In this episode of WichitaLiberty.TV: A look at a special district proposed for Old Town, the process of granting economic development incentives and a cataloging of the available tools and amounts, and an example of waste in Wichita. Episode 43, broadcast May 18, 2014. View below, or click here to view on YouTube.
Wichita city leaders tell us that the budget and spending have been cut to the bone. Except for the waste, that is.
The street lights illustrated in this photograph are, undoubtedly, a small portion of the city’s spending. But you don’t have to look very hard to find waste like this, and we know that small examples of waste are multiplied many times. So when city leaders tell us that there is nowhere left to cut in the budget, that everything that can be done to trim the fat has already been done, and that the only thing we can do is raise taxes — well, think of this photograph and others illustrated in In Wichita, the rooftops are well-lit and On a sunny day in downtown Wichita you can see the street lights.
This is not to say that waste like this does not occur in the private sector. Of course it does. But businesses and individuals have a powerful incentive to avoid waste that isn’t present in government: Businesses and people are spending their own money.
On a sunny afternoon in May 2014, the City of Wichita uses electricity to illuminate the roof of a parking garage it owns.On a sunny Friday afternoon in May 2014, the City of Wichita spends to illuminate the rooftop of a parking garage it owns.
When you hear that Kansas schools have “cut to the bone,” or are operating at maximum efficiency, or have nowhere else to cut, or there’s no need to audit school district efficiency, think of this.
When Kansas governmental agencies receive requests for records, they must respond to the requester within three business days. Most often this response does not contain the requested records. Instead, it’s either a statement of how much the records will cost, or a denial of the request.
Every agency I have dealt with — federal, state, city, county — has sent this response by email.
The Wichita public school district sends the response in the form of a printed letter, mailed using United States Postal Service Priority Mail at a cost of $5.05 for postage. That’s in addition to the cost of preparing a printed letter. This has happened to me several times.
Every governmental agency I have encountered, except for the Wichita Public School district, is content to use email to respond to records requests, at a very low cost.
Within a budget of over $600 million, five dollars isn’t much. Except: This pattern of wasting money on postage must be repeated many times each year. This waste is also an indication of the district’s attitude towards the spending of taxpayer money.
So when you hear that Kansas schools are grossly underfunded, or that teachers have to spend their personal funds to buy classroom supplies, ask yourself this: “Why does the Wichita public school district spend $5.05 in postage to send something that everyone else sends by email?”
If you spot government waste and you have an iPhone, you can make a difference. There’s now an app for that.
Bankrupting America is, according to its website, “an educational project that explores the policies hindering economic opportunity and growth in America. The project focuses on the causes of the country’s current economic downturn and the future implications of careless policy-making.” It’s produced many informative videos and infographics, many which I’ve shared here or on Quick Takes.
Now, Bankrupting America has a free app for your iPhone. Besides providing a convenient way to read Bankrupting America’s content and view videos, it’s also a way to report government waste. That’s what I did last week.
Readers in Wichita may be aware that the city may not open the “Waltzing Waters” fountain this year, citing the water shortage. This compounds the waste of the purchase of the fountain and the building of its stage with its non-use.
Using my iPhone to submit a tip concerning government waste to Bankrupting America.
So when I was near downtown Wichita I used the Bankrupting America app to take a picture and submit my tip. It was easy to do, and resulted in this article on Bankrupting America. Note that the editors at BA took my tip as just that — a starting point. They then did their own research to write the article.
Initiatives like this are helpful in keeping a watchful eye on government spending and waste. The city will freely and liberally spend taxpayer funds promoting the goodness of the Waltzing Waters and everything else City Hall does. Local newspapers, television, and radio may report on waste, but this legacy media can’t report on everything that needs highlighting. Citizens like yourself can now step up and fill in the gap.
If you think a proper function of the federal government is spending your tax dollars to build replicas of the Great Pyramids in Indiana or a gift shop in a winery, you’re not going to like legislation introduced by U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo, a Republican who represents the Kansas fourth district, including the Wichita metropolitan area.
In his article from last year Pompeo mentions the trip by Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development John Fernandez to Wichita. Since then, Fernandex has moved on to the private sector, working for a law firm in a role that seems something like lobbying.
