* * * WARNING * * * DO NOT read this if you wish to remain SANE!

[PHILIP SCHNEIDER]

Emerging Corruption

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty

`

Obscene Government Waste

March 3, 2013

By Alan Caruba  

The one thing the “sequester” did was to get people asking why government spending could not be reduced. Adding to the drama of the automatic cuts was the sky-is-falling, government-services-will-stop, and comparable lies the President and his cabinet secretaries told until it became obvious that the public was not buying it.

What the President did not talk about was the incredible, obscene waste of taxpayer’s money that goes on every day in every department and agency of the U.S. government. Americans are so accustomed to hearing everything described in the billions and trillions, they have lost sight of what these numbers really mean and this is particularly true in light of the nation’s huge, growing debt and deficit.

It’s not like independent organizations like Citizens Against Government Waste don’t keep watch and report the waste. It has gained some fame for its annual “Pig Book”, a list of absurd spending. To its credit, the Government Accountability Office occasionally issues a report on waste when some member of Congress requests it.

Even a casual bit of research turns up item after item that, were Americans not so apathetic and indifferent to government waste, it would result in huge rallies in Washington, D.C. calling for change. There is none.

Here are some examples, a mere handful from the many anyone can discover by simply Googling “government waste.”

# The government spends $1.7 billion for maintenance on empty buildings it owns, although some sources put the figure at closer to $25 billion. The Office of Management and Budget estimates that 55,000 properties are underutilized or entirely vacant.

# The federal government owns approximately one-third of all U.S. land. It does not need more land and it could be argued that it should not own 80% of Nevada and Alaska, and more than half of Idaho. That said, it wants to spend $2.3 billion to purchase more land and the National park Service currently has a backlog of maintenance tasks totaling $5 billion. These include parks that the Obama administration was saying would all have to be closed down because of a sequester reduction of a mere 1.2% of all federal spending.

# Homeland Security’s Janet Napolitano was issuing statements about the sequestration cuts to her department, but according to Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, the department has $9 billion in unspent preparedness funds. How much of that will be spent on purchasing more DHS ammunition? They have already purchased enough to shoot every American five times.

# Republican lawmakers in Congress took the sequester fear-mongering as an opportunity to note, as Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) said, “There are pots of money sitting in different departments across the federal government, that have been authorized over either a number of months or years.”

# Rep. Tom Coburn (R-OK) is a leading budget hawk who identified programs to fund a space ship to another solar system, funds for advancements in beef jerky from France, and $6 billion for research to find out what lessons about democracy and decision-making can be learned—from fish!

# While you’re trying to figure out how to pay your 2012 taxes, give a thought to the National Science Foundation $350,000 grant to Perdue University researchers on how to improve your golf game.

# Not to be outspent, the National Institutes of Health gave a $940,000 grant to researchers who found that the production of pheromones in—wait for it—fruit flies, declines over time. Turns out that male fruit flies were more attracted to younger female fruit flies. The NIH also paid researchers to find out why gay men in Argentina engage in risky sexual behavior when they’re drunk and spent $800,000 in “stimulus funds” to study the impact of a “genital-washing” program on men in South Africa. You can’t make up this stuff.

# For reasons that defy sanity, various elements of the government have spent $3 million for research on video games; $2.6 million to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly; a whopping $500 million on a program that would, among other things, try to figure out why five-year-olds “can’t sit still” in a kindergarten classroom; and grants such as $1.8 million on a “museum of neon signs” in Las Vegas, Nevada.

# Sanity does not apply to the $2 billion given annually to U.S. farmers to not farm their land. Don’t even ask about the Defense Department. It has long been famous for waste.

While all this has been going on, in 2010 the Office of Management and Budget determined that $47.9 billion was spent on fraudulent or improper payments in Medicare and the problem still hasn’t been fixed, though the cost is now up to $62 billion. There’s been $2.7 billion in fraud and mismanagement of the food-stamp program. And on, and on, and on.

And the President of the United States can only talk about tax breaks for the “rich and well-connected” while spending most of his time hanging out with the “rich and well-connected.” The rest of the time is spent campaigning to get higher taxes on all the rest of us.

