Re: Wonder how close our current Congress can come to doing exactly what Sicily has been doing - so far they are closing in fast

How's that compare to the Wall Street and the Bank bailouts here in
the U.S. under Bush/OreO, both?
nominal9

On Oct 12, 7:03 pm, dick <rhomp2...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> *Pork Barrel Spending In Sicily: *If this article
> <http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/356171-sicily-gobbler-eu-...>
> is correct, Sicilian politicians could give much of the world lessons in
> wasteful spending.
>
>     Can we spend money?  And how, the Sicilian authorities tell the EU
>     inspectors who've come from Strasbourg.   And not just peanuts.
>       Because we do things big here or we don't them at all: after all,
>     we're spiritual heirs to the munificent, magnificent (Holy Roman
>     Emperor) Frederick II, the Stupor Mundi (Wonder of the World), whose
>     palace of velvet and gold is now the seat of the island's
>     parliament.  So there's nothing left of the EUR8.5 billion that
>     Europe lavished on the area from 2000 to 2007 to stop the
>     development gap, not even the crumbs, as the regional authorities
>     insist on pointing out.
>
>     Pity that in the same report that concludes Agenda 2000 --- the rain
>     of gold from Brussels that nurtured the island in those bumper years
>     --- the administration candidly admits that the money served no
>     purpose at all.  EUR700 million to improve the water supply?  In
>     2000, the water supply was "stop-and-flow" for 33% of Sicilian
>     households, now 38.7% have water worries.  Incentives to entice
>     off-season tourists?  Cost EUR400 million, enough to buy up an
>     airline.  And yet the ranks of those thankless tourists haven't
>     swelled, but petered out: from 1.2% in 2000 to 1.1% in 2007.  And as
>     to the EUR300 million invested in alternative energy projects great
>     and small: it's true, there isn't a single hillock without its
>     windmill now, but Sicilian output is stuck at 5% of total
>     consumption, as against an average 9.1% for Southern Italy as a whole.
>
> Not that many of us want them to give those lessons, of course.  But we
> should recognize that a few politicians will see this example as
> something to emulate, not avoid, and will see all those projects as good
> ways to buy the votes they need.
>
> And we should recognize that the best money of all to waste --- from the
> point of view of a pork-barrel politician --- is someone else's money.
>   There would have been less wasted in Sicily if the money had come from
> Italy, rather than the whole European Union, and even less wasted if the
> money had come from the places where it was spent.
>
> (Not so incidentally --- and we Americans should pay attention to this
> --- wind and solar projects have been plagued by fraud in much of
> Europe.  The enormous subsidies attracted crooks, and we should expect
> the same thing to happen here.
>
> Sicily has about five million people, so those EU subsidies would be
> roughly $2,000 for every man, woman, and child in the island.)
> - 10:11 AM, 12 October 2010 [link]
> <http://www.seanet.com/%7Ejimxc/Politics/October2010_2.html#jrm9236>
>
>  From Jim Miller on Politics

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