Growing Government In Your Backyard
One of the ways the federal government controls local governments is with strings. An amorphous agency gives some amount of money for some wonderful, pie-in-the-sky program, with strings attached. Local governments, being unwilling to say no to tax money taken by another authority simply because they aren’t held responsible for the taxes but get to spend the money, take the loot and wonder only later what happened to their autonomy. It is a wonderful thing to behold, but not to be subject to. In any event, a new string-baby just came to town.
As Mark Pellin reports here, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), in concert with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Transportation – a group of innocents, I’m sure – is giving away money to cities and counties to encourage (let us more appropriately use the word ‘strongarm’) local communities into designing housing and neighborhood developments that meet with federal approval. Theirs, I’m sure. For those of you so inclined, pray.
Let us pretend the new federal noodling of the DOT, EPA and HUD (collectively “Dotepahud”) has your best interests in mind. How, please tell me, do they know your best interests? Do they ask? Do they poll? But even if they did, polls are agglomerations of singular thoughts at a specific time. They hold no meaning beyond that. No, that is not the belief of “Dotepahud”. Theirs is to dictate to you where, with whom and how to live. Their goal will be to define for you whether you rent or buy; whether you have 1,500 square feet of living space or 1,650 (don’t believe for a second that you will get to choose something larger than that); what temperature to run your thermostat (can you say SMART GRID); when to wash your clothes; when to exercise (and you will, citizen, exercise) and finally what to eat and not eat.
You think I jest. You think I exaggerate. Look back: seat belts, shoulder harnesses, air bags, child-seat laws, automatic cutoffs on lawnmowers, redlight cameras, bike lanes, age-limit drinking laws, zoning standards that effectively kill suburbs, new and renovated building codes requiring thousands in expenditures for ramps for the disabled, apartment houses with no joint bathrooms (increasing the cost of rent and the number of homeless), what type of oil restaurants may cook with, no smoking in public restaurants and paying for property in flood plains.
The list of how governments use your money to control how your life is endless. These few examples took no research, just the memory of a cynic. Twenty-five years ago most of them were not in the province of government. What new things will government dictate in the next 25 years? With the advent of “Dotepahud,” the answers may soon become all too clear.
Make no mistake. Government is out to tell you how to live. The Office of Livable Communities in Washington will, according to Rep. Paul Ryan, “….impose an urban-utopian fantasy through an unprecedented intrusion of the Federal Government into the shaping of local communities.” The “Dotepahud” is out to get you. And they will.
With the complicity of the Democrats on the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners and bipartisan support from the Charlotte City Council, the feds are stepping into the planning and design of your neighborhood and your home. They have their own interest at heart. As all government bureaucrats, being unable, unwilling or just weak-minded, they cannot do something which puts them at risk, but instead use your tax dollars, taken from you by force, to inflict their injurious designs on your life; the entire time explaining to you why you are wrong to complain, question or take issue.
This will not be reported on NPR.
We need your help! If you like PunditHouse, please consider donating to us. Even $5 a month can make a difference!
Short URL: https://pundithouse.com/?p=3496