If you just added up the billions cited in this brief look at waste, the federal government might actually be able to get by without having run up the national debt to more than $16 trillion and running trillion-plus annual deficits.

© Alan Caruba, 2013

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A few other articles found on the internet:

Government Waste

www.arc.asm.ca.gov/budgetfactcheck/?p=waste

Found on: Google

Below are a few examples of government waste highlighted by nonpartisan government watchdogs and independent state auditors. These examples only ...

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50 Examples of Government Waste

www.heritage.org/…0/50-examples-of-government-waste

Found on: Google, Yahoo! Search

Oct 6, 2009 ... Here are 50 of the most egregious examples of government waste.

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Government Waste from Boycottliberalism.com

www.boycottliberalism.com/Governmentwaste.htm

Found on: Yahoo! Search

When I created this page someone asked, "Why don't you list the money spent on the war with Iraq?" Please be advised that the primary responsibility ...

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Obscene Government Waste | CNS News

cnsnews.com/…g/alan-caruba/obscene-government-waste

Found on: Google

Mar 4, 2013 ... Independent organizations such as Citizens Against Government Waste keep track and report the waste. The group has gained some fame for ..

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Government Waste: 20 Of The Craziest Things That The U.S ...

theeconomiccollapseblog.com/…t-is-spending-money-on

Found on: Yahoo! Search

You are not going to believe some of the things that the U.S. government is spending money on. According to a shocking new report, U.S. taxpayer money is

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If you think you know, you live in "Paradise", please sing another song.

[PHILIP SCHNEIDER]

When I can, I vote with my feet.

My biggest TAX/FEE deduction came when I moved from Wisconsin (usually ranked about 5th in the nation of tax burdens) to Texas where it ranks near the bottom for tax burdens. I literally save thousands in state income taxes each year doing that move. Texas is one of the 7 states with no income tax.

[Gordon Ray Kissinger]

The FEES Are Coming, The FEES Are Coming!

• Posted by RJ on March 25, 2013 at 10:49pm

Funny thing about any state or federal government is they want you to pay more for many things but they don’t want you to be able to deduct it, or have any benefit from it. You are just the source of monies to pay for whatever fee they have decided to tack on to any item. I have just a few examples of both state and federal fees that I am expected to pay for but from which I will receive nothing at all. Some fees are in your face and obvious, many are buried in hundreds of pages.

For example, I submitted my renewal papers for my nursing license, and noted the fee increase. They want $10 increase for an “educational fund”. Funny thing is this fund and agency has never educated me in any way shape or form. I suppose you could call it “an education” to read the renewal form and figure out all their legalese and submit your fee which at this time is tax deductible. The fee of $140 goes up to $205 if you are one day late. Hardly seems fair, such a huge penalty for one day…and makes me wonder which “California fund” this goes into and where it isreally spent. If there are, for example, 70,000 RN’s times $10 education fee, it is a whole lot of moolah. I am curious where the late payment penalties go and what fund they put them into. If 20,000 RN’s pay one day late, $65 times it is 1.3 million dollars. If you add that to the regular fees without penalties, you get a nice $ 2 million approximately in the pot for ‘education’.  Are you starting to see how the sneaky fees add up?

I pay my property taxes. If I want fire protection where I live I must pay a fee of $120. This money goes into a “general fund”, where I have a nagging feeling my fire protection fee will be spent somewhere else. This cannot be deducted as a tax because it is a fee.

Fees and more fees!  Of course, it costs taxpayer dollars to create all of these “fees”—and all in the name of not raising taxes.  It might be okay if they were responsible and used the money correctly, but here in California there’s a major problem with greed and extremism (and misappropriation).

Ironically, two years ago they sent me my renewal form in December, but they had raised the fee beginning January, and in their magnificent incompetence they sent me the old form along with the old fee.  I called the California Board of Nursing wondering where my license was, and was told I paid $10 short.  I explained that I had paid the fee on the form they sent me and that at no time did I psychically predict their fee increase… Unfortunately this is typical for bureaucrats, trying to tell people they should have known things were changing– and even if they mess up it is still your fault.

