This Just In

I tried to avoid blogging about politics...honestly I did, but I can't help but wonder if anyone besides me thinks that something in Washington smells.

Today, President Obama is signing the Omnibus bill despite that fact that media coverage and national tea parties have bemoaned the fact that this is nothing more than a pork-filled special interest spending package. During Obama's campaign, he routinely talked about avoiding wasteful spending, yet today, under the guise of saving Congress from the undue burden and blaming the Bush administration for placing these earmarks in the bill, he'll sign it into law...but in private. Knowing his fondness for spotlighting, that smacks of shame on his part.

As if that's not enough, he followed up the news of his signature with a proclamation that he'll initiate reforms on earmarking. HUH??? Wouldn't this have been a nice place to start. Who cares who put the special interest projects in the bill? He's the president and has the prerogative to veto them. I can only speak for myself, but had he done that, it would have gone a long way to restoring my faith in his abilities. I guess pig smells, grape research, kayaking in Hawaii, and putting a World Trade Center in Montana will rest on all our shoulders. Quite frankly, I thought the cartoon I posted here fits the bill. Literally.

I think our new president my have ADHD. He can't seem to focus on one thing for very long before he moves on to something else. Just my humble opinion...and it is my blog. *lol*

Monday Mania

Monday Mania is right! Someone please tell me why we, a country in dire financial straights, are giving nine hundred million dollars to the Palestinians for damage done to their country? Did we do the harm? NO. How about sending the bill to Iran who finances Hamas who started the whole mess with Israel. How does this stimulate our economy, President Obama?

The next big spending bill, the $410 billion Omnibus, is supposed to be signed shortly by our new Prez, and although he constantly claims there is no pork-barrel spending or earmarks in the package, a democratic representative on Glenn Beck specifically tried to cover up any of the 9000 included in this bill as an interpretative issue. I borrowed the following from http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=30877 to demonstrate an example of frivolous spending at a time when we simply cannot afford it. I've never met any economic's major who hinted that borrowing money to spend money is a way to overcome a deficit. I don't have a college degree and I figured that all on my own.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) explained to CNN’s John King on Feb. 1 that she worked with Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) to cut a bipartisan deal to pass the President’s government spending plan because the bill avoided “a bloated, overly expensive bill that wastes money and targets funding for programs that aren't going to make a difference.” Evidently Sens. Collins and Snow wanted to save the bloat and waste for the omnibus.

Collins and Snowe have inserted a $150,000 earmark in the omnibus for the Maine Department of Marine Resources to conduct “lobster research.” Tax dollars to research lobsters hardly seems an essential function of government, especially in times of economic distress. According to the State of Maine, the “Lobster Program” has collected statistics on the commercial and natural population of lobsters along the Maine coast for 30 years.

You should know that your hard-earned tax dollars are going to be used for not one, but two lobster research earmarks. The second lobster earmark from Collins and Snowe provides monies for a lobster boat ride, along with a program for another $100,000. “The objective is to ride aboard individual lobster boats, at different locations along the coast, and record information as the lobsterman hauls his/her traps.” You don’t mind funding that, do you?

If you’re worried that Maine’s seal population is being neglected, fear not. Collins and Snow have secured a $100,000 earmark for Maine’s Marine Environmental Research Institute for the “Seals as Sentinel” program. It’s worthwhile, according to Susan Shaw, the institute’s executive director, because "marine mammals like seals are important in their own right and also as significant sentinels for ocean health and the effects of pollutants in humans.”

Not to be outdone, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) inserted language to make Nevada eligible for the “Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery fund. If you check a map, you’ll see that Nevada has no Pacific coastline, yet Reid saw fit to use the omnibus to make Nevada eligible for Salmon Recovery funds from the Department of Commerce.

Add to these ridiculous allotments this information from a http://www.nypost.com/seven/02262009/news/politics/congress_porky_pols_pig_out_on_fine_wine_157027.htm


WASHINGTON - Congress went on a pork-a-palooza yesterday, approving a massive spending bill with big bucks for Hawaiian canoe trips, research into pig smells, and tattoo removal - all while the nation faces an economic crisis.

