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cleanhoods

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  9. Posted · Report reply

    FedEx

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    This logo appears to be very simple, but if you look at the white space between the "E" and "x" in “Ex," you'll find it is more complex than you thought. Can you spot the arrow?

    Tostitos

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    These popular party chips are a staple at many backyard BBQs, but chances are, you've never noticed the hidden celebration scene concealed within the letters. The second and third "t’s" are sharing a chip over an "i" that is dotted with a salsa bowl. Yum!

    Do Subliminal Messages Really Work?

    Le Tour de France

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    Named the world's most famous and prestigious cycling race, bike-lovers and non-cyclists alike are familiar with the event's emblem. However, you might be missing out on the logo's most interesting aspect. After careful examination, you'll notice an image of a person riding a bicycle; the yellow circle is the front wheel and the r is the body.

    Amazon.com

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    Amazon.com has become a go-to source for electronic commerce. Clearly there is an arrow under Amazon, but have you ever thought about its significance? Take a look at where the arrow begins and ends: a and z. This secret message seems to conveys that Amazon offers everything from A to Z!

    Hershey's Kisses

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    The Kisses logo doesn’t have much to it, but if you look at it sideways, you might see a chocolate kiss formed between the K and the I.

    Toblerone

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    There’s a slightly obscured bear within the Matterhorn Mountain if you look closely. That’s because the candy bar hails from Bern, Switzerland, a city supposedly named for a bear.

    The Funniest News Bloopers

    Big Ten

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    Penn State became the 11th member of this university athletic conference, hence the embedded “11” in this logo. That is, until the University of Nebraska–Lincoln became number 12, ushering in a new logo era.

    This Year's Wackiest College Courses

    Northwest Airlines

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    Before merging with Delta, Northwest’s logo was one of the best in the industry. The N and W within the circle are fairly obvious, but did you know the circle also serves as a compass? And guess which direction the arrow in the upper-left-hand corner (or the beginning of the w) is pointing?

  10. Posted · Report reply

    I was so amazed by the hidden images in these logos i had to show so enjoy...if you have any to share post em.

    You’ve seen these famous logos countless times on billboards, passing by on trucks, and at the grocery store, but there is more to them than meets the eye. If you take a closer look, you will find that these recognized logos have hidden images and messages. Check out these inventive designs that cleverly use white space and optical illusions to display subliminal messages.

  14. Posted · Report reply

    columnistyork.gif Byron York

    Obama Partisans Ignore Facts When Bashing Bush

    Not a day, maybe not an hour, goes by without someone in Washington denouncing irresponsible spending and unfair tax cuts by George W. Bush and the Republican Party. To take just one example: Recently, a Florida Democratic representative, Corrine Brown, explained her vote against the debt ceiling agreement by citing "eight years of horribly reckless spending and excessive tax cuts for the rich under President Bush and the Republican Congress."

    Some critics have trouble with even the most basic facts. George W. Bush was indeed president for eight years. But do Brown and her colleagues remember that Congress was fully controlled by Republicans just four of those eight years? The GOP ran the House from 2001 to 2007, Bush's first six years in office, while Republicans only controlled the Senate from 2003 to 2007. (In Bush's first three months, the Senate was divided 50-50 until the May 2001 defection of Republican Sen. James Jeffords gave Democrats control.)

    As far as tax cuts are concerned, Bush did indeed cut taxes for the wealthy -- along with everybody else who paid income taxes. But does Brown remember that tax revenues actually increased in the years after the Bush tax cuts took effect?

    Revenues fell in Bush's first two years because of a combination of the tech bust and the start of the tax cuts. But then things took off. After taking in $1.782 trillion in tax revenues in 2003, the government collected $1.88 trillion in 2004; $2.153 trillion in 2005; $2.406 trillion in 2006; and $2.567 trillion in 2007, according to figures compiled by the Office of Management and Budget. That's a 44 percent increase from 2003 to 2007. (Revenues slid downward a bit in 2008, and a lot in 2009, when the financial crisis sent the economy into a tailspin.) "Everybody talks about how much the Bush tax cuts 'cost,'" says one GOP strategist. "We're saying, no, they led to a huge increase in revenue."