These are just two examples of fee tactics, basically just another way to collect taxes without actually calling them taxes—and getting around that pesky matter of “taxation without representation”.  Today we are fined/taxed everywhere we go in everything we do. One form of the government–whether state or Federal– has its hand out, ready to take your taxes/fees out of your pocket, or mouth.  In doing this, they are able to tax/fine you multiple times for an item you own. Your car registration is a good example of that. When you purchase your car, you pay taxes. Then to renew your right to drive you must pay every two years. This is outrageous to me, that California gets hundreds of dollars from every driver every two years.  Where does all that money go? Certainly not to our roads!  The California Department of Motor Vehicles is closed every Friday now because they can’t afford to pay their staff.  To heck with the taxpayers–their attitude is:  Re-schedule!

If you go camping in the Golden State you pay $8.00 just to make a reservation. I remember when I only paid $8 a night to camp.

From the California Parks website:  “In addition to the campsite fee, an additional $8.00 for processing a reservation will be included in the price of a campsite. This cost is incurred by Reserve America, a private corporation that contracts with California State Parks to operate the reservation system.”

The thing about the fees is they are tacked on to anything they want. This makes it harder to track them and if they are used properly.  The more obscure your fee is the more likely it is for California to misappropriate those funds.  When I lived in Massachusetts, they had what they called an “excise tax”. This was basically a “luxury tax” that you paid on items such as your car, for the life of a car. Again, you are taxed on something you have already paid taxes for, over and over again.

If you are lucky enough and make over $1 million per year   you will pay California’s highest marginal rate 13.30 percent. When I checked out Florida’s tax rate, Florida is one of only seven states that does not tax individual wage income. It does, however, assess a state corporate income tax. The state’s intangible personal property tax was eliminated in 2007. It does not take a huge imagination to see how much money you would save by moving.

California does not seem to care about its resident’s ability to afford anything. We are taxed 50 cents per gallon for our gasoline. All of these fees add up to a burden for Californians and, of course, ahuge government is required to oversee the collection of these monies.

The difference in fees taxes and cost of living from where I live now and where I lived in the Bay Area can be figured here:
http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/savings/moving-cost-of-living-c...

Just by moving, I maintained my same living standard and saved 37.48 % in the past year. If I type in Fort Worth I could save 47.09% and maintain my same standard of living.

I have only listed a few California State and government fees, which I will be expected to pay—but what if I don’t?  Are we all to be tossed in prison if we refuse to pay these government-rigged taxes/fees? It costs the government an average of $60K per year to imprison someone—perhaps a new “Debtor’s Prison” system will be reintroduced to Americans in the upcoming future…

But wait, there’s more…There are lots of sneaky “fees” about to come to us via the Obamacare, especially for those on fixed incomes.  I highly encourage all of you to determine upcoming changes to your states taxes and fees related to your own cost of living.

As for the fees I pay here in California, I will complain to my legislators. I want to let them know they have reached a tipping point where they are going to lose even more hardworking Californians with their burdensome fees/fines/taxes.  When the money goes, there go the jobs; there goes the neighborhood, along with the uptick on the poverty level.  We need to prevent a mass exodus of jobs and businesses by making California—and America–a more hospitable climate.

Read the rest at PolitiChicks

 

[Gordon Ray Kissinger]

Biden's $321,665 Limo Bill

After two items last week on the cost of lodging for Vice President Joe Biden's early February trip to Europe, other news organizations began to investigate further.  Wolf Blitzer's show The Situation Roomon CNN uncovered a contract apparently also related to the same visit to Paris:

Also on the receipt was $321,665 for a limousine company.

Although CNN did not link to the document, the notice of the contract award for the limousine service was posted on the same government website as the hotel contracts.  Oddly, the "Contract Award Date" is listed as 2012, but this seems to simply be a typo:

The CNN report went on to explain that the limousine costs did not seem out of the ordinary:

As for the limousine to travel around Paris, the former advance official said that goes for the motor pool.  