Among the recipients of federal largesse is the Polynesian Voyaging Society of Honolulu, which got a $238,000 "earmark" in the bill.

EDITORIAL: OBAMA'S FUZZY TAX MATH

The group organizes sea voyages in ancient-style sailing canoes like the ones that first brought settlers to Hawaii.

The sailing club has a powerful wind at its back in the person of Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The bill also has a whopping 8 percent increase over last year for the numerous federal agencies it funds.

New York got its share of earmarks, among them $475,000 to "improve and expand" the Italian American Museum in Little Italy.

The project was pushed by New York Reps. Gary Ackerman and Jerrold Nadler. The latter touted it, among other earmarks, on his Web site.

Nadler also announced $4.5 million for new park development in Manhattan.

Uncle Sam's generosity extends upstate, where there's $950,000 to convert a railroad bridge over the Hudson River into a walkway in Poughkeepsie.

Earmarks totaled at least $3.8 billion - a figure used by the House Appropriations Committee.

But the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense calculates that there are an astonishing 8,570 earmarks at a cost of $7.7 billion.

The bill, which critics slammed as larded with pork, has big bucks to combat putrid stenches in the heartland, with $1.7 million for "Swine Odor and Manure Management Research."

That's on top of $1.9 million in each of the last two years, or nearly $6 million over the last three years.

The swine research center, at Iowa State University in Ames, got funds through the Agricultural Research Service, and aims to improve the smell of animals and the lagoons where waste is stored.

There's funding for mosquito trapping in Gainesville, Fla. - requested by Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut. The research deals with the West Nile virus, and was funded at $1.2 million in each of the last two years.

The House packaged the bill from several spending measures held over from last year. It needs to pass the Senate and be signed into law by President Obama.

Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, whom Obama vanquished in November, is calling on the president to veto it.

But Democratic leaders say the spending spree was a bipartisan affair, with up to 40 percent of the earmarks coming from Republicans.

Obama has criticized earmarks and insisted they be kept out of stimulus legislation - a suggestion that drew laughs from Republicans at the president's address to Congress Tuesday night.

Another earmark, by Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) provides $200,000 for a "tattoo-removal violence-outreach program" in Los Angeles.

The funds would buy a tattoo-removal machine to help gang members erase signs of their past.

Meanwhile, Obama is set to unveil a proposal today that sets aside $634 billion over the next 10 years for health-care reform.

He plans to pay for it, in part, by capping tax deductions for families that earn more than $250,000 a year

And...as I said yesterday, we are in deep doo doo! There is a time and place for these allotments, but why isn't something being done to keep these pet projects from slipping into the paperwork in the middle of the night, as one Democratic representative on Fox news today suggested. These are the people who are proposing oversight on TARP money, and will have a hand in running the banks??? They can't even oversee their own bills. Deep doo doo, I tell you.

Nothing Surprises Me

I spent twenty-odd years working in an institution of higher education. One component of my responsibility was accepting doctoral dissertations and master's theses as a final degree requirement. In checking the formatting, etc, I was constantly amazed at the types of things people spent a good part of their life studying. While most seemed worthwhile and contributory to furthering mankind, there were some that totally escaped logic. I wish I could recall some of them verbatim, but that would probably only lead to a lawsuit I can ill afford.

It was then that I started questioning, of course only in my mind, why the government provides grants to fund such ridiculous research. I never got a satisfactory answer, but I recently stumbled upon a website that re-kindled my belief that our government throws money down the toilet every day. I offer the following examples of proof:

1. In 2002, in California, a congressperson asked for and received a $50,000 assistance program for tattoo removal.

2. In 2003, somewhere in Iowa, one of their elected representatives convinced the government to allocate $250,000 to establish a program to assist THREE-YEAR-OLDS to handle their anger management. I can't even get my five-year-old, slightly autistic grandson into a program aside from children with severe mental retardation. The school districts lump them all together so his peer group are people with disabilities that far exceed his own. I need some anger management but I don't qualify...I'm long past three.

