By the way...

I liked Ric Keller's web site. I liked it's layout and colors. It looked like what I would have expected to find on that type of site.

I am a bit disappointed in the "Constituent Services" links on the right of the main page. There are 6 links.

Mr. Keller, why do you have "Grant Information" there? I appreciate that you may be asked about Grants fairly frequently and that is why you have chosen to list it among other "Services" but I would personally prefer that you didn't advertise "free government money".

And here is why. Mr. Keller already knows this, I am just writing it here for any reader who stumbles along on this blog and doesn't realize the basis of government grants.

There is no "government money". The government has NO money. It is OUR money. MY tax money, and yours.

And some grants DO provide good results useful to the community at large. Some, do not.
Should our representatives be advertising and making it easy for others to just use our money? Is there a feeling of "Well, sure, have some....we can always get more from the community through taxes!"?

Here is a radical suggestion - how about taxing us based on what is NEEDED?

The grant system looks to me to work soemthing like this - "Hey, we got all this money now from taxing the people - what would you like to do with it? Write a proposal! We've got millions!"

That's just wrong. Especially when it ends up funding some weird thing like an artist coating her naked body in chocolate.

I've got nothing against that activity per se, I just don't see why I should be forced to pay for it.

Let them do it with private funds. Charge admission for others to watch.

~coughs~ Well, I hadn't meant to write that much but there are some of my thoughts on how things are.

Helping other people figure out new ways to spend MY money is just not a "service" I want my representatives to offer.