Feds Spend $133 Million to Save $280,000 a Year (Maybe)
The U.S. government is spending $133,000,000 to renovate a government office building in Portland, Oregon. It will make the building “green.” It will plant shade trees — 18 stories of shade trees.
The savings are officially estimated to be $280,000 a year.
A critical story in the American Spectator reports that this will take 475 years to pay off. Wrong! The author divided $133,000,000 by $280,000 and got 475. This assumes an interest rate of zero for 475 years.
This boondoggle has been approved by the Government Services Administration. The excuse: “The idea is that the cost savings are in the energy efficiency,” says Caren Auchman, a G.S.A. spokeswoman.
This is how our government runs, all the time. It does not matter who is President. It does not matter which party controls Congress. This is standard operating procedure.
They are spending us blind.
There is going to be a Great Default. These economic idiots will finally bust the budget. The voters don’t stop them. Congress does not stop them. But the market will stop them.
When the Great Default hits Main Street, voters will seek revenge. They will listen to anyone who offers pain-free solutions. There are no pain-free solutions.
Crackpots will get a hearing. So will followers of Ron Paul. One thing is clear: millions of Americans who trusted the politicians to do the right thing will be wiped out.
Anyone who thinks that this year’s election will change anything has not noticed that this insanity has been escalating for 80 years. It never changes. It cannot change. The bureaucrats are spending other people’s money.
The article also reports this.
Last week the U.S. Department of Energy released a report on wind power. To the joy of environmentalists everywhere, the department concluded that it is “technically feasible” for windmills to provide between 20 percent and 30 percent of U.S. energy by 2024.The only hitch is that it will cost $93 billion to expand the power grid to accommodate windmills. That’s only the grid expansion. It doesn’t include building the windmills or making other upgrades.
The benefit? At most, only a 4.5 percent reduction in carbon emissions, which even the New York Times labeled “modest.”
Modest, indeed. The taxpayers are expected to pay for this insanity.
Meanwhile, gasoline is almost $4 a gallon.
If you plan your future on the assumption that there is a pain-free solution, you will be in a heap of pain at some point.
Continue reading on spectator.org.
__________________________
Published on April 11, 2012. The original is here.