3. In 2006, The National Wild Turkey Federation based in South Carolina received $234,000 from the feds to further their turkey hunting program. You've got to be friggin kidding me!!!

*The resource for the above information was found at askmen.com by Craig Mazin.

I borrowed the following from www.heritage.org and an entry on common sense cuts by Brian Riedl:

In 2001, the government buried $17 billion dollars for which there was no accountability. It was labeled "unreconciled transactions" and filed away. No one has any idea who spent the money or how. Good job, don't you think? Think we could do that with our tax returns. RIGHT!

More than $12 billion in Medicare payment errors were made this year, along with more than $1 billion in the food-stamp program. The department of Housing and Urban Development makes financial boo boos equaling ten percent of its total budget. I think it's time to hire some new bookkeepers.

Aha...I remember reading about the $400.00 the military was spending per hammer, along with lavish amounts on toilets, etc. Evidently the careless spending continues. According to Mr. Riedl, a recent audit showed that military personnel use travel cards allocated to them by the government to the tune of $293.000 for entertainment, gambling, cruises, strips clubs and prostitutes. Me thinks this isn't just the regular GI Joe having all the fun. Those poor, poor generals and admirals. Tsk, Tsk.

Someone please stop my head from spinning. We have people starving, children in need, middle class American families struggling to keep their homes, and these are listed as pork-barrel expenditures: $725,000 for the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia; $90,000 for the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas; $273,000 to help Blue Springs, Mo., combat teenage "goth culture"; and $1 million for Birmingham, Ala., to build a statue of the Roman god Vulcan. Elimination of such frivolous causes could save billions.

Mr. Riedl also went on to explain Washingon's duplication of efforts: For example, there are 342 separate economic development programs, 130 programs serving the disabled, 130 programs serving at-risk youth, and 72 safe-water programs. This overlap not only wastes billions in administrative overhead, it confuses those needing federal assistance who must navigate through the morass of programs. What is wrong with this picture????

I had no idea there was such a thing as corporate welfare. $90 billion has been spent on a program that shouldn't even exist. To quote Mr. Riedl, "There's no justification for taxing waitresses and welders to subsidize Fortune 500 CEOs. Furthermore, most corporate welfare programs, such as the Advanced Technology Program, provide little or no economic value to justify their enormous costs." This just pissed me off more after seeing Bill Gates arguing with congress to issue more visas to bring in third world country people for him to employ at a cheaper rate. I suggested in another blog that he use some of the trillions he earned here in AMERICA to train and employ some of the over 80,000 who lost their jobs so far this year from countries going abroad.

The $200 billion per year saved by eliminating these ridiculous programs and expenditures would go a long way in restoring some faith in our government. Their show in good faith that the American public really does matter. If this frivolous waste continues, will our children have anything at all for their future? Most of us have tried to set up savings and insurance to provide for them, but as things continue to escalate to point that we live paycheck to paycheck, that good intention has fallen by the wayside in most households, I imagine. It has in ours.

I had to laugh when I heard John McCain's income tax disclosure the other day. He filed separately from his billionaire wife, claiming only his $400,000 plus. Included was the approximately $22,000 or so he received from Social Security. See, even he's getting his share before the government squanders it away.

What can we do? The people we trust and elect seem to be the very people who betray us. 'Drunk with power' seems to make a whole lot more sense to me these days. I want someone who's 'on the wagon.' With another election right around the corner, who will we send to the oval office that won't continue the tradition? I have no idea. I can't help think that those billions garnered for campaign contributions would go a long way toward cancer, aids, or other disease research. I'm trying to do my part by spreading the informed words of those in the know.

For the sake of brevity, I'm providing a link to show you some more of the ridiculous ways the government wastes your tax dollars. It's shocking:

Pork Barrel Spending


Note: Brian Riedl is the Grover M. Hermann Fellow in federal budgetary affairs at The Heritage Foundation (www.heritage.org), a Washington-based public policy institute.