The really sad part of this insanity series is that it continues to need more and more attention every month, implying that the ineptness of the American politician is getting worse over time. There should be little doubt by now that we are living through the worst, most incompetent set of politicians that this country has ever seen.
1) When Obama came into office, he pledged to terminate the sleazy process known as earmarks. This is a budget deception that goes on every year where specific members of Congress insert wasteful and unnecessary items into the Federal budget to either take care of their financial backers/interests or to get money funneled back to their respective state areas to show how effective they are in Washington and thus, should be reelected over and over.
Back in 2008, Obama promised to get rid of the process, which conservatively costs the American taxpayer about $20 billion a year in unnecessary spending, depending on how one counts earmarks. At that time, many of us felt that the tradition of sleazy earmarks would finally end and that wasteful spending on them would cease.
But, alas, much like every other Obama promise, this one also proved to be either a lie or a failure of this President. Well over five years into this administration, the earmark tradition is alive and well, giving us little hope that Obama will fulfill this campaign also.
Consider the analysis and findings from the Taxpayer Protection Alliance (TPA) that were highlighted in a recent online article on the fabulous Bankrupting America website:
- Just in the 2015 Federal budget for defense appropriations in the proposed House and Senate budgets, TPA uncovered more than 240 earmarks worth almost $20 billion.
- According to the TPA report, in the House defense bill there were 137 earmark projects totaling $8.2.
- There were 190 earmarks worth $11.7 billion found in the Senate version of the defense budget.
- Again, these earmarks were just in the defense portion of the proposed budget, not the entire Federal government.
- Among the specific defense department earmarks was $10 million in research funding for historically black colleges.
- $4.9 million was set aside for next year’s Fourth of July celebration.
- There was $250 million allocated for cancer research, not a primary concern for the Pentagon
- This included $120 million for breast cancer research, $64 million to study prostate cancer and $10 million to research ovarian cancer.
- In addition, the Senate included $3 million for the Healthy Base Initiative, which assures healthy foods are available in the vending machines around military bases.
TPA President David Williams stated how disgraceful it is that most Americans are struggling financially while those in Washington continue to spend and waste our hard earned tax dollars like drunken sailors on shore leave:
“Congress continues their track record of running up the bill on the taxpayer dime with unrequested items. Appropriations bills from the House and Senate are yet another terrible example of Washington run amuck. These appropriations bills are just continuing the trend that we’ve seen since the caps on sequestration were broken last year with the passage of the Ryan-Murray budget. As millions of Americans continue to tighten their own belts and make sacrifices this summer due to their own financial struggles, their elected representatives in Washington continue what amounts to out of control spending.”
The full analysis and details on this broken Obama promise and out of control earmark spending can be accessed at:
2) We have already often discussed the fact and proofs that the Obama administration’s Cash For Clunkers program was a failure. All the program did was move the purchase of new cars up in time or back in time so that car purchasers could get a credit on their purchase, courtesy of the American taxpayer. There was no net increase in the purchase of new cars, just the timing was changed.
Thus, one of the original intents of the programs, incrementally increase/stimulate the purchase of new cars was a failure. But analysis by Texas A&M researchers found that the program also failed in two other, more subtle ways:
- Although not an implicit objective of the program, what the Obama administration really wanted to do with the program was to incent people to buy American cars to jack up an ailing domestic auto industry. However, the Texas A&M analysis found that the most popular car model purchased during the promotion was the Toyota Corolla, a foreign brand.
- Second, for whatever reason, Texas A&M found that those that purchased cars as a result of the promotion, on average, paid about $4,600 less than what would have been expected if the promotion had not existed. Thus, car dealers and manufacturers not only did not sell incrementally more cars during the Cash For Clunkers promotion, the cars they did sell were less expensive and probably less profitable than what they would have expected to sell in the absence of the promotion.
The Texas A&M researchers estimate that rather than help the domestic car industry, Cash Fir Clunkers actually cost the industry about $3 billion via the lower priced cars they actually ended up selling on the promotion and the fact that there was no incremental sales bump. Only the Washington political class can come up with a multi-billion program that results in more damage vs. doing nothing in a particular industry.
3) Of all the problems in the world and in the country, one would have thought that the Federal government would not spend almost $750,000 on a video game to help parents increase the chances of their kids eating healthy. But you would be wrong since the Department of Health and Human Services has given Houston gaming company Archimage $747,891 to create a video game to help parents learn how to properly teach their children to eat vegetables.
Unbelievable, how many parents do we really think are 1) going to go to the trouble of obtaining this idiotic video game, 2) will actually take the time to play the game, and 3) use the takeaways from the video game and apply it to their kids eating habits?
Out veterans are dying form lack of medical care, millions and millions of Americans are unemployed and need job training access, millions of Americans are homeless, millions of Americans are on food stamps, millions of Americans need treatment for their drug addiction, etc. and the Federal government thinks that developing a video game will help parents get their kids to eat their vegetables?
Here’s a better idea for getting kids to eat their vegetables, courtesy of the staffers at the Independent Journal Review (who uncovered and reported on this extraneous expense) and mothers since the beginning of time: “You’re not getting up from the table until all of those vegetables on your plate are finished.”
If they had just asked, HHS could have saved the taxpayers almost $750,000 and gotten he same benefits and results. Pathetic waste of taxpayer wealth when so many better uses could be found for the money.
4) One last piece of insanity for today, more to follow over the coming days. Recently speaking on “Meet The Press,” Senator Rand Paul asked the appropriate question of what was the reasoning and wisdom for the Federal government to send $8 million in military grade equipment to Fargo, North Dakota to fight terrorism: "Homeland Security gave $8 million to Fargo to fight terrorism. I say, if the terrorists get to Fargo, we might as well give up," he told NBC's Senior White House correspondent Chris Jansing.
So true. If Fargo is the best terror target available to terrorists it is probably because New York, Chicago, LA, Houston, and a hundred other American cities have already been taken out, leaving Fargo as the last good terrorism target. At that point in the country’s destruction, who cares what happens in Fargo? Simple reasoning and logic to try and figure out idiotic spending priorities and wasteful spending.
That will do it for today. Earmarks are alive, and well and growing, despite the Obama promise to squelch them, Cash For clunkers continues to be a clunker no matter how you dissect the sales data, the Obama administration thinks it needs to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to teach parents how to be parents, and Fargo, North Dakota is now safe from terrorists. You cannot make up this type of insanity, it can only come out of the Washington political class.
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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