Moochers beat the taxpayers out of billions every year | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    Crony capitalism. Well connected special interests getting lucrative breaks from government has become so commonplace that most Americans no longer pay much attention to them. But that does not make them right and it is not good for the country.

    Many have heard about Solyndra, the California maker of solar panels that recently filed bankruptcy after getting millions from the Obama Stimulus program. What many do not realize is that Solyndra is but one of many such "deals" that have stuck the taxpayer and enriched the campaign coffers of politicians. Fox News is report on several more, and you have to know that if we know about these that there are more.

    This corruption in Washington is not much different from what we have seen in North Carolina and even in Beaufort County.

    Our Economic Development Commission engineered a similar deal, all be it with smaller numbers, for Fountain Boats when Fountain hit rough economic waters. Reggie Fountain made political contributions to Representative Arthur Williams and low and behold Fountain ended up with state funded "economic development grants." But as with Solyndra it did not save Fountain from going bellyup.

    But what many do not realize is that when Fountain did go out of business the "jobs" were not lost. In fact, one could argue that the new owners of Fountain's assets actually created more jobs than the "economic development" grants did in the first place.

    One can make the same case for the ethanol deal Beaufort almost got stuck with by the Economic Development Commission. We said it at the time and it has turned out t be true...ethanol was snakeoil. The ethanol bandwagon the EDC and Gang of 5 on the Beaufort County Commission jumped onto was actually a gravey train that was created by high paid lobbyists who made political contributions to well connected politicians from corn growing states to push ethanol. They got special incentives (tax breaks) in legislation which benefitted corn growers (actually huge corporate farms) to push ethanol. But ethanol was a bad business deal both for the country and the county. Just as solar panels being manufactured in California were a bad business deal for Solyndra.

    So what's the moral here? Simple. We have got to find a way to keep business interests from making political contributions and then receiving government benefits paid for by the taxpayers.