Who says there’s no free lunch?
- David and Kimberly Schwartz received a $137,000 government grant/matching fund to fix up their newly purchased 15-unit apartment building.
- Bob Willman’s company received a $110,000 grant within 30 days to expand his business – and he doesn’t have to pay it back.
- Chirlane Murray got a Down Payment Assistance Grant that covered her closing costs on her home.
These are just a few of the “success” stories of a for-profit company called National Grants Conferences, whose mission is to educate local business people, property owners, first-time home buyers and just about any other individual interested in learning how they can tap into “free money,” low-interest loans and subsidies of every imaginable kind offered by the federal government.
With more than 500,000 customers and “students” in its database, NGC boasts of being the biggest privately held company in the United States providing seminars throughout the nation on getting taxpayer dollars for their own private benefit.
Currently, the company is buying four-page supplements in daily newspapers around the country promoting the giveaways and its service in leading people to them.
The ads feature a chart showing how the federal government has been dramatically increasing such transfers of wealth in recent years.
In 1970, for instance, federal grants-in-aid to individuals totaled a mere $24 billion. By 1975 that total had reached $49.7 billion. In 1980 it had reached $91 billion. It was up to $105.8 billion in 1985. By 1997 the program had skyrocketed to $234 billion and last year reached $284 billion.
NGC makes an effort to ensure its customers that this program is “not welfare.”
“The type of government programs that NGC promotes are not for people who are jobless without a penny to their name,” the newspaper ad explains. “This is not welfare. Instead, it is for people who have jobs or a regular source of income between $20,000 and up to $1 million per year.”
You might think that such a program might make taxpayers angry. Not so, according to NGC officials. They see themselves as spreading the wealth, ensuring that more people have an opportunity to avail themselves of programs that might otherwise be utilized by “the same people.”
“Every year, the U.S. government hands out billions of dollars to homebuyers, homeowners, investors and business owners for housing and to encourage business development,” the brochures state. “The money can be used to buy and rehab a house, expand a business or launch a new product. It can come in the form of a grant, loan, subsidy or technical assistance. The primary function of a government loan, grant or subsidy is to foster the growth of business and development in areas where there is a need.”
NGC is hardly alone in the “free money” racket.
For years, a flamboyant TV huckster by the name of Matthew Lesko has peddled books listing government grants available to those who want to search them out.
Lesko’s company, Information USA, Inc., spends millions every year on television advertisements for his book, “Free Money to Change Your Life” – a 1,135-page compilation of more than 5,000 taxpayer-funded programs at the state and federal levels.
Examples of what Lesko refers to as “tax breaks” listed in the book are $2,000 to study storytelling, $12,000 to attend a cowboy festival in Australia, $30,000 to become a grizzly bear tagger and $50,000 to edit science magazines at home.
And, to avoid any notions of jingoism, grants are not limited to American citizens. The Hubert Humphrey Fellowship avails $5 million to mid-career professionals from developing countries, East and Central Europe, and the former Soviet Union to come to the United States for a year of study and related practical professional experience.
Lesko said he believes “all [government programs] are set up to solve a problem.”
He also claims “government gives people power because it has better information than anything else, in most cases,” and he has harsh words for critics of state and federal spending.
“People who call government grants ‘welfare’ are hypocrites,” Lesko declared.
A philosophical enigma, Lesko criticizes Congress for “throwing more and more money” at “the country’s problems,” yet he claims it is a “sin” for taxpayers not to participate in the system of wealth redistribution they created through the democratic process.
Lesko likened participation in government-sponsored wealth redistribution to finding the shortest route to a destination.
But spending critics argue that if more people begin applying for grants, government will point to demand as justification for higher taxes.
“That’s the inherent political problem with the elimination of pork-barrel funding,” said Aaron Taylor, spokesman for Citizens Against Government Waste. “People need to realize they’re not getting ‘free’ money. The people in [Washington,] D.C. count on people seeing [Lesko’s] book and saying, ‘Oh goody! Free money for me!’ That perpetuates the inside-the-beltway culture of pork-barrel spending.”
Taylor has urged citizens who “care about wasteful government spending” not to take advantage of so-called “free money.”
Concerned Americans should buy a copy of Lesko’s book and send it to their elected representatives with the hope that Congress will open their eyes to the waste, said Taylor.
But, with the NGC program, people need buy nothing. All they need to do is look in their local newspaper for the nearest free seminar.
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