    And deficits shrank. After beginning with a Clinton-era surplus in 2001, the Bush administration ran up deficits of $158 billion in 2002; $378 billion in 2003; and $413 billion in 2004. Then, with revenues pouring in, the deficits began to fall: $318 billion in 2005; $248 billion in 2006; and $161 billion in 2007. That 2007 deficit, with the tax cuts in effect, was one-tenth of today's $1.6 trillion deficit.

    Deficits went up in 2008 with the beginning of the economic downturn -- and, not coincidentally, with the first full year of a Democratic House and Senate.

    Finally, there's the national debt. When Bush took office in January 2001, the debt was about $5.7 trillion, according to Treasury Department figures. When Bush was sworn in for his second term in January 2005, the debt stood at about $7.6 trillion. When Bush left office in January 2009, the debt was $10.6 trillion. He had increased the national debt almost $2 trillion in his first term and $3 trillion in his second, for a total increase of nearly $5 trillion over both terms. (Of that $3 trillion increase in Bush's second term, $2 trillion came under a Democratic Congress.)

    The debt stood at $10.6 trillion when Barack Obama took office in January 2009. Now, it's about $14.4 trillion. The president has increased the national debt nearly $4 trillion in his first two and a half years in office. By the time Obama finishes his first term, he will have increased the national debt by somewhere in the $5 trillion-to-$6 trillion range -- more than Bush did in two terms.

    None of this is to say that George W. Bush had a good record on spending. He didn't, and he's fair game for criticism. But is it honest to condemn reckless spending in "eight years of Republican rule" when Democrats controlled the Senate for four of those years and the House for two? Is it honest to talk about the "cost" of the Bush tax cuts when federal revenues increased significantly while they were in effect? And is it honest to refer to Bush's ballooning deficits when deficits actually trended down for much of his presidency -- at least before Democrats won control of Congress?

    Of course Obama partisans would like to pin the president's troubles on Bush. But they should get their facts straight first.

  15. Posted · Report reply

    Yes, Bush passed the Health Care law that forbids us negotiating for drug rates based on volume. The US pays the same piece rate for one pill as 1 billion pills.

    It is the Medicare | Medicaid program that is one of the top reasons for the crisis. Another is Defense spending coupled with our purposeful failure to secure our own borders (and Defense!!!). Still another is the failed war on drugs that creates Al Capones out of thin air. Lastly, we have over thirty years of solid effort to completely destroy American manufacturing.

    The notions of free trade benefits put forth are juvenile and do not take into account nation states, politics, and lack of parity.

    A million year or there is nothing. We are talking trillions and trillions of dollars of waste and a seeming purposeful destruction of American sovereignty.

    Well said Doug !!

  16. Posted · Report reply

    Government Waste: 20 Of The Craziest Things That The U.S. Government Is Spending Money On

    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 being spent to study World of Warcraft, to study how Americans find love on the Internet, and to study the behavior of male prostitutes in Vietnam. Not only that, but money from the federal government is also being used to renovate a pizzeria in Iowa and to help a library in Tennessee host video game parties. These are just some of the examples in a new report on government waste from Senator Tom Coburn entitled "Wastebook 2010". Even as tens of millions of American families find themselves suffering through the worst economic downturn in modern history, the U.S. government continues to spend money on some of the craziest and most frivolous things imaginable. Every single year articles are written and news stories are done about the horrific government waste that is taking place and yet every single year it just keeps getting worse. So just what in the world is going on here? It almost seems as though Congress actually enjoys inventing new ways to waste U.S. taxpayer money. It seems nearly inconceivable that anyone could keep a straight face while trying to justify spending money on many of the things in the list below.

