Symbols Of Our Socialist Overlords

Here are two stories, one from the U.S., one from Britain, with an interesting parallel. It seems that the UK has recently been fined a very hefty sum, £150 million pounds, for failing to prominently fly the EU flag at the location of projects that receive some of their funding from the EU. Similarly, in the U.S., Obama has ordered that, at every project funded by his stimulus, a symbol needs to displayed showing the source of funding for the project.

This from the Daily Mail:

Our masters in the European Union are apparently fed up with our insolence and ingratitude. They are fining us £150 million for failing to display the EU flag with sufficient regularity, prominence and enthusiasm.

The Eurocrats provide grants for assorted regional development projects – usually with matching funds from the British Government – and it is true that these grants amount to big money.

But our apparent lack of appreciation should not be all that hard to fathom. We are paying £10.2billion a year to the European Union – and less than half that sum comes back to us.

We have a situation of the EU giving us back some of our money and telling us how we are allowed to spend it (often on some wasteful project). They then foam with indignation that we fail to parade our allegiance to the EU. . .

And whilst that is occurring in the UK, we have on this side of the pond:

There's no better definition of government waste than the estimated $192 million President Obama is forcing cash-strapped state officials to spend on road signs touting his failed stimulus program. Even so, with a critical congressional election coming in November, Americans will see a proliferation of these politically self-serving signs in coming months as Obama tries to convince voters who think his "Recovery Summer" is just an economic Potemkin village.

. . . [S]timulus fund recipients they must display the newly designed ARRA logo. According to the memo, the logo is "a symbol of President Obama's commitment to the American People to invest their tax dollars wisely to put Americans back to work." Instead of "symbol," a far more appropriate word to describe this would be "propaganda."

The memo is wrong on both counts. It's not a wise expenditure of tax dollars when government spends as much as $10,000 apiece for propaganda signs, especially when unemployment remains near 10 percent. And the president's stimulus program has not put Americans back to work, as the latest jobless figures make starkly clear. A bunch of expensive road signs won't change the fact that only 6 percent of Americans believe that the Obama stimulus program has created new jobs, according to a New York Times/CBS poll.

. . . Meanwhile, here's another sign, this one from Tea Partiers who are sick and tired of government profligacy, that has a more accurate description of Obama's policies: "Central Planning: Destroying Human Prosperity Since 4000 B.C."

Actually, I think that last sign would apropos on both sides of the pond.