If there's a recession plaguing the Western world, there's a severe depression laying waste to the city that the textile industry built. And destroyed. Martinsville, today, suffers in the throes of 20% unemployment. One in five of the employable residents there - at least of those who have not already abandoned hope and moved elsewhere looking for work (the city also has the highest rate of depopulation of any city - now a town - in Virginia) - is in the unemployment line.
And, by all estimates, worse is yet to come.
Meanwhile, up the road, one of Southwest Virginia's largest employers - and by far its wealthiest business - is seeing good times. In fact, it's seeing great times. How else to explain Virginia's Tech's decision to take one of its valuable buildings once used for instruction and turn it into a useless Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention? What exactly that is is anyone's guess, including, I'd wager, those who dreamt up the notion in the first place (Question: What kind of credentials does one need in order to "teach" at such a silly "peace study" center?).
Virginia Tech can turn Norris Hall (or the second floor thereof) into a storage closet full of goofy musings and books no one will ever read (how many publications, do you suppose, will it warehouse on the subject of the environment? Thousands? A "peace study" ...) - as the saying goes - "because it can." Virginia Tech, you see, is awash in cash. It's endowment fund (i.e., that which is generally accepted as being the total value of the institution's investments, the interest from which is used for the purposes of growing the business but the principle from which is left virtually intact in perpetuity) is worth half a billion dollars, as of last reporting.
Half a billion dollars.
Not a dime of which will be used to help the poor people of Martinsville.
But a million dollars of which, according to the Roanoke Times, was used to turn Norris Hall into a great place for the cloistered academics at Virginia Tech to gather together, smoke some dope, talk bad about Ronald Reagan and his ilk, and dream of that world that John Lennon was so close to delivering (Imagine there's no countries!) before he was cut down in his prime.
Two worlds - Martinsville and Virginia Tech - so close and yet so far.
Our highest elected official here in Southwest Virginia, recognizing the priorities set before him, knowing how desperate the need for federal assistance is, steeling himself to the task of bringing taxpayer dollars to bear where they will do the most good in this tortured region of ours, has sprung into action in response to the cries for help.
Here's a partial list of
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Project Name: Biodesign and Processing Research Center, VA
Amount: $1,500,000
Recipient: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
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Project Name: Sustainable Engineered Materials from Renewable Sources, VA
Amount: $900,000
Recipient: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
- - -
Project Name: Center for Inland Marine Aquaculture
Amount: $800,000
Recipient: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
- - -
Project Name: Center for Injury Biomechanics
Amount: $4,000,000
Recipient: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
- - -
Project Name: Center for Advanced Separation Technologies
Amount: $3,000,000
Recipient: Virginia Tech
- - -
Project Name: Virginia Tech Airport
Amount: $3,000,000
Recipient: Virginia Tech Airport
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That's $13,200,000 for a university that is sitting on a half billion dollars in endowment that university officials will continue to hoard until the end of time. And that's just the latest payout from Boucher's office.
Why on Earth would they do this, you might ask?
"Because they can."
Because they have Boucher there to heap piles of taxpayer cash on them - and their inane "peace studies" projects.
Here's the most enraging part of this: Boucher's magnanimous largesse (there'll be a hall at Virginia Tech named in his honor some day, make no mistake) includes funds confiscated at the point of a gun from the good people of Martinsville, Virginia, unemployment rate 20.2%.
Want to know what's wrong with earmarks? The cynical congressmen who dole them out.
For ... the ... love ... of ... God.