The vice president's limo is flown in, but staff members on the trip didn't take the Metro around. They're not allowed to drive themselves and tend to book normal cars and drivers with the motor company-but don't necessarily take limousines. The $321,665 figure in Paris sounded about right, that former official said.

The peculiarity pointed out by the CNN report and by Wolf Blitzer himself, based on his years reporting on the White House, is that these contracts are publicly available at all.  A search of the government website in question reveals very few other contracts related to the travels of the president or vice president.  However, another one of those rare finds also involves limousine service for a trip to France, this one from November 2011 when President Obama travelled to the G20 Summit in Cannes.

Inexplicably, the contract award amount is listed as only $10,000, which is wildly at odds with the $321,665 for Vice President Biden's trip.  However, this listing, unlike the one for the Biden trip, includes an accompanying Justification and Approval document.  It reveals that the estimated cost of vehicles and drivers for the president's Cannes visit was $731,938, not to exceed $1.4 million:

The president was in France for less than 36 hours.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/bidens-321665-limo-bill_708940....

[Gordon Ray Kissinger]

Sequester? What Sequester? US unblocks $500M for Palestinians

• Posted by RJ on March 24, 2013 at 9:36pm

US unblocks $500M for Palestinians

State Department spokeswoman Nuland says aid money frozen by Congress for months freed up as PA faces worst economic crisis in years

The news that the funds had finally been freed up came after US President Barack Obama met top Israeli and Palestinian leaders in a landmark visit to Israel and the West Bank earlier this week.

The United States has quietly unblocked almost $500 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority which had been frozen by Congress for months, a top US official said Friday.

"To date, we have moved $295.7 million in fiscal year 2012 money… and $200 million in fiscal year 2013 assistance," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.

The Obama administration also notified Congress in late February that it was seeking a further $200 million to fund US Agency for International Development (USAID) programs for the Palestinians, she said.  

Obama-Abbas press conference in Ramallah

The first sum comprises some $195.7 million, allocated under the 2012 fiscal year budget for USAID economic, development and humanitarian assistance, as well as a further $100 million earmarked specifically for narcotics control.

The second sum of $200 million unblocked and available to the Palestinian Authority will come under the 2013 budget and be spent for direct budget support.

The Palestinian Authority is facing its worst economic crisis in years, in part because of a failure by donors to deliver pledged funds. But its finances were plunged further into chaos after president Mahmud Abbas won upgraded UN observer status at the UN General Assembly in late November.

Congress froze the US administration's requests for funds.

And Israel, which also strongly opposed the move, said it was suspending monthly transfers of the tax and tariff revenue it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the wake of the decision. 

It did, however, transfer $100 million in a one-off payment in late January.

Earlier this month a report by the Palestinian Authority urged the world to step up financial aid and press Israel to allow economic development, warning of a "political collapse" due to Israeli fiscal strangulation. 

Obama met Abbas in Ramallah in the West Bank on Thursday as part of his visitto Israel and the Palestinian territories, accompanied by US Secretary of State John Kerry.

Kerry has pushed for the funds to be released since taking up his post on February 1.

http://paulrevereradio.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=6327028%3ABlo...

[Gordon Ray Kissinger]

Seriously? Does Obama Really Not Get It?

24 March 2013

The latest waste of taxpayer money, following close on the heels of the way over-hyped sequester, has been Obama’s so-called Charm Tour. It just hasn’t gotten through his thick skull and massive, personality disorder-driven ego that the American people are not buying his lies like they used to. They’re starting to connect the man to his mindless Marxism, their economic and social pain to his policies. They are finally, though probably way too late, realizing that the Fraud-in-the-White House is just that.

B. Hussein, however, insulated from the nastiness of reality as he is by the Ministry of Propaganda, tried to take the tour overseas. The result, as with all his incredibly inept and incompetent attempts at diplomacy, statesmanship, and foreign policy, has been another embarrassing failure. This one, though, has been worse than most.

