Posted on 12/13/2022 7:27:00 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
For 20 years, golf had been wilting in the heat of South Florida. As aging players gave up the sport and younger people sought recreation elsewhere, the area’s grand, lush courses and the planned communities surrounding them — many built by overly optimistic entrepreneurs — struggled. Dozens of courses closed.
Not to worry: The Biden administration is coming to the rescue. The town of Palm Beach Gardens is using $2 million in federal money from President Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to build a $16 million public course, with a two-story clubhouse and driving range that should help at least partially slake the new thirst for golf.
The city’s project, one of several golf-course investments the Biden legislation is funding, is entirely within the spirit of the “rescue” act, which devotes only about 9% of its money to public-health causes that fight the virus but allocates hundreds of billions of dollars to local governments and schools for the vague task of providing “support for a recovery” and funding “investments in infrastructure.”
The federal money has turned pols into the proverbial kids in the candy shop.
They’re using it to restart parades, fund street performers, upgrade high-school weight rooms and sports fields and build bike paths, golf courses, pickleball courts and other “essential” infrastructure.
Billions of dollars are going to illegal immigrants. Cities are testing efforts to give low-income residents guaranteed money that supporters say will end poverty. Municipalities are moving to construct their own broadband networks, in competition with the private sector.
It’s all part of a program whipped up so quickly that it included billions of dollars for municipal governments that don’t even exist.
To many local officials, ARPA’s allocations seem like free money. But it comes at a cost to the United States.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Spending money we do not have.
It was not that long ago that I read that 1 golf course closes every day in America. That seems like a lot, and it is, but Palm Beach County boasted 175 golf courses when I moved from the 6 years ago. You couldn’t swing a cat without hitting a golf course in 2000.
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