The misguided $862 billion federal “stimulus” is being spent – unwisely in our view – not just in other parts of the United States but in our area of Tennessee and Georgia as well.
In fairness, we cannot criticize the use of stimulus funds only when they are spent “somewhere else,” then praise that unconstitutional spending when it goes toward local projects.
Take, for instance, recent news that $15 million from the stimulus will be used to help build a hotel and conference center at a golf facility in Lookout Mountain, Ga.
We most assuredly are not against the idea of hotels on beautiful Lookout Mountain. Nor do we begrudge Walker County, Ga., the new tourists it might attract by being home to such a facility. The proposed hotel and conference center might even have some economic benefit for Chattanooga by possibly hiring some workers from this city. We obviously do not oppose that.
But it is not proper or constitutional federal business to pay for the construction of a hotel and conference center with millions of taxpayer dollars. What’s next? Should the government also build gas stations and grocery stores?
We encourage such projects – when they are funded by private investment and by the free-market choices of consumers who are willing to pay the true, unsubsidized cost for the goods and services provided.
But we cannot downplay the wrongness of the stimulus just because it benefits some projects in “our backyard.” We do not really fault the Lookout Mountain facility for accepting that stimulus money, but we fault Washington for authorizing the stimulus to begin with.