The Patriot Post® · On Bailing Out Detroit

I read an article in the Detroit Free Press last week by Matt Helms, Stephen Henderson and Todd Spangler that the Obama administration is engaged in discussions with Michigan officials to use $100 million federal dollars to bail out the City of Detroit. This report has appeared in a variety of other news sources as well.

I don’t know where to begin in considering this move. There are so many things wrong with it that it boggles the mind.

The Hardest Hit Fund was developed to aid 18 states by providing money to assist homeowners in trouble with their mortgages. It was intended to provide money for subsidies, mortgage modifications and principal reductions. It was not intended as a federal slush fund for the Obama administration to bail out his political cronies for failing to provide competent leadership. It was not intended to continue his federal tax money laundering, funneling further tax dollars to aid unions as he did with the GM bailout.

In Detroit we have a city that is poorly governed. The people of Detroit made decisions based on false promises of the goodies that their elected officials would give them. You and I didn’t have an opportunity to vote for the numbskulls who ran the city of Detroit into the ground. Why should we have to help pay for their unions’ free rides? Why should we take responsibility for the incompetence and malfeasance of their officials? If the people of Detroit don’t want to learn from their mistakes and elect people to office based on ability rather than party affiliation, why should we pay to support their idiocy? Where does Obama get the authority to steal money from around the nation and give it to a particular group of people in a particular city? He is supposed to be representing all the people at a federal level.

I’ve often read comments about slippery slopes and the way that actions of the government can start us down those slopes. This is a cliff. Once Detroit is bailed out, the administration will move on to bail out Pontiac and Taylor, Compton and Oakland in California, Harrisburg Pennsylvania or any number of cities from Rhode Island to Washington. I’m sure in Obama’s collectivist world, stealing money from rural areas to shore up and provide cover for political incompetence and malfeasance seems reasonable, but I assure you there is no racism when I respectfully disagree. Let the state of Michigan and the people of Detroit clean up their own messes.

This Hardest Hit Fund was established about four years ago. According to the Detroit Free Press article, out of 7.6 billion dollars only about 2 billion dollars has been spent. If this money was necessary as an emergency allocation to help people hurt by the Democrats’ mortgage debacle, why is the lion’s share still languishing four years after the allocation?

In The Life of Colonel David Crocket by Edward Sylvester Ellis, the hero of the Alamo and three term Congressman, argued that the congress has no authority to appropriate money for charity. It is the duty of congress to pay appropriate debts incurred by the government, but it has no authority to use taxpayer money to make charitable contributions, no matter how noble or deserving the cause. Charity is the duty and responsibility of individuals and their private institutions, churches, synagogues and Mosques, not that of the federal government. Further, since congress does not have the power to provide charity, even though it has the responsibility for our government’s finances, the president certainly does not have any power to provide taxpayer money for any program not specified by congress.

In my opinion, we are once again seeing Obama funnel taxpayer money to his supporters. The mayors of these cities on the brink of bankruptcy are mostly Democrat. Just as I believe that the buyout of GM by using taxpayer TARP money was a way to funnel money to auto unions, this is a way to prop up and reward public employee unions. If this is allowed to happen in Detroit, will there be end to the cities and unions that this corrupt administration can buy using federal tax dollars? What happens when a city whose mayor or city manager is not an adequate supporter of the Obama administration? Will that city be denied assistance in the name of fiscal responsibility? The penchant that this administration has for rewarding friends while punishing enemies by withholding something of value has been illustrated by the IRS singling out conservative organizations, federal dollars for “green energy” companies and TARP funds to selected companies. Not to mention the DOJ’s habit of applying the law at whim or disregarding it altogether.

Once again we see the danger of concentrating too much power and money in Washington D.C. When a corrupt administration can select the winners and losers of taxpayer largesse, and those funds are distributed to friends and denied to enemies, tax dollars are being stolen for political purposes, not serving the needs of all the citizens. If the federal government’s activities were appropriately confined to those powers enumerated in the Constitution, there would be far less money sent to Washington and substantially less temptation to misuse those fund.