On a periodic basis we do some posts that fall under the theme of “by the numbers.” Rather than trust what the American political class tells us about reality, we like to examine the real numbers and the real reality in the world to understand what is actually going on. Relying on politicians, and their cohorts in the media, to tell us what is reality is always a sucker bet. They have their own agendas and goals, usually centering around their needs and self-enrichment. So we need to look at the reality of the numbers to determine what is really going on.
Previous analyses of “by the numbers” can be accessed by entering the phrase in the search box above. We look at the numbers to truly find out how good, not likely, or bad, most likely, the American political class is doing in managing our tax dollars, protecting our freedoms, and resolving major issues that affect all of us.
1)The Federal government spent a lot of money to boost the economy during the shutdowns of the pandemic. And apparently a lot of that money the government printed was never used for the purposes it was supposed to be intended for:
A recent inspector general audit found that about $38 million of pandemic funding was sent to 3,000 dead people.
Obviously, that was not a good economic decision since dead people cannot spend money to spur the economy.
In addition, the audit found 69,000 “questionable” Social Security numbers were used to obtain $5.4 billion in COVID loans and grants from the Small Business Administration.
In total, various government audits estimate that about $400 billion in pandemic funding was fraudulently issued for criminal and fraud purposes.
Congressman James Comer said it all when he observed that misuse of COVID government funds was “the greatest theft of American tax dollars in history.”
Since the entire government spending related to COVID economic programs was about $2.2 trillion, almost 20% was a waste of taxpayer wealth.
And possibly throwing good money after bad, Biden wants to spend another $1.6 billion to track down and maybe recover some of the fraudulently obtained COVID funds.
Have to agree with Congressman Comer, greatest taxpayer theft ever. And no one in any aspect of the Federal government, from sitting members of Congress to inept government bureaucrats that wasted the hundreds of billions of dollars will ever be held accountable.
2)We have often pointed out that the American political class rarely shows any caring for Anmericans who are down on their luck:
For many years, there are usually about 500,000-600,000 homeless Americans in the country.
Given Biden’s inflationary economy, millions of American families are hard pressed to feed their family members.
Over 100,000 Americans die every year from drug overdoses, not able to get the drug addiction help they need before passing away.
And yet, American politicians continue to waste untold billions of dollars a year (see previous point), wasted wealth that could have been used to help these Americans in need.
And yet, those Americans in need, especially the homeless, get the short end of the stick. NYC Mayor Eric Adams recently told the world that of the thousands and thousands of hotel rooms in the city, 50% of them are now housing illegal immigrants. As a result of Biden’s failed border policies, 69,000 illegal immigrants have recently come to NYC and Adams says they are sucking up vacant city hotel rooms, rooms being paid for by city taxpayers.
Imagine how much the city is paying for these hotel rooms. And then imagine how many New York city homeless, hungry and drug addicted citizens are NOT getting the help they need because 69,000 illegal immigrants are getting free hotel shelter, food, and medical care.
But do not feel sorry for Adams. He previously and proudly proclaimed that his city was a so-called sanctuary city where illegal immigrants were welcomed. And now that tens of thousands of immigrants have taken him up on his offer, he is currently destroying the tourism market in the city by sucking up half of all hotel rooms.
3)Many times we have pointed out how the city of San Francisco is in really sad shape from so many different perspectives:
Because of COVID, many tech workers have never come back to their offices in the city, resulting in a cratering economy and tax base.
The homeless problem has gotten worse and worse with city streets being used daily for public defecation, urination, and drug usage.
High taxes, high crime, and low quality of life are driving residents and business out of the city further reducing the tax base.
Given the above crises, one would think that city politicians would be laser focused in fixing these problems. However, rather than working on these problems, city politicians and bureaucrats spent far too much time on gender issues: apparently at least one city government form provides 97 different sexual genders of the form user to use. In addition, a person can choose from 18 different pronouns.
This form comes from a city program called “Guaranteed Income for Trans People (GIFT). The program allows low income “transgender”city residents to receive $1,200 a month for 18 months to help them out financially. How this is legal from a discrimination perspective is beyond me but the city obviously bent over backwards to appeal to these folks: 97 genders, 18 pronouns. Ridiculous waste of taxpayer wealth and time.
4)More numbers that again prove that American politicians do not care about Americans:
In 2022, the Federal government spent $2.7 billion for unaccompanied illegal child immigrants.
This comes out to an amazing $18,000 per unaccompanied illegal immigrant child.
For comparison, the state of Texas, where a majority of these unaccompanied children illegally enter the country, spends about $9,800 for the education for each Texan student.
Thus, an illegal immigrant kid in Texas soaks up almost twice as much taxpayer wealth than what is spent on a Texas school child.
And despite spending so much money on these kids, recent government reports indicate that over the years the Federal government has lost track of a whopping 85,000 kids that have illegally entered the country, their locations and welfare unknown.
The Open The Books organization has estimated that $12.8 billion have been spent to handle these kids since 2012.
We are certainly not saying that these kids should not be taken care of once they have illegally entered the country, not to do so would be inhuman. But Biden’s failed border policies, and the failed border policies of previous administrations, continue to bleed the American taxpayer dry of taxpayer wealth that could have been used for our own kids.
5)Although we have talked about the ineptness of the Pentagon’s budgeting system for a while, a system that is so broken that professional auditors find it impossible to track Pentagon spending. Apparently things have not gotten any better since according to a report by the Government Accountability Office:
The Pentagon somehow lost track of over 1,000,000 F35 fighter jets’ spare parts.
The value of these missing 1,000,000 parts: $85,000,000.
The overall cost of the F35 jets is an unbelievable $1,700,000,000,000.
The GAO stated that “without DOD taking measures to ensure these spare parts are held accountable under a contractual agreement, the F-35 Joint Program Office would not be able to gain or maintain accountability for these spare parts, nor will it have the data needed to report financial information or protect government interests, such as the location, cost, and quantity of these parts.”
The numbers do not lie: the American political class and the government bureaucracies that they are supposed to oversee and manage continue to be totally inept in protecting taxpayer wealth: from COVID fraud to prioritizing illegal immigrant needs over the needs of Americans to wasting time, money, and energy to coming up with 97 different genders while a city dies, the priorities and wastefulness of of American politicians continue to be pathetic. The numbers do not lie.
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