In spite of his pandering to Muslims, especially those with radical, fundamentalist views, it’s coming out very publicly that they hate him even more than they did George Bush. He’s been trying to play both sides against the middle, straddling the fence, and it apparently has PO’d a whole lot of Muslims all over the globe. The demonstrations by “Palestinians” against him were far worse than the Israeli ones, and the Israelis left no doubt of their dislike for him and his duplicity. The “peaceful Palestinians” who B. Hussein, Hillary Clinton, and the Democrat Party of Latter Day Marxism constantly kiss up to, showed their respect for Obozo and his pandering by violating the phony ceasefire, and showering Israel with rockets while the Messiah was in the country, only a few miles away.

Iran, too, that bastion of Islamic love and tolerance, has stepped up its saber-rattling, and it appears that it’s just a matter of time – and not much of that – before a major, hot, bullets, bombs, missiles, and maybe nukes confrontation occurs. Four years of dithering by Obama and the State of Disarray Department under Hillary – and now, thanks to the craven Republicans in the Senate, the criminal/traitor John Kerry – have fueled the delusions of Iran’s leaders that they are all-powerful, unstoppable, and the rightful rulers of the coming global Caliphate. Obama’s brilliant, ever-so-well-crafted answer to the threat of the start of World War III is, “Oh, well, if someone wants to actually take action to stop them, wink, wink, nod, nod, we won’t interfere.” Amazing what an education at Columbia and Harvard will do for you.

Meanwhile, in the Far Out Far East, North Korea, led by the second runner-up in a Pillsbury Dough Boy look-alike contest, has called off the ceasefire that ended the Korean War, sixty years ago. Kim Jong Un, a second generation wacko, feels threatened by our Nobel Peace Prize “winning” Commander-in-Chief, and has mobilized his army and is threatening to launch nukes at us. This motivated our Department of Surrender to make plans to move missile defenses that were originally intended to protect NATO allies Poland and Czechoslovakia from attacks from Iran, to Alaska, to add to our protection against attacks from Asia. Asia, for those educated in government schools, is also where China is.

Read More:  http://canadafreepress.com/

Read more: http://MinuteMenNews.com/2013/03/seriously-does-obama-really-just-n...

[Gordon Ray Kissinger]

Great commentary, Phil. That would be a fast hell-bent group.

More waste of our tax dollars-

As VP, Biden Has Been Flying To Delaware on the Weekends

24 March 2013

Vice President Biden has been flying home to Wilmington, Delaware most weekends at enormous expense to taxpayers, even though he has an exclusive government-provided residence in Washington.

Biden himself acknowledged the flights during recent remarks to the National Association of Attorneys General, noting that the sequester would force him to temporarily alter his expensive habit and use the train instead.

According to reports, Biden generally uses Air Force Two to get to Wilmington.

The cost of flying Air Force Two, a military version of the Boeing 757-200, amounts to about $8,800 per hour, according to the most recent federal data.

The distance between Washington and Wilmington is only about a hundred miles, but it’s safe to assume that between flying time and the time spent on the takeoff and landing, the total flight takes at least 45 minutes. That would amount to a roundtrip cost to taxpayers of about $13,200.

Read More:  http://www.whitehousedossier.com

Read more: http://MinuteMenNews.com/2013/03/as-vp-biden-has-been-flying-to-del...

[PHILIP SCHNEIDER]

Muuuuuuuuurkowski even the name makes me sick let alone her politics!

Think of what might happen if Murkowski, Hillary, and Michelle ever got together on the same side of an issue. YIKES!

There'd be a road to no where with dead ambassadors lying along side the road just short of one of those vegan low calorie salad bar only restaurants with a secret room outback that served hot dogs with the works and a smoking room.

[Gordon Ray Kissinger]

Murkowski’s Folly: No Road For King Cove

23 Mar 2013

by Citizens Against Government Waste

Photo Credit: U.S. Army Alaska

Alaska has long received more than its fair share of federal tax dollars, as evidenced by its perennial first place ranking in pork per capita according to Citizens Against Government Waste’s (CAGW) Congressional Pig Book. Now, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) wants taxpayers to pay for a road in her state linking the town of King Cove (about 750 year-round residents) to Cold Bay and the latter’s all-weather airport, purportedly for safety reasons. In February, Sen. Murkowski threatened to block the nomination of Sally Jewell to be Secretary of the Interior unless the road was approved.

