by Tyler Ryan, Host Good Day Columbia, SC
Posted: 04.22.2014 at 10:04 AM
WACH- FOX News Columbia, SC
Watch OpenTheBooks.com Founder Adam Andrzejewski interview
https://www.wach.com/news/blog_post.aspx?id=1034326
We all know there are at least two basics that are absolute – death and taxes. One, we can’t prevent, as death is part of life. The other is necessary, to an extent, to operate a government of the people by the people and for the people. In those hallowed words, however, there is no subtext for how the government operates financially speaking. Sure there are rules, guidelines, and budgets, but those aren’t decided on around the dinner table by a couple trying to make a dollar stretch just a little more. More accurate would be the vision of law makers, all on a salary making deals, and spending what might appear to be a bottomless pit of cash.
As most of us last week signed, sealed, and delivered our taxes last week, we are all painfully aware of the cost of running a government from the standpoint of one.
Of course, a quandary that law makers from Washington to City Hall skillfully weave is "where are those dollars going?" Well, according to website OpenTheBooks.com, between 2000 and 2012, Fortune 100 companies collected $1.3 trillion in tax dollars. Wealthy families like the Rockefeller’s were provided $500,000 dollars, and $317,000 was send to the private home of Louis Farrakhan.
Here is one of my favorites – Both Fed-Ex and https://www.ups.com/UPS have governmental contracts totaling in the neighborhood of $17 billion. My question is "isn’t there a government agency that also will be happy to deliver items through snow, rain, and gloom of night?" Yes, I am quite certain I read that somewhere. Would it not make more since to utilize the agency that was founded and endorsed by the very people who are writing the checks?
According to Open The Books, it’s not just in big cities, and the nation’s capital. Private training institutions in the Palmetto State, such as the Charleston School of Massage and the Kenneth Schuler School of Cosmetology, both private companies, are able to offer federal loans to their students.
Another interesting stat is that the city manager in Columbia earns more that all by three governors.
Now, without spending more time with the numbers, and really looking at what the money goes to, it is easy to get at least a little excitable about some of the staggering amounts of money that is taken from our wallets and put into others, however, the challenge is to be informed. We have a responsibility to at least know, agree or disagree, where our hard earned money is going.
Instead of simply being passive about the gallons of dollars that pass from our employer through our hands, and out to be redistributed, do we not have at least an obligation, if to no one else but ourselves and our families to ask "where are these dollars going?" I think so.
Where is my money? That is my issue.