Ah...Frugal Government Strikes Again

Okay, I know, with a national debt laying comfortably above the $13 trillion mark and with additional unfunded government obligations hurtling well past the $100 trillion threshold, it is almost petty to point out individual situations that help to turn small government projects into larger ones.

A local Oscoda County project is just one minute example of how small becomes bigger and, by projection, how large can become gargantuan.

Residents of Perry Lake in Comins Township are being subjected to a $400,000 special tax assessment for the construction of a $98,000 dam project to help regulate water levels. The difference between the $98,000 and the $400,000 is, you guessed it, fees, permits, and engineering.

I'm not the kind of guy that wants some other guy with a shovel and a third grade education out there building a dam in sensitive wetlands without any direction, and I don't want some rabid homeowner taking out this sort of project on his own either. However, to get to the point where a three week long, $98,000 project ends up taking seven years and $400,000 to even get started strikes me as being government at its most typical.