Sen. Murkowski’s pet project had previously been rebuffed by the Department of the Interior because the road would run through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Environmental Impact Statement, the road would cost $22.7 million, but data from the Alaska Statewide Improvement Transportation budget projections from fiscal years 2010-2015 suggest that the cost of the road could exceed $80 million, or more than $2 million per mile. Undeterred, Sen. Murkowski stated on February 12 that she was “prepared to consider all actions available…to convince this administration that denying the people of King Cove reliable access to medical care would be a travesty.” This week, Sen. Murkowski struck a deal with the Interior Department to get the road proposal reevaluated and toned down her rhetoric regarding the nomination.

Predictably, it appears that commercial interests, not medical emergencies, are the primary driver of the project. According to a February 24, 2013 Washington Post article, “Originally, both area residents and state officials viewed the road as a way to bolster the region’s fishing industry. …when King Cove passed its first resolution calling for its construction, it did not mention safety concerns and instead called for the road to ‘link together two communities having one of the state’s premier fishing port/harbors.’” The “safety” defense emerged only after it appeared unlikely that the road would receive federal funds.

Read more from this story HERE.

Read more: http://joemiller.us/2013/03/murkowskis-folly-no-road-for-king-cove/...

[PHILIP SCHNEIDER]

"Pelosi: Spending Cuts Will Lead To “Very Little” Government"

YAY!!!! Exactly what We the People have been asking for for years!!!

But of course the "Sequester" neck rope that Obama placed around his own neck last year has quietly been placed around our own necks as Obama squeezes the Republicans and us for not obeying  his highestness.

[Gordon Ray Kissinger]

Pelosi: Spending Cuts Will Lead To “Very Little” Government

Posted on March 23, 2013 by Philip Hodges

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At a press conference on Thursday, Nancy Pelosi was asked about Boehner’s statement on matching the debt limit rise with dollar for dollar spending cuts. He had said previously that when the government raises the debt limit yet again later this year in August, there needs to be matching spending cuts that accompany any rise in the debt limit. She said that was just “anti-government” rhetoric:

 “Yes, that’s what the Speaker says, and that is certainly in keeping with the anti-government ideologues that are in his caucus. If you keep cutting investments in the future that way in order to do something that should be pro forma here to pass the debt limit, this shouldn’t even be this kind of a debate…. If you keep saying ‘dollar for dollar,’ you will have very little in terms of the public space for public-private partnerships, for cops on the beat, see what’s going on on Wall Street, for clean air, clean water, food safety, public safety, public education, public transportation, public housing, public health, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. It just keeps unraveling and unraveling, and that is their point. That’s what they believe, they do not believe in a public role. Bless their hearts, they act upon their beliefs.”

 If only that were the case that we would end up with a “very little” public sector. I hate to say it, but she doesn’t have anything to worry about as long as we have politicians like Boehner in power. The budget cuts, or rather the slowing down of government growth, is only happening for political reasons. If they were really having to make cuts, they wouldn’t be spending money on bizarre things like studying the shape of duck genitalia or having prison inmates teach wild horses to be “gentle.”

No, instead they choose things like shutting down 149 traffic control towers or releasing criminals. There are plenty of places the government can cut without being ridiculous.

And what’s with Pelosi’s final quip at the end there? “Bless their hearts, they act upon their beliefs.” Give me a break. As if she doesn’t act upon her beliefs?

She believes in wealth redistribution and confiscation through higher taxes, which she thinks are people’s “fair share.” She believes in big government. She believes in the welfare state. She believes that everybody needs to be dependent on the government for health care, education, food stamps, transportation and security. She believes that debt and deficits are good and necessary so that we can finance all the grandiose government programs.

And she’s spent her entire political career acting on her beliefs. Bless her heart.

Read more: http://politicaloutcast.com/2013/03/pelosi-spending-cuts-will-lead-...