When I think of how much of our taxpayer money has been frittered away on useless crap like eco-lunacy, supporting Commie insurrections and delivering government benefits to illegal immigrants [156 more examples omitted for reasons of space], here at least is one I can get behind (via Reader John C., thankee):
The Department of War has given $10 million to TV host Mike Rowe’s Foundation that encourages Americans to enter the skilled trade industry.
The former “Dirty Jobs” star started the program that aims to offer Americans careers in the skilled trades like plumbing, electrical, and other hands-on work that won’t be made obsolete by artificial intelligence.
Wow… government money being spent on a civilian program that actually helps citizens and provides strategic benefit to the nation.
Here’s the enormity of the thing:
The foundation has helped over 2,600 people so far train as welders, HVAC technicians, pipefitters, and diesel mechanics who command a six-figure salary without requiring a four-year degree and massive amounts of student loan debt.
However:
The foundation says that America will need 320,000 welders, 250,000 shipbuilders, and 81,000 electricians over the next decade.
I bet the Lefties are totally pissed off about this — ironic, really, considering that they’ve always proclaimed themselves as the “Workers’ Party”, but really aren’t. Then again, they are the “Party Of Lies”, and always have been.
Congrats to the Pentagon, and of course likewise to Mike Rowe (a true patriot if ever there was one). If I have a single quibble, it’s that they should have given more than ten million dollars to this most worthy cause.
This used to be normal. I graduated from HS in 1972. In my jr and sr years I went to HS for half a day and to a vocational-technical school for half a day, 5 days a week for 2 years. They had about 8 different “trade” classes and I took the Drafting class.
Halfway through the 2nd year my progress in the drafting class was such that at the end of the 1st semester in Jan 1972, I was referred to the largest home builder in the county for a drafting position ($1.45/hr).
I became an architect (the hard way) 14 years later, and now today I still work in that capacity. I have worked in most of the construction trades along the way and job satisfaction has been my highest pay.
I’m a strong advocate for tradesmen education and employment.
In case you haven’t seen it, Mike Rowe was a host on QVC shopping network early in his career. Every moment of it is comedy gold. Here’s a sample:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWEI-5t2m54
Mike Rowe and his organisation are sitting in that very uncomfortable position where they’re too big to do things on a small, local scale at low cost per unit (in this case, person educated) and too small to benefit from the economy of scale where they can have a low cost at large scale.
Resulting is a medium sized organisation trying to grow into a large one running into a wall of rising costs everywhere without really being able to scale up the output numbers.
Maybe this DOD grant can help them overcome that hurdle, maybe not. It’s worth a try.
This was never done in the past, and is going to run into opposition in the future because it rewards the wrong voting demographic, and violates the “working poor” narrative.
The ass-sitting class (and with a desk-job I fall into that category) is largely team Jackass voters, because they don’t want to get their hands dirty, and are contemptuous of someone who does.
Its our own special little caste system.