Waste of the Week: Phillips Wharf Aquaculture Job Training Center
This week we travel to Talbot County to a quarter million in new debt proposed by recently elected State Senator Adelaide Eckardt (R). She was defeated former State Senator Richard Colburn (R) in the primary as the conservative alternative. But, here is some bond legislation for the Phillips Wharf Aquaculture Job Training Center in SB0858.
The Phillips Wharf Aquaculture Job Training Center is a venture by the Phillips Wharf Environmental Center (PWEC) in Tilghman, MD. The PWEC exists to teach people about the Chesapeake Bay to be better stewards of it. The Job Training Center would be an outgrowth of that to help people train for potential jobs related to the Chesapeake Bay and, as noted in the name, “aquaculture.” The PWEC is a non-profit privately run charitable organization.
While this sounds like an interesting venture that I’m sure may benefit the community, why are we going a quarter million in additional debt to loan money to a privately run job training center in a hyper-specialized field in a small local setting in Talbot County? The answer is simple – vote buying. By getting money to this organization, Senator Eckardt can show what she’s given back to the community – with our money. We need to stop bond bills. Why do we need new debt for loans for local projects? Why don’t we wait before spending money on these types of things until we aren’t holding a massive structural deficit? There are a lot of things we as a state should legitimately be spending our money on – vote buying for local politicians is not among them.
As I do weekly, I call upon the members of the state legislature to stop with the bond bills. Stop trying to buy local votes. Stop, quite literally, creating new state debt!
For that set of reasons and the ridiculous amount of debt our state continues to carry, SB0858 is this week’s “Waste of the Week.”
Congratulations to Senator Eckardt for putting the state further in debt to gain votes in Talbot County!
Feel free to submit your suggestions in the comments section of wasteful spending in Maryland.