    At a time when the U.S. national debt is closing in on 14 trillion dollars, government waste just seems more out of control than ever. The following are 20 of the craziest things that the U.S. government is spending money on....

    #1 A total of $3 million has been granted to researchers at the University of California at Irvine so that they can play video games such as World of Warcraft. The goal of this "video game research" is reportedly to study how "emerging forms of communication, including multiplayer computer games and online virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft and Second Life can help organizations collaborate and compete more effectively in the global marketplace."

    #2 The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave the University of New Hampshire $700,000 this year to study methane gas emissions from dairy cows.

    #3 $615,000 was given to the University of California at Santa Cruz to digitize photos, T-shirts and concert tickets belonging to the Grateful Dead.

    #4 A professor at Stanford University received $239,100 to study how Americans use the Internet to find love. So far one of the key findings of this "research" is that the Internet is a safer and more discreet way to find same-*** partners.

    #5 The National Science Foundation spent $216,000 to study whether or not politicians "gain or lose support by taking ambiguous positions."

    #6 The National Institutes of Health spent approximately $442,340 to study the behavior of male prostitutes in Vietnam.

    #7 Approximately $1 million of U.S. taxpayer money was used to create poetry for the Little Rock, New Orleans, Milwaukee and Chicago zoos. The goal of the "poetry" is to help raise awareness on environmental issues.

    #8 The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs spent $175 million during 2010 to maintain hundreds of buildings that it does not even use. This includes a pink, octagonal monkey house in the city of Dayton, Ohio.

    #9 $1.8 million of U.S. taxpayer dollars went for a "museum of neon signs" in Las Vegas, Nevada.

    #10 $35 million was reportedly paid out by Medicare to 118 "phantom" medical clinics that never even existed. Apparently these "phantom" medical clinics were established by a network of criminal gangs as a way to defraud the U.S. government.

    #11 The Conservation Commission of Monkton, Vermont got $150,000 from the federal government to construct a "critter crossing". Thanks to U.S. government money, the lives of "thousands" of migrating salamanders are now being saved.

    #12 In California, one park received $440,000 in federal funds to perform "green energy upgrades" on a building that has not been used for a decade.

    #13 $440,955 was spent this past year on an office for former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert that he rarely even visits.

    #14 One Tennessee library was given $5,000 in federal funds to host a series of video game parties.

    #15 The U.S. Census Bureau spent $2.5 million on a television commercial during the Super Bowl that was so poorly produced that virtually nobody understood what is was trying to say.

    #16 A professor at Dartmouth University received $137,530 to create a "recession-themed" video game entitled "Layoff".

    #17 The National Science Foundation gave the Minnesota Zoo over $600,000 so that they could develop an online video game called "Wolfquest".

    #18 A pizzeria in Iowa was given $60,000 to renovate the pizzeria's facade and give it a more "inviting feel".

    #19 The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave one enterprising group of farmers $30,000 to develop a tourist-friendly database of farms that host guests for overnight "haycations". This one sounds like something that Dwight Schrute would have dreamed up.

    #20 Almost unbelievably, the National Institutes of Health was given $800,000 in "stimulus funds" to study the impact of a "genital-washing program" on men in South Africa.

    In light of all this, is it any wonder why the approval rating of Congress recently hit another new record low?

    According to the most recent Gallup poll, only 13 percent of Americans approve of the job that Congress is doing.

    Just think about that - only 13 percent!

    Our politicians seem very confused about why there is so much anger in the country today. Well, there are certainly a lot of reasons for it, including the fact that the U.S. economy is on the verge of collapse, but it certainly doesn't help that our government is basically flushing our tax dollars down the toilet and spending them on some of the most wasteful things imaginable.

    It would be bad enough if the federal government was swimming in money, but the truth is that all of this waste is being committed at a time when the U.S. government is nearing bankruptcy.

