Money for Nothing and Your Economy Cut Free
This is interesting (subscription needed):
You don’t have to be a scholar to know that congressional chairmen bring home the pork. But researchers at Harvard Business School, working with decades’ worth of data, put a number on it: Earmarked spending targeted at a specific state increases by about 40 percent when one of that state’s senators becomes chairman of one of the major committees, such as appropriations, and by about 20 percent when one of its representatives heads such a committee in the House. The surprise twist: The economy chokes on all that pork. Rather than thriving on the injections of federal cash, local businesses actually retrench.
Government money helps the government and hurts its private-sector competition for funds and for employees. The full report is available online as a PDF.
Justin,
We the people of the State of Hawaii and all the US Air Force, US Navy, US Marine Corps., US Army and US Coast Guard from all major Pacific Command bases, intelligence, military test, simulators, military live fire/ bombing ranges and Rest & Recuperation facilities plus the Hawaii National Guard and all of the military contractors thank the Hawaii Senators and Congressmen for all the ear marks generated for the State of Hawaii and its military being front line Pacific vanguards for the United State of America and proud of the many deployments on the war against terrorist. After all US entry into WWII started in Pearl Harbor and North Korea is about 350 miles short on their current missile range.
Hawaii is the only place you can view US start of WWII and end in one place.
We also profusely thank U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye (D) Hawaii, Senate president pro tempore and chairman of the influential United States Senate Committee on Appropriations for his sacrifices (losing arm, being shot more than once and having leg shattered while single-handily charging forward and taking out three German machine-gun positions) during WWII raising to rank of Lieutenant in the Nisei 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which became the most-highly decorated unit in the history of the Army (nickname “The Purple Heart Brigade”) and continued service to the United States of America.
I would like to see some of these Harvard Business School report writers try to fill the shoes of the Hawaii Senator or the active military in Hawaii that the ear marks supported.
“The surprise twist: The economy chokes on all that pork. Rather than thriving on the injections of federal cash, local businesses actually retrench.”
That is a surprise. Perhaps we are gaining some insight as to why we are about to enter a third depression – so says Paul Krugman – despite a staggering amount of government (i.e., our tax) dollars spent over the last year and a half.
Perhaps G20 leaders have a point after all when they rejected President Obama’s (and Krugman’s) call for more gov’t spending …
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100628/ts_csm/311218
Monique, You said; ” Perhaps we are gaining some insight as to why we are about to enter a third depression – so says Paul Krugman – despite a staggering amount of government (i.e., our tax) dollars spent over the last year and a half.” You, Justin and Paul Krugman better start ranting and raving louder in public so people know what’s coming down the pike because right now people are spending like nothing is wrong and Hawaii loves it! Hawaii’s tourism market has double digit increases from every market EXCEPT FROM THE EAST COAST OF MAINLAND have boosted arrivals by 6.5% and spending by 17.4% from the year-ago period, according to data released by the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA). Total visitor arrivals rose to 549,954, and spending from visitors who came by air to Hawaii increased to $860.7 million, according to the HTA. May is typically a slow month for tourist. May’s spending increase helped boost total visitor expenditures for the first five months of 2010 to $4.3 billion; however, year-to-date visitor spending has underperformed HTA’s target by 11.1 percent. If it continues at its current pace, visitor spending will only attain $11.4 billion of the HTA’s $11.8 billion year-end visitor spending target. While arrivals from the U.S. East market dropped 2.9%, arrivals from Hawaii’s core U.S. West visitor market rose 2.4% and they were up 25.6% from Japan, 14.6% in Canada and 6.5% in the cruise market. Total International visitor arrivals were up 26.4% without a fully developed Chinese visitor market. Private investor spending has designated about 40 years of continuous development and redevelopment in Hawaii without federal, state or municipal funding. Outrigger just finished its $12 billion private funded redevelopment of the Waikiki Beach walk. Donald Trump has just finished his private funded Trump International tower. Walt… Read more »