“The legislation would also provide $25 million in federal matching grants to states to help them buy electronic highway signs and other equipment needed to set up an Amber alert system, as well as education and training programs.”
— CNN.com
Okay… now wasn’t the point of the Amber alert system that it utilized existing resources to spread the word?
Why the fuck is the government offering anywhere from 25 to 100 million dollars for this program? Even if you hired 3 people in each state to manage the program at a cost of $50,000 each with expenses of $100,000 for each state, and all this seems generous on my part, and wholly unwarrented considering the origin of the program…would only amount to $12.5 million.
Keeping in mind the federal funds for the cheapest plan are matching funds, this means only 6.25 million would be needed. But that number would not make it sound like the government was really putting support behind the program.
Government solutions: throw money at the problem till it goes away.
After all.. it worked with Iran. And Nicaragua. And Afghanastan. And…
um… nevermind.
.sara
that WAS the point.
i don’t get why they need that much extra friggin’ money. don’t most/all states already have electronic freeway/highway signs already?
bah.
Ronika
The AMBER Alert System is very important to the finding of missing kids, yes it is very expensive, but dont you think it’s worth it. I mean if a kid went missing every month, the Code AMBER could find very one of those kids successfuly. Maybe you just need to think about it because there are lots of missing kids. The most recent abduction was January 15, 2005 in North Carolina and an AMBER Alert went out the very next day on the highway bullentins and all the Code AMBER wedsites. The AMBER Alert System is very important to this country.
monkeyboy
Irrelevant patriotism aside, I never actually commented on the neccesity or quality of the Amber Alert system.
I berated the idea of the federal government spending 25,000,000+ dollars on a program that was supposed to use existing infrastructure to accomplish it’s goals. Likewise, why is it a federla program at all, when it’s actions can only be accomplished on a local level.
Irrelevant to my argument, the program itself is a good idea. Contrary the the federal governments tendancy towards centralization, this program utilizes the power of decentralization to tap the resources of a wide audience. Which goes contrary to what you said. The system doesn’t save anyone by itself. It is simply a tool that empowers more people to contribute.