Wonder how priorities are set?

by James Simpson
Daily Journal
Thursday, October 9, 2003

This week I received an email alert from The Liberty Committee (www.thelibertycommittee.org) titled "Food for wounded troops." It was shocking to read that our military personnel who are wounded and need hospitalization are required to pay - out of their own pockets - for the subsistence they received.

One of the examples in the email stated: "Upon his discharge July 18th to return home to Nevada and his job as a sheriff's deputy, Sergeant Murwin was handed a bill from the hospital for $210.60 to pay for his food and subsistence."

I can't help but wonder how our politicians set their priorities. Some folks, citizens and politicians alike, seem to think that there is an endless well of money available to provide for every whim that strikes their fancy. It doesn't matter to them that our nation's debt is spiraling out of control, as long as pet projects are accomplished.

While reviewing Senator George Allen's home page, I found the following items that our tax money is being spent on:

$7,600,000 has been approved by the Senate to plan, design and construct an educational and visitor's facility on Jamestown Island.

$1,497,000 was approved by the Senate for The Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation to use towards the purchase, preservation and promotion of various Civil War battlefields throughout the Valley.

$1,560,000 was approved by the Senate today for the rehabilitation of four major Civil War battlefields within the Fredericksburg-Spotsylvania Military Park.

Additionally the Marine Corp is building a National Museum of the Marine Corps and a Marine Corps Heritage Center in Prince William County. Thus far the project has incurred the following expenses:

$800,000 for road clearing and site demarcation.

$600,000 to stake the centerline of the museum and mark out the 135-acre site.

$200,000 for construction of a scenic parkway leading to the site and will bring electric and gas utilities to the site.

$350,000 for an engineering survey.

Knowing what I do about our founding founders, I can only image that they would be enormously disappointed in how the government appropriates and spends citizens' hard earned money. My guess is that Thomas Jefferson would rather Monticello, as well as every battlefield where Americans blood was spilled, fall to pieces and be rebuilt upon rather than money be forcefully taken from citizens to protect and preserve them.

We are told that this is done to safeguard the memories and history of the people who have fought and died for the freedoms we enjoy. Yet it is that very freedom that is threatened when government uses force to take the fruits of ones labor for such endeavors.

When citizens are once again allowed, of their own volition and free will, the opportunity to determine what should be preserved - through personal donations and commercial ventures - then there will be honor and virtue in preserving America's heritage.

Senator Allen is supposed to be one of our more fiscally conservative representatives, yet this money comes from the confiscatory, compulsory taxes that Virginians are required to pay. And our primary needs, such as roads and hospitalization for soldiers, go unmet and eventually added to the national debt in order to be funded.

One of the unfortunate results of having a strong Federal government and weaker local and state governments is that tax money is held hostage by the demands of citizens in other states. If Senator Allen and other Virginian representatives were to reject the money allocated for such projects in favor of a free market alternative to funding museums and battlefields, the money would simply be directed to projects in other states. Then Virginians would be furious that none of their tax money came back to Virginia. Thus the American people are endlessly duped into funding projects that should be privately supported. While this is no excuse for continuing to fund unconstitutional projects, it is undoubtedly one of the reasons that the practice continues.

James Simpson is the Executive Director of Virginians Opposed to Government Waste and Intrusive Legislation. His column runs the first week of every month.