Feeding the plan with federal grant money

“We live now in an era where normal values have been displaced. The good is called bad, the bad – good.” – Anna Politkovskaya.

“What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.” Francis Fukuyama, The End of History?

Using federal grant money to fund and expand the tentacles of Sustainable Development has a number of ugly realities. First, and easiest to understand, is that this is a money redistribution scheme that helps bankrupt both the federal government and the middle class. The money wasn’t allocated specifically by Congress to fund grants that come from HUD, EPA, DOT, DOE (and maybe other sources as well).

Second, the projects into which this money goes do very little to improve the infrastructure, to help stimulate the local economy or to benefit those it is ostensibly designed to help. I say ‘ostensibly’ because that is what those handing it out and those spending it say it is for, but it is truly a wealth redistribution plan as noted in first paragraph.

Let’s look at just one of the grant sources, the Community Development Block Grants:

As noted by the Cato Institute, CDBG activities are supposed to meet one of three objectives: (1) benefit low- and moderate-income persons, (2) prevent or eliminate slums or blight, or (3) address a serious need or threat that has particular urgency.9 A huge range of activities meet these criteria, including:

While CDBG funds are initially handed out to state and local governments, the ultimate beneficiaries are usually private businesses and organizations working on particular projects, such as shopping malls, parking lots, museums, colleges, theaters, swimming pools, and auditoriums. Here is a small sampling of projects funded in 2008.

These ‘plans,’ supposedly put together by the local metropolitan planning commission along with the city or county council are just like every other plan in every other community in the world. Yes, the world, not just the U.S. Can anyone say that Kalispell, Montana, San Francisco, California, Knoxville, Tennessee, Lhasa, Tibet and Saigon, Viet Nam are so alike that it is only natural that their General Plans for the next 10 or 20 or 50 years all look the same?

Moreover, these plans are building non-elected boards and regional councils made up of ‘stakeholders’ (private political organizations – NGOs affiliated with the UN – that are not local, but travel the nation, imposing Sustainable community plans, and thereby feeding off the grant money). Also cashing in are major corporations and business owners who are looking to cash in through Public Private Partnerships,

Look at just one local community’s take from the federal government and stop and think about how much control the feds take for their largess with your money. Then multiply that by every city and county in the country:

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The Consolidated Plan establishes the basis and strategy for the use of federal funds granted to the City of Knoxville by the U. S Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under the following programs:

In addition to CDBG, HOME and ESG programs, the City received stimulus funds in 2009 and is implementing Neighborhood Stabilization Program-1 (NSP-1), Community Development Block Grant – Recoverfy (CDBG-R), and

Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing (HPRP) programs. The projects funded with these funds will continue until they are completed and all funds are expended.

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Kathleen Marquardt
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Kathleen Marquardt has been an advocate for property rights and freedom for decades. While not intending to be an activist, she has become a leader and an avid supporter of constitutional rights, promoter of civility, sound science, and reason. She is dedicated to exposing the fallacies of the radical environmental and animal rights movements. She has been featured in national publications including Fortune, People, the Washington Post, and Field and Stream, as well as television news programs such as Hard Copy, The McLaughlin Group, Geraldo, and many others. Today, she serves as Vice President of American Policy Center. Kathleen now writes and speaks on Agenda21/2030, and its threat to our culture and our system of representative government.