    Over the last 30 years, the U.S. national debt has gotten 13 times larger. We have accumulated the largest debt in the history of the world and there is no end in sight.

    In fact, we are rapidly running out of people to borrow money from. According to the Wall Street Journal, in order to repay maturing bonds and finance the exploding budget deficit, the U.S. government will have to borrow 4.2 trillion dollars in 2011.

    Eventually the rest of the world is going to lose confidence in the ability of the U.S. government to repay all of this debt. Once confidence in U.S. Treasuries is totally gone, and there are already signs this is starting to happen, the game will be over and the U.S. financial system will collapse.

    But the U.S. Congress just continues to act like it is "business as usual" and the wasteful spending just continues to get worse. Someday historians will look back and think that we must have been a nation full of idiots and morons.

    For decades our politicians have been spending us into oblivion, yet we keep sending the vast majority of them back to Washington D.C. every time an election rolls around and the mainstream media keeps assuring us that our "respected leaders" know exactly what they are doing and that everything is going to be okay somehow.

    It is almost as if some sort of collective insanity has overtaken most Americans. The path we are on inevitably leads to national bankruptcy and the destruction of our financial system, but only a small percentage of the population seems to care.

    Well, in the end we will reap what we have sown. Unfortunately, the economic pain that is coming is going to be devastating for all of us - including those of us who are awake and are trying desperately to change things.

  17. Posted · Report reply

    Top 10 Examples of Government Waste

    By Brian Riedl

    President George W. Bush has proposed terminating or strongly reducing the budgets of over 150 inefficient or ineffective programs. This is a step in the right direction to pare back the runaway spending that has pushed the budget deficit over $400 billion. In less than three years, the first baby boomers will begin to collect Social Security: Lawmakers must therefore begin to reduce spending now to make room for the massive Social Security and Medicare costs that will follow.

    The first place to trim runaway federal spending is in waste, fraud, and abuse. Congress, however, has largely abandoned its constitutional duty of overseeing the executive branch and has steadfastly refused to address the waste littered across government programs. In 2003, an attempt by House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle (R-IA) to address wasteful spending was rejected by the House of Representatives, and similar calls in 2004 by then-Senate Budget Committee Chairman Don Nickles (R-OK) were rejected by the Senate. A small group of House lawmakers has formed the Washington Waste Watchers, but their agenda has not been embraced by the whole House.

    Lack of information is not the problem. Today, government waste investigations and recommendations can be found in hundreds of reports, such as:

    • Studies published by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO),[1]
    • The Congressional Budget Office's Budget Options book,
    • Inspector general reports of each agency,
    • Government Performance and Results Act reports of each agency,
    • The White House's Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) program reviews, and
    • The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee's 2001 Government at the Brink reports.

    For those seeking past recommendations that went unheeded, the 1984 Grace Commission report on government waste and the 1993-1995 publications of Vice President Al Gore's National Performance Review can still be found.

    With all of this available information and in an era of tight budgets, why are lawmakers so resistant to reducing waste? One reason is that they see it as a thankless job that would go unnoticed back home. With Congress in session just 80 days annually, reducing waste would take precious time away from most lawmakers' higher priorities of increasing spending on popular programs and bringing pork-barrel projects home.

    A second reason is that some of the most wasteful programs are also the most popular (e.g., Medicare), and lawmakers fear that opponents would portray them as "attacking" popular programs. Consequently, waste and inefficiencies continue to build up, costing taxpayers more while providing beneficiaries with less.

    A real war on government waste could easily save over $100 billion annually without harming the legitimate operations and benefits of government programs. As a first step, lawmakers should address the 10 following examples of egregious waste.

