Czar Larry Kissell: The Gatekeeper of North Carolina's 8th District

Congressman Larry Kissell has proclaimed himself to be the Czar of North Carolina’s 8th District. If you want federal largess you have to go to the gatekeeper, and Rep. Kissell is not ashamed to brag about how much money he has “appropriated” from the taxpayers. The following excerpt is from his glossy, taxpayer funded, propaganda brochure:

Billions of dollars have been invested in the 8th District which has created thousands of jobs – good jobs, manufacturing jobs, jobs that strengthen our economy’s foundation by generating and keeping money and wages in our communities. These jobs include:

250 new jobs at Plastek industries in Hamlet
74 new jobs at Michelin plant in Norwood
209 new green jobs at Clariant in Charlotte
1000 new jobs at Zenta in Charlotte
24 new jobs at Knit-Rite in Ellerbe
135 new jobs and retention of 140 jobs at Richmond Specialty Yarns
98 new jobs at Nature’s Earth Products Inc. in Scotland County
40 new jobs at Electrolux in Mecklenburg County
194 new jobs at Toshiba America Nuclear Energy Corp in Mecklenburg County
80 new Police Officers across 8th District
Monsanto & General Mills join North Carolina Research Campus

Yes Mr. Kissell you brought billions of dollars to your district; but you also stole billions of dollars from taxpayers so you can broker deals for businesses and individuals that you favor. I wonder how many federal workers are now on the dole, since the Stimulus Bill came into law. Someone has to oversee this redistribution of wealth.

Rep. Larry Kissell also stated that he wants to crack down on corporations that use foreign tax havens:

The bill would also help create jobs by extending the TANF Emergency Fund that is already on track to put over 160,000 Americans back to work and saves American jobs by cracking down on corporations that use foreign tax havens to take advantage of the U.S. tax treaty network to dodge U.S. taxes and gain an advantage over American companies that play by the rules.

Mr. Kissell did you even bother to ask yourself why U.S. companies use foreign tax havens? The Wall Street Journal in conjunction with the Heritage Foundation ranked the United States in 8th place in their Index of Economic Freedom; Canada ranked higher than us. Maybe they use these havens to escape the fickleness of Washington politicians and bureaucrats. I wonder if there is a haven for businesses and citizens who play by the rules and don’t kiss your ass.

Congressman Kissell also bragged about a summit:

Congressman Kissell also hosted a Federal Resources Summit and a Federal Contracting Symposium introducing more than 400 local business leaders to federal contract decision makers.

Czar Kissell, the gatekeeper of North Carolina’s 8th District, and one of our federal overlords seeing to it that your tax dollars is appropriated and redistributed to the local leeches who couldn’t make an honest dollar on their own. Now that is what I call representation.

N.C. Waste More Stimulus Money

The more we learn about the Stimulus Bill and where the money is going, the more disgusted I get. Representative Larry Kissell and all the other yahoos who praise this boondoggle should be ashamed of themselves.

Here is a list compiled by Civitas of the top ten most egregious programs that have wasted taxpayers money:

1) Study of Monkeys using cocaine $71,623

2) N.C. Dance Theater $50,000

3) Reducing hot flashes thru yoga $147,694

4) Collecting, researching, and reporting on stimulus (propaganda) $492,940

5) Create interactive dance performance technology $762,372

6) American Dance Festival $50,000

7) Construction of a new town hall in Bladenboro $300,000

8) N.C. Folk Life Institute $25,000

9) Preservation of an insect collection at N.C. State $253,123

10) Greensboro Symphony Orchestra $50,000 -- no doubt Senator Kay Hagan had a hand in this one.


This is absolutely outrageous. Do these people have no shame?

Source: http://www.nccivitas.org/media/publication-archive/policy-brief/hot-flashes-dead-bugs-and-cocaine-monkeys-10-worst-federal-st

Stimulus Bill Pays For Foreign Green Jobs

It seems that most of the Stimulus money that was to pay for "green jobs" went overseas. I hope Congressman Larry Kissell reads this. But first a little excerpt from his JOBS brochure:

Putting Amerians back to work is Congressman Kissell's first priority. Kissell believes small businesses and 'green' manufacturing can put us back on track.

