Thoughts - Grants

Day 12

So at work I was printing off this Grant Completion form I need to fill out and send in so that we receive the Grant money the Historical Society was rewarded to host the Appraisal Show last month. While doing this I was thinking about all the different viewpoints I have heard about Grants the last few weeks.... and I think I can break them down into 3 different ways of viewing grants.

1) The are free money!

This is true sometimes... but most of the time this is false. If they come from a charitable foundation then yes they are free money, well maybe not free but money an individual, group of individuals, or a business has provided with no direct cost to you or your neighbors. Most of the time though this is just plan false and that grants are paid for by taxpayer money thus... we are all actually paying for the project. Take the project on the Greensburg square on Broadway. That is being funded by a State grant, everyone in Indiana who pays taxes helped pay to redo that section of road.

2) Grants are bad! We all pay for that!

As i said there are quite a few grants funded through community foundations and charitable organizations and I don't think these are bad at all... in fact they are quite helpful for small organizations to provide events and services to the community. That said we probably spend too much State and Federal money on some of these projects. It seems like some of these projects should be high up on the chopping block in the current budget deficit talks. I know many people who come in here would like to do away with all government funded grants, and I agree that a lot of them should be cut.

3) We paid for the grant so we might as well spend it on something stupid here, rather than on something stupid 2 hours from here.

This for the most part is where I fall... sure the City of Greensburg sign that just went up on Lincoln street may not have been the wisest way to spend some of the grant money. (I'll stand by the fact that I like the sign, just not the post on the other side of the road) However, I'd much rather have paid for that sign that a sign in Elkhart, Rushville, or French Lick. If the grants are out there I'd like them to go to things that affect me.