    1. The Missing $25 Billion

    Buried in the Department of the Treasury's 2003 Financial Report of the United States Government is a short section titled "Unreconciled Transactions Affecting the Change in Net Position," which explains that these unreconciled transactions totaled $24.5 billion in 2003.[2]

    The unreconciled transactions are funds for which auditors cannot account: The government knows that $25 billion was spent by someone, somewhere, on something, but auditors do not know who spent it, where it was spent, or on what it was spent. Blaming these unreconciled transactions on the failure of federal agencies to report their expenditures adequately, the Treasury report concludes that locating the money is "a priority."

    The unreconciled $25 billion could have funded the entire Department of Justice for an entire year.

    2. Unused Flight Tickets Totaling $100 Million

    A recent audit revealed that between 1997 and 2003, the Defense Department purchased and then left unused approximately 270,000 commercial airline tickets at a total cost of $100 million. Even worse, the Pentagon never bothered to get a refund for these fully refundable tickets. The GAO blamed a system that relied on department personnel to notify the travel office when purchased tickets went unused.[3]

    Auditors also found 27,000 transactions between 2001 and 2002 in which the Pentagon paid twice for the same ticket. The department would purchase the ticket directly and then inexplicably reimburse the employee for the cost of the ticket. (In one case, an employee who allegedly made seven false claims for airline tickets professed not to have noticed that $9,700 was deposited into his/her account). These additional transactions cost taxpayers $8 million.

    This $108 million could have purchased seven Blackhawk helicopters, 17 M1 Abrams tanks, or a large supply of additional body armor for U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

    3. Embezzled Funds at the Department of Agriculture

    Federal employee credit card programs were designed to save money. Rather than weaving through a lengthy procurement process to acquire basic supplies, federal employees could purchase job-related products with credit cards that would be paid by their agency. What began as a smart way to streamline government has since been corrupted by some federal employees who have abused the public trust.

    A recent audit revealed that employees of the Department of Agriculture (USDA) diverted millions of dollars to personal purchases through their government-issued credit cards. Sampling 300 employees' purchases over six months, investigators estimated that 15 percent abused their government credit cards at a cost of $5.8 million. Taxpayer-funded purchases included Ozzy Osbourne concert tickets, tattoos, lingerie, bartender school tuition, car payments, and cash advances.

    The USDA has pledged a thorough investigation, but it will have a huge task: 55,000 USDA credit cards are in circulation, including 1,549 that are still held by people who no longer work at the USDA.[4]

    4. Credit Card Abuse at the Department of Defense

    The Defense Department has uncovered its own credit card scandal. Over one recent 18-month period, Air Force and Navy personnel used government-funded credit cards to charge at least $102,400 for admission to entertainment events, $48,250 for gambling, $69,300 for cruises, and $73,950 for exotic dance clubs and prostitutes.[5]

    5. Medicare Overspending

    Medicare wastes more money than any other federal program, yet its strong public support leaves lawmakers hesitant to address program efficiencies, which cost taxpayers and Medicare recipients billions of dollars annually.

    For example, Medicare pays as much as eight times what other federal agencies pay for the same drugs and medical supplies.[6] The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently compared the prices paid by Medicare and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care program for 16 types of medical equipment and supplies, which account for one-quarter of Medicare's equipment and supplies purchases. The evidence showed that Medicare paid an average of more than double what the VA paid for the same items. The largest difference was for saline solution, with Medicare paying $8.26 per liter compared to the $1.02 paid by the VA.[7] (See Table 1.)

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    These higher prices not only cost the program more money, but also take more money out of the pockets of Medicare beneficiaries. In 2002, senior citizens' co-payments accounted for 20 percent of the $9.4 billion in allowed claims for medical equipment and supplies.[8] Higher prices mean higher co-payments.

