By Trent Loos
Guest Columnist
Every time you turn around people and organizations are spending money like crazy because, “they got a grant.” While some grants from nonprofits and foundations truly go to help where help is most needed and are generated by donations and fundraising efforts. My problem is with federal grants.
I can’t believe that people think taking every federal dollar you can get your hands on is a good idea. It is not free money. It is our taxes, which just keep going up.
Meanwhile, since the federal government is already spending more than they take in, they are actually borrowing money to give out these “free” grants.
As of noon on Labor Day 2023, our United States National Debt was $32,834,887,240,906. Do you even know how much that is? It is nearly $33 trillion dollars and that amounts to $97,857 per citizen, which is a figure I think we can all get a better grasp of. The U.S. debt that is held by foreign countries is over $7 trillion. What happens when these foreign countries want their money?
From solar farms to schools taking Emergency and Secondary School Emergency Relief Funds to carbon pipelines and wind turbines, nobody really wins except those with a finger in the kitty. The people getting stuck with the bill for this “free money” are your grandkids, your great-grandkids and many more generations to come. These governmental get-rich-schemes are benefiting foreign-owned wind turbine and solar companies that promise riches, in my opinion, and landowners still pay the taxes and take the pittance they are given.
If you think we aren’t giving away the inheritance of our offspring, then take a look at the amount of money being doled out in just a handful of these programs:
Subsidies from the government to Summit and Navigator carbon pipeline owners alone will be over $8 billion and the subsidy to the affiliated ethanol plants will be $7 billion.
ESSER funds taken from our grandkids and “given” to schools that now have their hands tied on how they can use the money will add up to $190 billion. Do some digging into the requirements for accepting these grants and you will be alarmed.
Billions of dollars are going into the pockets of wind and solar energy developers who are also gobbling up land to construct their “power supplies.” Even electric companies are getting money to support these projects.
While many consumers complain about subsidies to agriculture, which I personally do not approve of, those actually amount to less than 1% of the federal budget. Of the $198 billion U.S. Department of Agriculture budget, only $30 billion goes to farm payments while the balance provides Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program aid and food services to low-income households.
The bottom line is this, stop taking the “free” government money from your grandkids. It doesn’t matter “if you don’t take it then someone else will,” let them. Stop thinking federal grants are “free money.” Our country wasn’t built on people getting something for nothing. If a new project or program needs a subsidy to keep standing, then it can’t stand on its own.
Trent Loos is a sixth generation United States farmer, host of the daily radio show, Loos Tales, and founder of Faces of Agriculture, a non-profit organization putting the human element back into the production of food. Get more information at www.LoosTales.com, or email Trent at [email protected].
