Stop playing games with stimulus funds

Are Florida politicians drinking tainted orange juice? It is difficult to find any sane reason why first state politicians, and now those in Miami-Dade, are acting so irrational when it comes to the administration of federal stimulus funds provided for the state.

Although Democrats in the Legislature in Tallahassee are putting up a strong fight for Republicans to approve federal funding allocated to extend unemployment benefits to thousands of unemployed Floridians, there is still no guarantee that they will approve the benefits.

Down in Miami-Dade, the situation is even more insane. Reports are that the county commission is seriously contemplating approving a proposal made by Miami-Dade Transit to place a five percent fee on stimulus funds to be disbursed to the 28 cities in the county for road and transportation projects. MDT is calling this fee a processing fee for the administrative work applicable to the disbursements. Interestingly, and to their credit, the Broward County Commission rejected the idea of such a processing fee.

This fee to be charged by MDT has nothing to do with stimulating Miami-Dade’s economy in accordance with the intent of the government’s approval of the economic stimulus plan in February. It is a blatant maneuver to realize revenue for a department that has experienced a deficit for months.

The county has been allocated $13.4 million to disburse to its cities. If the five percent fee is approved this would bring additional revenue of $670,000 to the MDT. Not a bad revenue source for the county, but totally wrong, as this is a misuse of the stimulus funds. If implemented, this would deprive cities like Miami, expected to get over $4 million, of critically needed funds.

Surely, it cannot cost the county $670,000 to process the disbursement of the funds. Say, three staff members are allocated to administer the disbursements, this should not cost more than $150,000 and even that is a stretch. How can $670,000 be justified? Granted, it will take manpower to process the disbursements, but can’t the county reassign staffers to temporarily undertake this job? There can be no argument whatsoever to justify this processing fee, and the idea must be scrapped immediately.

The funds were approved under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) with guidelines for disbursements. One is left to wonder why so many liberties are being taken by states and municipalities with funds meant to resuscitate ailing economies? This infers that more stringent efforts are needed at the federal level to ensure that these billions of dollars, a long-term leverage on American taxpayers, are not being misused or misdirected.

Too much despair growing in America

News of various random killings and suicides, committed by people who have lost their jobs is a cause for real national alarm. Over the past weekend 20 people in upstate New York, Pittsburg, and Miami-Dade were shot to death by men who had recently lost jobs. These incidents follow several similar ones that have taken place across the country. Most of those killed, including children of the shooters, have been innocent victims – simply individuals who the shooters were bent on taking out as they sought to end their lives in despair.

Undoubtedly, the economic hardships faced by most Americans are unusually challenging. There is hardly any worse calamity than a man losing his job – his only means of providing for his family – but this is not a reason to embark on a killing spree or commit suicide.

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