Stimulating The Bureaucracy While Ignoring Small Businesses

A Short Sighted Approach to our National Crisis This column presents a conservative viewpoint about items of interest in our community and our lives. Focus is on items impacting your pocket book, your personal freedoms, and your rights. I hope you will read the column regularly and it occasionally influences your opinions and actions.


We are now far enough along in the government’s “stimulus plan” to see how it works and what results are being achieved. During the past fourteen months over $787 billion tax payer dollars were frantically shoveled into the economic sink hole which was about to consume our entire national economic framework and thrust us into the chaos of a deep depression. I fear this remedy would compare to an AIDS victim taking an aspirin and expecting to be cured. It might relieve the symptoms for a few hours, but the actual disease would still be consuming the patient.

The first problem which had to be addressed in this effort was to find a way to desperately “thrust” $787

billion dollars into the economy as quickly as possible, following the age old proven political strategy.... “If you have a problem, solve it by throwing money at it”. They quickly realized there was only one entity in our nation which had the capability of spending that much money in a very short time period …and that was GOVERNMENT. So they decided to flow the stimulus billions through the State Governments, who would take what they needed and then flow the remaining money through their State Agencies, who would take what they needed and then flow the money down to county and city governments, who would take what they needed and then flow the remaining money to their various agencies….and by then the entire bounty should be spent.

In reality, difficulty has been experienced even in this wasteful approach, since the entire government process at all levels has become so encumbered with regulations, processes, approvals, reviews, multiple bureaucratic jurisdictions, extra steps created by extra codes, rules, policies, laws, and regulations…that nothing can be done quickly anymore….not even spending free money.

The very processes they created as a means of harassing and over-regulating businesses and individuals has come back to haunt them in this effort. Thus, trying as hard as they can, being as wasteful as possible, the entire bureaucracy involved has only been able to spend about 40% of the stimulus funding during the first fourteen months of trying. Meanwhile, in the private sector, small businesses and family economic units continue to deteriorate and struggle in the midst of a severe recession.

For a struggling small business the sensation of watching all of this loose money flow through all government levels on porkish projects that are not really justified while they are unable to borrow the money they need to sustain their business….is similar to the feeling of a man dying of thirst standing on the bank of a flooding river and not being allowed to drink. Unfair! Foolish! Suicidal!...these are some of the words which come to mind.

Virtually every state was experiencing severe revenue shortfalls as a result of the recession and the diminished revenues from taxes, permits, and fees. They were faced with the prospect of doing the unthinkable…laying off bureaucrats! Then the answer to their prayers came in the form of the stimulus funding. Suddenly the system was again funded to the gills, and the crisis was averted.. at least for one budget year.

So those millions of jobs which were “saved” or created by the stimulus funding were primarily government jobs, or jobs in the thousands of architectural, engineering, or governmental contractors organizations which “nurse” from the government teats. These are responsible for every government project being over designed, over engineered, over coded, over priced, and grossly overdone in order to make every job as expensive as possible. This creates more fees for the designers and more sales for the suppliers and more work for the union tradesmen who do the project. Everyone benefits except the poor tax payer who is paying for all of this unnecessary cost.

The stimulus money has thus primarily gone to “stimulate and preserve” the bureaucracies at all levels of government and has done little to help in the private sector. It has completely ignored small businesses which are the real key to permanent jobs creation.

What will the bureaucracy do to create funding for the next budget year? Will another foolish stimulus program be initiated….or will next year finally be the year that the persistent “veil of bureaucratic protection” is lifted, and they too begin to feel the same pains of layoff and unemployment too many in the private sector have experienced this year. Time will tell!

Rudiments: Odds and Ends Worth Mentioning –

● At the Marianna Zoning and Planning meeting on Monday, a variance request from Florida Land and Title was denied by the board. Their beautiful new sign atop their newly renovated building on Madison Street has a sign which is some six feet too long…..It Has To Come Down! Meanwhile across the street a building with a tattered and torn awning is well within allowable codes, and can remain as an ugly blight on our city center. Someone please explain bureaucratic logic to me!

























● At the Legislative Delegation meeting on Monday night, a large group of desperate citizens pleaded for help in dealing with their enormous electric bills. Although our legislators have little power over the root causes of the problem, their input can help in Tallahassee, especially with the Governor. I think they got the message from those desperate citizens who spoke to them at the meeting.

● (Keeping my resolution to say something nice each week)- At the County Commission meeting Chairman Branch and the Commissioners agreed to draft a letter about the utility problem for transmission to the Governor, they encouraged every City Commission in the County to also send letters, and they ordered a review of the possibility of the County reducing its 6% franchise fee to at least give a little relief to those FPU customers who live outside the Marianna city limits. All good ideas, coupled with a demonstration of caring for the plight of these people. I think the Commissioners “Got it Right”!

Note: The opinions stated in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Hatcher Publications.