Quote:
|
Originally Posted by sanddrag
That's rediculous to pull that out of the budget. In terms of government spending, 2 million is pocket change. They recently spent that on one artificial football field at one local high school here. And I'm willing to bet it won't even last. They are already concerned about cars driving on it, lawn chairs sitting on it, and drinks being held over it. Real grass would never complain about that. And they go and spend 2 million dollars on this thing.
The crazy thing is that you could double the size/impact of FIRST (20,000 more students) for only like 7 million dollars ($6,000 grant to ~1150 teams). And they spend just about 2 million on a single football field. Pathetic.
|
For state/local government, $2 million is a lot of money. Local governments get by on what they can, while the federal government not so much.
Plus, what would you rather campaign on, getting the budget in with tax cuts, in with no tax cuts, or in but over? If that $2 million went to balancing the budget or tax cuts, that's money people will see. People don't get "FIRST" and see it's benefits, and most people now want to see instantaneous results, which such headlines as tax cuts and balancing the budget offers.
I'm not defending this at all, I wan $4 million in the budget for FIRST in EVERY state spending bill, but assumptions and hasty comparisons won't help anyone. Football field pay for themselves with tickets and concessions, robots don't.