It looks like 'green' manufacturing did put people to work...mostly in foreign countries. Here is the article, courtesy of Newsmax.

By: John Rossomando

Although Barack Obama and other Democrats touted the $787 billion stimulus package as a way to create green jobs that would put Americans back to work, new reports show the spending package has mostly created green jobs for foreign workers.

U.S. Department of Energy statistics show 79 percent of the $2.1 billion in stimulus money allocated for wind energy has been paid to foreign manufacturers.The Spanish company Iberdrola has received $443 million; the Portuguese company EDP has received $229 million; and the British company Terra Firma, which bought a large wind farm in western Pennsylvania, received $42 million.

Analysts worry the stimulus funds will also help create manufacturing jobs in China, and a Texas consortium’s plans to build a wind farm that primarily will rely on Chinese-made turbines using $450 million in stimulus money underscores this fear A report from the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University found 80 percent of the stimulus money had created 6,000 jobs, and only a small percentage of those jobs went to American workers.

Only two American companies ̶ General Electric Energy and Clipper Wind ̶ are major wind turbine manufacturers, and the American Wind Energy Associations has said the United States saw a drop in the number of wind turbine manufacturing jobs last year.

Source:

Newsmax

Congressman Larry Kissell's Fascistic Musings

Fascism is a philosophy or system of government that advocates or exercises dictatorship, through the merging of state and business leadership often with a belligerent nationalism.

I don't know about belligerent nationalism. There are quite a few self-loathing Americans on Capitol Hill; so we can discount that. But there are quite a few politicians who are eager to merge the state and business interest together.

Congressman Larry Kissell just recently bragged about securing $49 million in grants to Celgard, a maker of components for electric car batteries. As quoted on his legislative update:

"Celgard's expansion and this new green job training is the type of help the RECOVERY ACT was meant to bring and why I'm proud I supported it. Cooperation at levels of government, along with private enterprise, is what will fuel our economic recovery." - Rep. Larry Kissell

I don't know if Congressman Kissell displays belligerent nationalism; but he sure does believe in merging the state with business interest. His advocacy for "Green Jobs" is disconcerting. It implies that he believes in this fraud called global warming.

Mr. Kissell is extorting money from the American taxpayers to pay for his special pet projects. How many businesses have to cut back, and lay people off because of burdensome federal regulations, and rapacious taxes. Meanwhile Celgard is getting special dispensation. If Celgard had a worthwhile product that is in demand, they wouldn't need federal grants. We are just shoving more money down a rat hole.

Congressman Kissell voted to infuse $75 billion in TARP money to pay for highways, school renovations, hiring teachers, police and firefighters while providing funding for small businesses, job training and affordable housing.

Tarp money was not designed for that. If anything it should have been used to pay down the debt, or returned to the taxpayers.

Government has grown 66% at the federal, state, and local levels just in the past year. The biggest growing sector today are government jobs. Today, government workers make more than those in the private sector. We have more people riding in the cart, than those who are pulling it. And Congressman Larry Kissell is cracking the whip.

I don't know what these people in Washington D.C. are thinking. Apparently, they can spend like crazy without any consequences. Maybe they should turn on the news and take a look at what is happening over in Greece.

Anonymous Defends Congressman Larry Kissell

I received a comment on my post entitled: Congressman Kissell Raids Treasury. The person who left the comment stated the following:

"Anonymous said...

This is HORRIBLE! Do the taxpayers know they are getting their money back in roads, sewers, fire trucks and stuff? Gawd, I HATE him. That was DC money! Why should he bring it back? I mean it's not like he's in Congress or anything."

As you can see, there seems to be a disconnect as to who actually owns the money. The commenter believes it is D.C.'s. I contend that it actually belongs to the taxpayer. This person also doesn't comprehend that the federal government doesn't create wealth; rather it confiscates and redistributes it after if gets its cut to pay for the various bureaucracies.

It is quite interesting to look back and find out what our founding fathers thought about the federal governments role in confiscating the citizenry's wealth and using it to promote and pay for infrastructure programs.

