The essence of it is that state and local govenments cannot print money. They have to collect it from taxes collected. The federal government can print all the money it wants, and does. Grant money is "free"money to the states and local governments, and nobody seems to worry about who is going to pay. I see grant money being spent on odd things: Recently, our county received almost a million dollars of grant money to build a recycling center, in the words of the county adminstrator, "a much needed part of recycling". Hmmm. So the county will now collect paper, bottles, etc. My question is next how much will the county pay someone to haul if off. Economics is better left to the market, some would say. But it is free (grant) money, so it wont cost us anything, as my Green Earth friend told me. It is an odd climate here in Texas.
Grants are an important part of State and local govenment expenditures, and make up not a small part of discretionary projects. Without these, we would have to wait until economics, or social norms, made us dictate the collection of tax monies to spend on the project. We lack discipline at the Federal level to stop spending money we don't have.
As long as I am on a diatribe, we hear awful stories on how college (and other young folks) are getting in trouble with credit cards, another source of "free"money. Yet, cards are still readily available to college kids, who seldom have an income source.
So, I hope I have given you some ideas as food for thought. If you contact your local county admistrator, they can put you in contact with a grant adminstrator/coordinator, who can give you a list of projects currently funded by grants. It will give you a good idea of what is going on.
Lastly, you stated the course is hard for you. Why would anyone want an easy course? We learn more from mental challenges than those handed to us.
Good luck.
Whay are federal grant programs so important to state and local governments?
This is another essay question I am workming on and am stuck as to where to begin. If you could help with some highlights or pointers I would greatly appreciate it. This course is very hard to me.
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Thank you for the assistance. This is an online course that is real difficult to comprehend without any instructor to turn to. I like challanges though.
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