Economic Development . . . For No One

Government waste--often disguised by agencies with well-meaning titles like "Office of Economic Development"--is frequently cited as having at least a marginally positive effect on those it is intended to help. More often than not, however, that wasted taxpayer funding goes absolutely nowhere and benefits precisely NO ONE:

The Office of Economic Development (OED) was created by the General Assembly with the simple, if not obvious task of promoting economic development. But sometimes obvious and simple tasks don't always remain that way.

In 2008, the OED created a grant of $47,000 to spend on office space that was occupied by...no one.
. . .
The ACC was asked to market the unused space. However, when the unoccupied space was offered at market rates to other non-profits, the OED couldn't find any takers.

“This is a perfect example of how, when government dips into work outside their core activities, they are still insulated from having to make market decisions that affect their bottom line," said Dennis Polhill, senior fellow at the Independence Institute. "Some business would rather move than throw away $47,000, but when it's taxpayer money, what the heck?”

After all, it's only taxpayer money anyway . . .

Denver International Airport Receives Nearly $500K In Farm Subsidies

Who knew?

Over the course of 12 consecutive years beginning in 1995, Denver International Airport has managed to rake-in just under half-a-million dollars in commodity subsidies from the U.S. Federal farm program. The airport owns roughly 18-thousand acres of wheat fields adjacent to the main terminal property and runways. While the dollar amount represents a very small fraction of the overall farm subsidy program, the receipts of that money essentially constituted nothing more than a windfall for the airport, because the airport was immune to rising or falling wheat prices.

Todd Shepherd has the complete yearly break down of windfall subsidies received by DIA.

This is the type of story that will only be exposed by folks like Todd, investigative reporter at the Independence Institute and editor of CompleteColorado.com.

And if conservatives and libertarians are to regain any traction with the public they need to be doing more and more investigative reporting of this type, not just amateur punditry as is so often the case.