to socialize the country regardless of what they think, how much they pay in taxes, and what sweet innocence they suppose they are electing to office. In self-defense, they are turning to state governments to protect them from the tyrannical attitudes in DC. The current administration is willing to change any rule to steamroll its way into a larger share of the healthcare market, and people like Bob Barr are asking citizens to appeal to state governments to check the power grab.

It is not difficult to imagine Virginia, Texas, and Georgia generating and enforcing Tenth Amendment legislation. Some may laugh at North Carolinians expecting their governor to stand up for freedom, but we’d be fools to consent with our silence to further concentration of power in DC. I therefore strongly recommend readers of this blog study and consider signing Barr’s petition to, if nothing else, raise the governor’s awareness about how many people in her state still cherish liberty.

Asheville City Council hung out from 3:00-10:00pm today. At their first meeting, a worksession, they discussed the budget. Revenues came in $1 million less than expenditures. The city would begin the next year $5.1 million short if the state didn’t require them to balance their budget. The shortfalls include appropriations that dragged the city’s fund balance below the minimum allowed by city policy.

And so, at their formal meeting, six of seven members of council thought it would be a good idea to spend $60,000 of the federal deficit on “transit street furniture” and $125,000 on repairs to the transit garage roof. $30,000 will be spent for a local match to a $120,000 grant from the federal government for bus advertisements. As was mentioned in a previous post, buses will run more frequently on some routes. Only Bill Russell pointed out the way to close a budget gap is to stop spending.

People tend to defer maintenance when times get tough, but, like a lot of local governments, Asheville City Council unanimously determined now is the time to fix up the palace. $19,842.50 was appropriated to hire a project manager for about $395,000 in design and permitting to deal with water seepage in historic city hall.

Hard times help governments become more fiscally conservative. There is an indication the Haywood County Commissioners are recovering from the identity crisis that causes public officials to mistake themselves for Father Christmas. They stalled when asked by representatives of Maggie Valley to partner to haul debris and restore streams by matching a federal grant. The amount of funds needed was not known.

Middle school students learn that precipitation seeps between rocks, and when water expands to its minimum density at 4 degrees Celsius, rocks move under the pressure exerted thereby. Government, however, thinks rocks crack and tumble because people aren’t regulated enough. Perhaps only to politely pass the buck back to the private parties who built on slopes or the taxing authority in whose jurisdiction the rockslides occurred, Commissioner Mark Swanger made it sound as if a steep slope ordinance would make mother nature more obedient to the laws of man.

This brings to mind a couple items from NPR news today. One feature said the reason the earthquake in Haiti was so much more devastating than that in Chile was because Chili had more rigorous building codes. Granted, earthquake engineering is a legitimate field of study. However, news reports of problems with disaster relief efforts usually cite government as the the culprit.

In another feature, a legislator, whose name I didn’t catch, refuted Orrin Hatch’s recent op-ed saying reconciliation shouldn’t be used to nationalize healthcare, with the argument that what is done in Washington, DC is not substantive, but “just politics.” This ties back to the concept that those who take laws lightly are more inclined to support the passing of more and more strenuous ones than those who try to be obedient.

Haywood County is putting its policy of paying government employees for days not worked due to snow under review. Public perception is expected to be in favor of not paying them. However, if the county cared to conduct one last study, it may find it saves money by paying planners, studiers, and administrative bureaucrats not to do their thing.

A couple days ago, I received another email from OFA. The president, again, was asking people to support his bill because he said so or because “now is the time.” He again provided no hyperlinks to the text of the bill, but then I found out there was no text. One thing his bill is supposed to do is decrease the national deficit by “as much as” $1 trillion over the next twenty years, which amount will trickle down to small businesses to “create jobs and increase wages.” I am past weary of people who treat skewed statistical projections as scientific fact. Unfortunately, expediency dictates that those with unrighteous dominion retain it better if they don’t share the new rules and let others perform their own economic analyses. And, oh yes, it helps to write bills so long one must take little white pills to read them in their entirety.

A lot of conversations continue pertaining to requests that the city use tax dollars to provide benefits for gay and lesbian employees with domestic partners. The proposal was billed as an enticement for recruiting LGBT’s to the tax base. LGBT’s reportedly increase the tax base because typically both partners work at high-paying jobs. That is why one or the other needs extra help paying the others’ benefits and paying the other to stay home and watch the baby. I don’t get it.

Next Tuesday, Asheville City Council will be looking at initial implementation strategies for its transit master plan. With a wealth of information, members of city council remain beholden to arguments considered expedient for their public images. For example, the city intends to start running buses every half hour instead of every hour. The argument being, obviously, that scarcity reduces demand. But, since transit is supposed to be subsidized, it might as well be super-sized subsidized. Read the arguments at your own risk.

In a less foggy “parallel dimension,” the John Locke Foundation’s Roy Cordato contributed significantly to this informative piece that raises several good points typically left out of arguments pertaining to transportation planning. It is one of the better online articles I’ve read in awhile.

People have a right to assemble, and I have a right to say what I think about their meetings. Personally, I find it a little weird people want to reform the criminal justice system because they believe it was harsh of the DA to sentence a man who committed armed robbery to forty-four months. It was only his third conviction, it was committed in collusion with two youth who got their first convictions as a consequence, and the perp has since begun educating teens about gangs.

Haywood County cut funding to all outside agencies this year in order to deal with its budget crunch. This is excellent. Unfortunately, the fairgrounds board had procured a loan to build a large, covered arena and a second exhibition hall. Board members were counting on the county to help them make payments. Unable to pay its debts, the fairgrounds faced foreclosure. The fairgrounds board therefore appealed for relief, and the county commissioners voted to purchase the buildings. They also approved applying for $600,000 to $800,000 from the federal deficit in the form of a USDA loan to cover the purchase price. The commissioners considered it a bargain because they would only be paying installments of $40,000 a year rather than the $150,000 they’d been giving to the fairgrounds.