SIGNS, SIGNS, EVERYWHERE A SIGN

This sign is posted at the entrance gate to the Paul Revere Transportation Bus Yard

The Federal Governments Recovery Act, or sometimes known as the stimulus, authorized almost a trillion dollars of taxpayer money to be spent on thousands of projects around the country. There's no question that jobs were either created, or saved with this massive amount of government funding. There are however, a couple of bigger questions associated with such massive expenditures by the Federal Government.

With a debt of 14.3 trillion, and a recent congressional authorized borrowing of another trillion or two, was this recent stimulus expenditure a smart, or a dumb move by the government. If the country wasn't so far in debt, I might argue that it was a smart move. Conversely, with such unprecedented government debt, I simply can't reconcile the idea of continuing to borrow more money. The burden we are placing on future generations is almost criminal!

I know I've touched on this subject before, but when I noticed the sign at work, I did a little research into where some of the stimulus money has gone. Here at Grand Canyon National Park, somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 million was spent, mostly on road maintenance. At the bus yard, an oil chip seal was done last summer, and I suspect that's why the recovery sign is hanging on the fence.

The thousands of recovery signs around the country, telling the taxpayers where their money is being spent, is just one example of government waste, in my opinion. The estimates of the cost of all those signs, including the one where I work, is somewhere between 5 and 20 million dollars. The cost of this small sign on the fence was approx. $225. The big signs you have all probably seen on highways, cost in the neighborhood of $10,000. Maybe some people need to see signs, telling them where the government is spending their money. Personally, I don't.