The American Rescue Plan of 2021 has been getting a lot of attention lately in local board meetings in these parts. Some officials don’t want the money from the federal government, some are worried whether the local municipality will get any of the funds, and some are still puzzled about the whole situation.
As I stated in this space three months ago, the rescue plan to help states, townships, village and cities is regarded as a “big government” attempt to provide money in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis.
As Leighton Township Planning Commissioner Steve Shoemaker pointed out, nary a Republican voted in support of it, but many nonetheless will take the money and use it if given the opportunity.
There still are those who advance the theory, “Don’t accept it, it’s a trick.” Watson Township Trustee Michelle Harris last week said as much, indicating the feds will attach strings, such as insisting on non-gender public bathrooms, in order for the money to be passed along.
Then there’s Dorr Township Trustee John Tuinstra, who holds that the federal government shouldn’t be able to spend money it doesn’t have, unless, of course, it’s for the military-industrial complex.
Unfortunately, we have reached a point in history when we’re not sure where the money comes from. The old story was that it was backed by gold in Fort Knox. But more modern interpretations insist the money is good as long as the people using it believe it exists.
There have been discussions about the Rescue Plan funds at Watson and Dorr townships and even at the Allegan County Board of Commissioners. Gale Dugan said board members will talk later this month about how to spend an expected $11 million.
The Allegan County Democratic Party has weighed in by petitioning the County Board to use the funds to implement county-wide broadband Internet access, a gift not unlike FDR’s Rural Electrification Act of 1936 that brought a lot of farmers into the 20th century.
The discussion last Thursday night at Watson Township was fascinating. In one corner, Harris reiterated her lack of trust in the federal government and had to be coaxed into applying for the money. In another corner, Supervisor Kevin Travis pointed to establishing water and sewer services near the corner of 12th Street and M-222, where it is rumored a Love’s truck stop is interested in locating. Of course, he’d like to see funds for infrastructure there.
Amid all this confusion, former Dorr Township Treasurer Jim Martin has tried to explain that the federal money will come in twice in the next year, half the first time and the other half later.
The Rescue Plan has a combination of the elements of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Big Government aid and the New Federalism revenue sharing program instituted 50 years ago by Richard M. Nixon.
If this is supposed to be a war between two different approaches to government, it is a very strange conflict indeed.