Government Waste

Good people are tired of both parties as neither has a handle on what’s really wanted – equality, sanity, and justice. As of August 26, 2011, the Associated Press reported that only 12% of Americans approve of the job that congressional lawmakers are doing. We have to remember that most of the people in the Legislature are part of the problem we have today; there are very few new legislators that can exempt themselves from the mess we’re in. This means that those running in the last campaign as well as the majority of those running in the next helped create our current situation. But, don’t be fooled by the newbie; he/she may be over zealous and create new problems like what we saw in July/August when we almost didn’t get the budget passed because the Republicans couldn’t pass their bill in the Republican House. I do think that there would be less of a burden to the budget if the government didn’t spend money on things such as the following:

Illegal immigrants - Various web sites (http://tinyurl.com/zob77 and tinyurl.com/t9sht,  http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html, www.drdsk.com/articleshtml, www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm,

www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.html, transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html, and premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html) give the US tax dollars being spent on illegal immigrants; after totaling 14 issues it turns out that we are spending $338.3 billion a year on them. This money is as hidden as the gym costs we heard about. They are scattered in Education, including Head Start, Pell Grants, Medicaid, etc. A FL teacher reported that these students have programs such as WAIT which gives students a credit card for gas to come to school and CARIBE which pays their child care and all sorts of other things while they go to school or training. All this free money does not assure that the people will stay in the US and be productive citizens. I don’t believe our children are given the same opportunities.

Paying people not to farm - As an example, per the Environmental Working Group the government paid the following for farm subsidiaries: $2.2 million in Chicago for 734 farms, $2.5 million for 203 in Miami, $1.1 million for 179 in SF, and there were 290 farms in NYC for an undisclosed amount mostly going to wealthy absentee landlords padding their bottom line.

Foolish trips - More than $12 million in the last decade for legislators to take a trip to other countries to look at billboards and roads. They stayed in lavish hotels, ate the best food and sprung for parties with foreign diplomats. The result of the trip was a 76 page report that almost no-one saw. Secretary of Transportation, Raymond LaHood, said the program was suspended (not discontinued) because President Obama said waste had to stop.

Presidential coins - In 2005 Congress ordered the US Mint to make presidential coins. These so-called collectible coins cost $576,000 to make per day. Since nobody wants them, they’re being stored in a vault. It’s going to cost $3 million to ship the coins to a new vault in Dallas that is costing $650,000. As of July 2011, the mint had 1.252 billion coins (up to the 18^th president) at a cost of $.32 each. The mint is scheduled to make these coins until 2016, going through all the presidents. The cost for this endeavor is over a billion dollars. If they were good businessmen they would have started with a small number to see if interest exists before wasting all that money. And, if that’s not enough, a US Mint officer admits to stealing $2.4 million in coins.

Erroneous unemployment benefits - Nearly $17 billion in unemployment given to people who shouldn’t have collected; those incarcerated and those employed. They say it’s harder to monitor as people can call in or file over the internet. I almost understand the people taking the money but I thought taking something that is not yours was illegal. I’m not saying these people should go to jail but they should have to pay the money back either in currency or community service.

A bus - $1.1 million (Secret Service purchase) on a bus from Canada that the President and other dignitaries are to travel in. The President has a plane and motor cars so I believe the only time a bus is needed is when he is campaigning and he can do that on his own dime. I know the bus is being used to promote the Jobs Act but I wonder what mode of transportation was used to take the South Korean diplomat to Detroit.