Main Street receives design grant (an excerpt)

Main Street West Memphis has received a grant for a program that officials hope will help spruce up the look of the city.West Memphis was one of four communities selected from 32 applicants for a $22,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts that focuses on design improvements for rural areas.The grant will fund a workshop later this year entitled Your Town: The Citizens' Institute on Rural Design, which will bring architects, landscape architects, and other design professionals together with community members.

http://www.theeveningtimes.com/articles/2010/02/08/news/news2.txt

IN RESPONSE:

After reading this article, I realize I could go on for days about this, so I will try to keep this as concise as possible. From a minarchist libertarian leaning lately more anarcho-capitalist, this flies all over me, frankly.

First and foremost, taking money out of my pocket effectively at gunpoint to use for something that I have no choice but to use it for is theft, pure and simple. If it is in the benefit of some people (primarily businesspeople) to have a beautiful Main Street, then those businesspeople and private citizens should get together and do it, and not force John Q. Public to hand over his hard earned dollars for a project that he could care less about. City beautification is not a function of government, nor should it be. Who benefits from Main Street beautification? Businesspeople in the area, and this is why I feel they should put the dough up for it. I think they would if government did not have so many people trained that the government should be the ones doing projects like this. It is a perception issue. Most people perceive that this should be done by the government, so no one else will touch it. Case in point is that the NEA is coming in “an attempt to train individuals in rural communities on design.” Why should they have to train the government to do this? There are private companies all over that do this sort work already, and I can guarantee they would do it more efficiently and more fiscally responsibly than the government could ever do it.

The worst part is that since the NEA is a federal program, the vast majority of these dollars are coming from people outside of West Memphis, or even Arkansas. Why should someone in Nebraska be forced to give money to the federal government so West Memphis can have a nicer Main Street? This is absolutely ridiculous.

My wife and I were just talking about this a couple of days ago when she mentioned the new pretty lights under the malfunction conjunction overpass at the service road and Missouri. Our tax dollars should not be used to benefit a select group of people, ever. That is income redistribution at its finest.

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