*Pork Barrel Spending In Sicily: *If this article
<http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/356171-sicily-gobbler-eu-funds>
is correct, Sicilian politicians could give much of the world lessons in
wasteful spending.
Can we spend money? And how, the Sicilian authorities tell the EU
inspectors who've come from Strasbourg. And not just peanuts.
Because we do things big here or we don't them at all: after all,
we're spiritual heirs to the munificent, magnificent (Holy Roman
Emperor) Frederick II, the Stupor Mundi (Wonder of the World), whose
palace of velvet and gold is now the seat of the island's
parliament. So there's nothing left of the EUR8.5 billion that
Europe lavished on the area from 2000 to 2007 to stop the
development gap, not even the crumbs, as the regional authorities
insist on pointing out.
Pity that in the same report that concludes Agenda 2000 --- the rain
of gold from Brussels that nurtured the island in those bumper years
--- the administration candidly admits that the money served no
purpose at all. EUR700 million to improve the water supply? In
2000, the water supply was "stop-and-flow" for 33% of Sicilian
households, now 38.7% have water worries. Incentives to entice
off-season tourists? Cost EUR400 million, enough to buy up an
airline. And yet the ranks of those thankless tourists haven't
swelled, but petered out: from 1.2% in 2000 to 1.1% in 2007. And as
to the EUR300 million invested in alternative energy projects great
and small: it's true, there isn't a single hillock without its
windmill now, but Sicilian output is stuck at 5% of total
consumption, as against an average 9.1% for Southern Italy as a whole.
Not that many of us want them to give those lessons, of course. But we
should recognize that a few politicians will see this example as
something to emulate, not avoid, and will see all those projects as good
ways to buy the votes they need.
And we should recognize that the best money of all to waste --- from the
point of view of a pork-barrel politician --- is someone else's money.
There would have been less wasted in Sicily if the money had come from
Italy, rather than the whole European Union, and even less wasted if the
money had come from the places where it was spent.
(Not so incidentally --- and we Americans should pay attention to this
--- wind and solar projects have been plagued by fraud in much of
Europe. The enormous subsidies attracted crooks, and we should expect
the same thing to happen here.
Sicily has about five million people, so those EU subsidies would be
roughly $2,000 for every man, woman, and child in the island.)
- 10:11 AM, 12 October 2010 [link]
<http://www.seanet.com/%7Ejimxc/Politics/October2010_2.html#jrm9236>
From Jim Miller on Politics
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