We do this feature at the start of each month in order to keep tabs on the lunacy, idiocy, and wasteful spending of the American political class. We are up to five posts this month because the insanity they create with useless and stupid programs continues to grow exponentially over time, requiring more and more blog space to cover it all it each and every month.
1) The following six stupid spending programs come courtesy of government spending tracking done by the Heritage Foundation and posted on their website on February 11, 2013:
- Lost green energy equipment. A 2012 Department of Energy Inspector General audit found that the Department cannot locate $500,000 worth of green energy manufacturing equipment it purchased with stimulus money.
- $2 million internship program. From 2010 through 2011, the Department of Agriculture’s Office of the Chief Information Officer funded a $2 million intern program intended to enhance the agency’s IT security workforce. Only one intern was hired full time.
- Extravagant Las Vegas conference. The General Services Administration (GSA), which is responsible for managing federal buildings and helping cut government spending and costs, held a 2010 conference in Las Vegas that cost $822,751, or more than $2,500 per employee. GSA paid for $44-per-person breakfasts and commemorative coins that cost $6,325.
- Mars menu. The U.S. has not sent a man to Mars and has no immediate plan in the next few decades to do so. However, NASA spends nearly $1 million every year to create hypothetical menu options if humans one day live on Mars. In 2012, Cornell University and the University of Hawaii received $947,000 from NASA’s Advanced Food Technology Project to develop creative Mars menus. How many homeless and unemployed Americans could be fed with non-Mars food and $947,000 every year?
- Greek yogurt factory for New York. PepsiCo, a multi billion dollar company, and Theo Müller Group are joining forces to build a Greek yogurt factory in Genesee County, New York. The Departments of Agriculture and Commerce granted them $1.3 million to jump-start the project. Hey, if it such a good idea, let Pepsi pay to jump start the project.
- Trolley system in St. Louis. The Federal government is giving $35 million to St. Louis, Missouri, to construct an “old-fashioned style-trolley system.” Great, mass transit, right? No, the trolley will only cover the 2.2-mile span between the Missouri History Museum and the University City Library, duplicating nearby bus and light-rail service…at a cost of roughly $17 million per mile!
2) The Heritage Foundation also reported on another government insult to fiscal integrity when it reported on a Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) smartphone app that uses temperature and humidity data to warn workers if it is too hot outside.
According to OSHA’s website, the “Heat Safety Tool”—available for Android, Blackberry and iPhone—“allows workers and supervisors to calculate the heat index for their work site and, based on the heat index, displays a risk level to outdoor workers.” The app also outlines protective measures that workers can take to mitigate the risks of overexposure to heat.
So much wrong with this wasteful spending:
- According to government documents found under a Freedom of Information Act request, the app cost a whopping $643,997.60 to develop. Really, over $600,000 to develop a smartphone thermometer?
- Taxpayers have no chance of ever recuperating this investment since the app is given out freely to whoever wants it.
- The same information already exists via the Weather channel app and the smartphone app of thousands of local and regional weather outlets.
- Rather than fire up the old smartphone, why not step outside and see, using common sense, and not over $600,000 of taxpayer wealth, to determine if it is too hot to work outside?
- And finally, does anyone really think that most construction and other outdoor industries are going to bother with such a silly app?
3) Let’s stay with wasteful government spending and do some simple math based on the latest government debt numbers from the wonderful website, Bankrupting America:
- Most educated and informed people know that the Federal government national debt is about $17 TRILLION.
- However, what people do not know is that we as a country are paying $359.8 billion a year just to service that debt.
- This means that we are spending just under a BILLION DOLLARS A DAY to pay for our ill gotten national debt.
- If spread evenly across the country, every U.S. household is paying about $3,100 a year to service that debt, wealth that cannot be used for better schools, better vacations, new cars, and other economy enhancing activities.
- This debt load comes out to about $8.60 per household per day.
- Bankrupting America estimates that the debt load will grow to an almost unfathomable $21.7 TRILLION by 2018, increasing the household debt load of every U.S. household to almost $4,000 a year.
4) Given the growing incompetence of the current political class, it should come as not much of a surprise that according to an October, 2013 Gallup survey, 60% of Americans say the Democratic and Republicans parties do such a lousy job of governing the American people that a third major party is needed. This is the highest Gallup has measured the desire for a viable third political party in the 10-year history of this question. Additionally, a new low of only 26% believe the two major parties adequately represent Americans.
Among those that identify themselves as Independent voters, a whopping 71% want a third party to come along. 52% of Republicans and 49% of Democrats feel the same way, indicating that pretty much the majority of Americans, regardless of their political leanings, are fed up with the current clowns in office. One way around that problem and to start the process of cleaning house in Washington is via term limits, an effort that you can become a part of at:
5) And finally for today, how would you like it if a lowly government worker had easy access to your medical history? And with that access made a decision that had a major impact on your life?
Well, that recently happened to a Canadian citizen named Ellen Richardson. Keep in mind that this incident involved a United States Customs and Border Protection agent and a Canadian citizen.
Ms. Richardson has been denied entry into the United States by a Customs and Border Protection agent because she was hospitalizedonce for depression, in Canada in 2012. Ms. Richardson, who is paraplegic, had gone to Pearson airport in Canada to fly to New York City, where she was to embark on a Caribbean cruise. The cruise cost her $6,000 and the fee was nonrefundable.
The agent who refused Richardson entry cited the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act, Section 212, which denies entry to people who have had a physical or mental disorder that may pose a 'threat to the property, safety or welfare' of themselves or others. According to news reports, Ms. Richardson, from her wheelchair, had never been a threat to others, had never attacked others, had never made threats against others, had no criminal record, etc. However, a U.S. lowly border agent, with no apparent psychiatric background or education, who somehow had easy access to her medical records, made the call not to allow her to proceed to her vacation because she had failed at a suicide attempt a few years ago. Suicide, not homicide.
Additional facts include:
- According to news reports, in order for her to be cleared to travel into the U.S., Ms. Richardson would have to pay to be examined by one of only three doctors in her native Toronto whose assessments are accepted by U.S. Homeland Security and pass that assessment that she was not a threat.
- She has traveled to the United States on three separate previous occasions since 2001 without any hassles.
- The Star newspaper reports that Richardson, who has a master's degree in counseling, is on medication that has helped her depression and she sees a psychiatrist regularly.
But a single woman, in a wheelchair who is just passing through the U.S., who has done so before, gets stopped and refused entry. Insanity.
I am hoping that this is the end of this month’s insanity. Five posts chock full of politicians wasting money on silly programs and projects, operating stupid government program inefficiently, hassling innocent visitors to our shores, the list goes on and on. However, I will not promise this is the end of the insanity for this month because by the time this post goes live in a few days, more insanity is likely to have cropped up.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:
www.loathemygovernment.com
It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
Term Limits Now:http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
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