As part of my efforts to reduce the size of government, I have proposed to eliminate the Economic Development Administration (EDA), a politically motivated federal wealth redistribution agency. Unsurprisingly, the current leader of that agency, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development John Fernandez, has taken acute personal interest in my bill to shutter his agency.
Last week, Secretary Fernandez invited himself to Wichita at taxpayer expense and met with the Wichita Eagle’s editorial board. Afterwards, the paper accurately noted I am advocating eliminating the EDA even though that agency occasionally awards grant money to projects in South Central Kansas. They just don’t get it. Thanks to decades of this flawed “You take yours, I’ll take mine” Washington logic, our nation now faces a crippling $16 trillion national debt.
I first learned about the EDA when Secretary Fernandez testified in front of my subcommittee that the benefits of EDA projects exceed the costs and cited the absurd example of a $1.4 million award for “infrastructure” that allegedly helped a Minnesota town secure a new $1.6 billion steel mill. As a former CEO, I knew there is no way that a taxpayer subsidy equal to less than one-tenth of one percent (0.1%) of the total capital needed made a difference in launching the project. That mill was getting built whether EDA’s grant came through or not. So, I decided to dig further.
I discovered that the EDA is a federal agency we can do without. Similar to earmarks that gave us the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” or the Department of Energy loan guarantee scandal that produced Solyndra, the EDA advances local projects that narrowly benefit a particular company or community. To be sure, the EDA occasionally supports a local project here in Kansas. But it takes our tax money every year for projects in 400-plus other congressional districts, many if not most of which are boondoggles. For example: EDA gave $2 million to help construct UNLV’s Harry Reid Research and Technology Park; $2 million for a “culinary amphitheater,” tasting room, and gift shop at a Washington state winery; and $500,000 to construct (never-completed) replicas of the Great Pyramids in rural Indiana.
Several times in recent decades, the Government Accountability Office has questioned the value and efficacy of the EDA. Good-government groups like Citizens Against Government Waste have called for dismantling the agency. In addition, eliminating the EDA was listed among the recommendations of President Obama’s own bipartisan Simpson-Bowles Deficit Reduction Commission.
So why hasn’t it been shut down already? Politics. The EDA spreads taxpayer-funded project money far and wide and attacks congressmen who fail to support EDA grants. Soon after that initial hearing, Secretary Fernandez flew in his regional director — again at taxpayer expense — to show me “all the great things we are doing in your home district” and handed me a list of recent and pending local grants. Hint, hint. You can’t say I wasn’t warned to back off. Indeed, Eagle editors missed the real story here: Secretary Fernandez flew to Wichita because he is a bureaucrat trying to save his high-paying gig. The bureaucracy strikes back when conservatives take on bloated, out-of-control, public spending, so I guess I’m making progress.
Please don’t misunderstand. I am not faulting cities, universities, or companies for having sought “free” federal money from the EDA. The fault lies squarely with a Washington culture that insists every program is sacred and there is no spending left to cut.
A federal agency run at the Assistant Secretary level has not been eliminated in decades. Now is the time. My bill to eliminate the EDA (HR 3090) would take one small step toward restoring fiscal sanity and constitutional government.
The street lights illustrated in this photograph are, undoubtedly, a small portion of the city’s spending. But you don’t have to look very hard to find waste like this, and we know that small examples of waste are multiplied many times. So when city leaders tell us that there is nowhere left to cut in the budget, that everything that can be done to trim the fat has already been done, and that the only thing we can do is raise taxes — well, think of this photograph and others illustrated in In Wichita, the rooftops are well-lit and On a sunny day in downtown Wichita you can see the street lights.
When you hear that Kansas schools have “cut to the bone,” or are operating at maximum efficiency, or have nowhere else to cut, or there’s no need to audit school district efficiency, think of this. 
Using my iPhone to submit a tip concerning government waste to Bankrupting America.
The resulting article at Bankrupting America.
If you think a proper function of the federal government is spending your tax dollars to build replicas of the Great Pyramids in Indiana or a gift shop in a winery, you’re not going to like legislation introduced by U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo, a Republican who represents the Kansas fourth district, including the Wichita metropolitan area.
When you hear that Kansas schools have “cut to the bone,” or are operating at maximum efficiency, or have nowhere else to cut, or there’s no need to audit school district efficiency, think of this. 
Using my iPhone to submit a tip concerning government waste to Bankrupting America.
The resulting 