2-13-25

I’ve just got to tell you…..I have lived a full life….a crazy life but a full life…..I

have had more adventures….maybe one day I’ll write a book…..but as I was

preparing for today’s show and especially working on the segment on

economics….I found myself thinking “if they’d just treat our money like they

knew it was our money”….you know what I mean? Sometimes it becomes

painfully obvious that politicians have totally forgotten that they are not dealing

with their money….they’re not even dealing with the “governments

money”….they are working with our money…..if they would only give the same

care, concern, and demand for accountability that they would to their own personal

bank accounts then I guarantee it would be a different fiscal world in which we

live….but we’re finding out more and more that they too often don’t ….they see

numbers on a page….meh, it’s just money….

A story broke last night that I believe is going to send shock waves through the

Government…..someone may go to jail…..former Congressman Lee Zeldin made

the breakout announcement that in his new capacity as head of the Environmental

Protection Agency that he immediately wanted to know more about a viral video

that surfaced last month….you may have seen it…..the video was of a Biden EPA

political appointee talking smack about how they were ‘tossing gold bars off the

Titanic,’ rushing to get billions of your tax dollars out the door before Inauguration

Day," …..folks, those ‘gold bars’ were your hard-earned tax dollars and ‘tossing

them off the Titanic’ meant the Biden administration knew they were wasting

it."….what Zeldin just announced is staggering…..he has discovered that over

$20billion of EPA funds were cashed out and sent to an independent bank so that

after Biden left office his green new steal programs could continue to get

funded….they didn’t have the ability to write the checks specifically so they just

did a mass deposit to get the money out of Trump’s administration so they could

fund some of their pet projects through charitable organizations that support the

Biden agenda later….basically, a $20billion slush fund was created….meh, its just

money, they said…..Zeldin is working right now to claw it back and heads need to

roll…..but lest we think for a second that it’s just liberal causes…..no, there’s some

real activity going on in the new Trump administration and they’re asking for

bipartisan belt-tightening…..a special organization founded by the Reagan

Administration and known as the National Endowment for Democracy….

The NED is a supposedly independent nonprofit dedicated to bolstering democratic

institutions worldwide…… It gives out thousands of grants annually for

nongovernmental group initiatives across more than 100 countries, and yes, it is

primarily funded with US tax dollars…..Neocons in DC are clutching their pearls

as Trumps spending freeze puts a hold on tens of millions of dollars to the

NED….never mind that the NED has been accused of becoming another liberal

slush fund much like USAID…..but you know, meh, its just money…..

Look these are tax dollars…..and I know that running government costs

money…..I’ve been in that position…..sure, as a state politician working on

appropriations and passing state budgets….. At one point I was the Vice Chair for

the General Fund Budget Committee for Alabama and later became the Chairman

of one of the largest committees in the State Senate….the Committee for Fiscal

Responsibility and Economic Development…..but the place where I really found

myself sweating bullets over someone else’s money was in Baghdad….

In 2004 I was attached to an Infantry Battalion in central Baghdad….as a part of

my duties, in the middle of all of our combat operations, getting mortared and

dodging IED’s, I was the pay agent on numerous rebuilding and governance

projects in our area…..basically, in an effort to help rebuild war damaged

infrastructure and facilities….and mostly to help overcome decades of Saddam’s

neglect….the international communities poured tons of cash into Iraq to help

stabilize and regenerate it…..me personally, I oversaw several million dollars’

worth of projects just in my Area of Operations alone…..but here’s the difference

between me and the knuckleheads who create slush funds in DC…..I had to sign

personally for every single penny and if one cent was missing then you-know-who

was on the hook to repay it…..wow! no pressure!

I had a safe in my hooch on the FOB…..it was good sized safe that I kept covered

with an old camouflage poncho liner and put stuff on top of it to make it look like a

makeshift table…..only two people had the key….myself and the Battalion

XO….at one point I had over $750,000 in cold hard cash in that dang safe at the

foot of my cot right there at Patrol Base Volunteer…..and drawing the funds was

an adventure in itself…..it was an hour or more to get to Division Main to the

finance office…..my team would have to suit up and load up our uparmored

Humvees and gather up our security detail with an additional four gun

trucks….basically the equivalent of a Platoon of Joes locked and loaded….I always

carried a black bag to put the money in when we went…..on one of our first such

forays, as the convoy security brief was concluded, I told the security team leader,

“if something happens to me you better make dang sure someone gets the black

bag”…..I found out later that the black bag became infamous….it had a mystique

as the guys in the detail would speculate what I had in it…..and man, let me tell

you…..drawing those funds was a nerve-wracking experience….. “hey sir, Major

Williams. I’m here to draw funds for Rusafa District projects.”…..”yessir, how

much was it this time”…..”I’m approved for $227,000”…..”okay”….at which

point the guy would go into a vault and come out carrying bricks….actual

bricks…of cash. “I assume you want to count it all”…..”well yeah!”…..okay, these

bundles are straight from the US mint. They are unbroken and still bear the seal of

the mint intact. Each of these bricks is certified to contain $10,000”…..in my mind

I’m having a fit…..but I just said “roger that”…..then he shows me one with a

broken seal…..”we should probably count this one”……ya think?!.....so he

dropped a thick 5-inch stack of hundreds in a counting machine and it sped through

it in seconds with a digital readout telling the amount…..”do it again please” I

asked….he did….and then I asked him to do it again….and then he gave me the

forms and had me sign for every last dime! Personally! Under penalty of personal

guaranty that I would be compelled to repay any unaccounted for funds!.....when

we got back to the FOB I would take the infamous black bag straight to my hooch

and called one of my best men on the Motorola radios we all carried…..we all used

nickname/callsigns…..”Joker, this is Chappy. It’s time. Meet me at the

hooch”……he knew, he hated it…..”Oh God. Roger sir”…..he and I would recount

every bill, label the stacks, and seal them in envelopes….it was like we were

handling the nuclear launch codes for SAC NORAD…..every project got paid,

photographed, and double receipted…..and to this very day I still have all of the

paperwork showing that I cleared finance without losing a penny….and that was

20 years ago!

I tell you all of that partly for entertainment…..and probably partly for the

therapeutic value of talking it out…..but my point (there’s always a point) is that I

knew it wasn’t my money…..and I also knew that I had to fully and completely

account for it if any went missing….and I knew that there were some serious

repercussions if I didn’t get it right…..

Wouldn’t it be something if politicians and bureaucrats handled our tax dollars the

same way…..what if they were to have the same sense of dread, responsibility, and

personal ownership over the expenditure of tax dollars entrusted to them…..wow,

that would be a game changer! …….budget processes would by hyperfocused on

accountability and balancing the budgets……earmarks would become the

equivalent of the black bag with designated funds being fully accounted for on

each project for which they were appropriated…..

I know….its a bit of a fantasy…..but accountability and a sense of ownership are

not too much to ask…..we literally entrust elected officials to appropriate funds

that we send them……is it really too much to ask that they feel that great burden

of responsibility?

We apparently believe that lowly Army Majors like I was in Baghdad should be on

the hook for each and every red cent…..and I can tell you…..that’s a both a burden

and a source of pride…..We need some of that in City Halls, Statehouses, and

certainly in the US Capitol…..but too often they just see the numbers on paper and

say “meh, its just money”

And that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way!