Alexander Hamilton published his Report on Manufacturers in 1791 in which he wrote, "The public purse must supply the deficiency of private resource. In what can it be so useful as in prompting and improving the efforts of industry."

But it was Thomas Jefferson's own secretary of the treasury who actually provided a detailed plan for internal improvements. Albert Gallatin promoted a 10 year plan for a government financed and supervised canal and road building system. It was aptly named The Gallatin Plan.

John Quincy Adams made proposals that would "checker" the country with railroads and canals.

So you have to ask yourself why did these programs not come into fruition? Who put a stop to these programs?

It was men like Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, John C. Calhoun, and Andrew Jackson who stood in their way. They decried that such programs were unconstitutional.

When the Erie Canal was brought forth to the federal government for financing; Jefferson turned it down, as did Madison during his presidency.

Henry Clay tried to sneak a 1.5 million dollar internal improvement subsidy through congress. Madison squashed it:

[D]ecided it was time to teach the nation a lesson in constitutionalism. . . . The
. . . bill, he said, failed to take into account the fact that Congress had enumerated powers under section eight of the first article of the Constitution, ‘and it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercized in the bill is among the enumerated powers, or that it falls by any just interpretation within the power to make the laws necessary and proper’ for carrying other constitutional powers into execution.

Madison further stated that if they want taxpayer monies to go to such programs, it would require a constitutional amendment.

Henry Clay was also foiled by Andrew Jackson on many such bills.

So, without federal government subsidies, who built the roads and canals?

In Daniel B. Klein's “The Voluntary Provision of Public Goods? The Turnpike Companies of Early America,” he wrote:

As early as 1800, before the internal improvements debate even commenced, there were sixty-nine private road-building companies that were chartered by the states.14 In the next three decades, writes Klein,The [private road-building] movement built new roads at rates previously unheard of in America. Over $11 million was invested in turnpikes in New York, some $6.5 million in New England, and over $4.5 million in Pennsylvania. . . . Between 1794

and 1840, 238 private New England turnpike companies built and operated about 3,750 miles of road. New York led all other states in turnpike mileage with over 4,000 as of 1821. Pennsylvania was second, reaching a peak of about 2,400 miles in 1832. New Jersey companies operated 50 miles by 1821 . . . [B]etween 1810 and 1845 over 400[private turnpikes were chartered and built

Individual states began to finance roads, canals, and railroads; which nearly bankrupted them. Many states amended their constitutions so as to stop subsidization of such projects. New York's Erie Canal is the one project that many point to as a success. But the railroad soon rendered it obsolete after 15 years. It officially shut down in 1913.

It wasn't until Lincoln won the election, and the secession of the southern states that the federal government began to go hog wild on subsidizing infrastructure projects; especially railroads. Lincoln, a former whig, believed in these projects and in order to finance them would have had to raise tariffs. This would have had a deleterious effect on the south; and they rebelled.

The two railroads that received funding from the federal government were the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads. After much waste, and using shoddy material they went bankrupt shorty after its completion in 1869.

Many say that big projects such as railroads would never have come to fruition without the involvement and financing of a government entity. That is not true. The Great Northern Railroad did not receive any financing or assistance from any government entity; and they were profitable.

The Mormons built four railroads in Utah without one dime from the feds. New Hampshire and Vermont did not subsidize private companies and those companies built railroads throughout those mountainous states. New Hampshire didn't even intervene with eminent domain; forcing the companies to pay market prices for property.

During Reconstruction, programs that were designed to rebuild the South's infrastructure were replete with corruption and waste. It was known as the Era of Good Stealings. Grants administration is probably known as one of the most corrupt in history thanks to the incompetency of federal bureaucrats.

With the implementation of the federal reserve in 1913 and repeal of the gold standard in 1971, we have seen outrageous spending by our so-called representatives in congress. It seems that everyday is Christmas in Washington D.C.; but their gifts are just going to bankrupt the country.

So I say yes Virginia (anonymous), there is a Santa Claus. He just doesn't work for the government.

Source: The Role of Private Transportation in America's 19th Century "Internal Improvements" Debate. by Thomas J. DiLorenzo, Professor of Economics

http://mises.org/journals/scholar/Internal.pdf

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/TRANSPORT/erie.html