    Medicare also overpays for drugs. In 2000, Medicare's payments for 24 leading drugs were $1.9 billion higher than they would have been under the prices paid by the VA or other federal agencies. Although Medicare is supposed to pay wholesale prices for drugs, it relies on drug manufacturers to define the prices, and manufacturers have strong incentives to inflate their prices.[9]

    Nor are inflated prices for drugs and supplies the most expensive examples of Medicare's inefficiencies. Basic payment errors-the results of deliberate fraud and administrative errors-cost $12.3 billion annually. As much as $7 billion owed to the program has gone uncollected or has been written off.[10] Finally, while Medicare contracts claims processing and administration to several private companies, 19 cases of contractor fraud have been settled in recent years, with a maximum settlement of $76 million.[11]

    Putting it all together, Medicare reform could save taxpayers and program beneficiaries $20 billion to $30 billion annually without reducing benefits. That would be enough to fund a $3,000 refundable health care tax credit for nearly 10 million uninsured low-income households.

    6. Funding Fictitious Colleges and Students

    In 2002, the Department of Education received an application to certify the student loan participation of the Y'Hica Institute in London, England. After approving the certification, the department received and approved student loan applications from three Y'Hica students and disbursed $55,000.

    The education Department administrators overlooked one problem: Neither the Y'Hica Institute nor the three students who received the $55,000 existed. The fictitious college and students were created (on paper) by congressional investigators to test the Department of Education's verification procedures. All of the documents were faked, right down to naming one of the fictional loan student applicants "Susan M. Collins," after the Senator requesting the investigation.[12]

    Such carelessness helps to explain why federal student loan programs routinely receive poor management reviews from government auditors. At last count, $21.8 billion worth of student loans are in default, and too many cases of fraud are left undetected.[13] Tracking students across federal programs, verifying loan application data with IRS income data, and implementing controls to prevent the disbursement of loans to fraudulent applicants could save taxpayers billions of dollars.

    7. Manipulating Data to Encourage Spending

    The Army Corps of Engineers spends $5 billion annually constructing dams and other water projects. Yet, in a massive conflict of interest, it is also charged with evaluating the science and economics of each proposed water project. The Corps' "strategic vision" calls on managers to increase their budgets as rapidly as possible, which requires approving as many proposed projects as possible.[14] Consequently, the Corps has repeatedly been accused of deliberately manipulating its economic studies to justify unworthy projects.

    Investigations by the GAO, The Washington Post, and several private organizations have found that Corps studies routinely contain dozens of basic arithmetic errors, computer errors, and ridiculous economic assumptions that artificially inflate the benefits of water projects by as much as 300 percent.[15] In one case, a study's authors inflated a project's benefits by using a 2.5 percent interest rate that dated back to 1954. In many cases in which the Corps calculated that a project would be a net benefit, arithmetic corrections revealed that the costs would be many times greater than the benefits.[16] By that point, of course, the unnecessary and wasteful project is often underway and cannot be stopped.

    These errors appear to reflect more deception than sloppiness. A Washington Post investigation uncovered managers ordering analysts to "get creative," to "look for ways to get to yes as fast as possible," and "not to take no for an answer." After a public outcry, in 2002, the Corps suspended work on 150 projects to review the economics used to justify them.[17] However, given the combination of Congress's thirst for pork-barrel projects and the Corps' built-in incentives to approve projects that will increase its budget, real reforms seem unlikely.

    8. State Abuse of Medicaid Funding Formulas

    Significant waste, fraud, and abuse pervade Medicaid, which provides health services to 44 million low-income Americans. While states run their own Medicaid programs, the federal government reimburses an average of 57 percent of each state's costs.

    This system gives states an incentive to overreport their Medicaid expenditures in order to receive larger federal reimbursements. Not surprisingly, the GAO has identified state schemes that shift money between state accounts to create an illusion of higher Medicaid expenditures. Similarly, some states have spent their federal Medicaid dollars on non-Medicaid purposes. Tight state budgets like those experienced by most states today have increased the pressure to use such deceptive tactics.

    The GAO and the HHS Inspector General have also uncovered some states' practice of recovering improper payments, retaining the funds, and then spending them on unrelated programs-a practice that costs the federal government well over $2 billion per year. Congress could enact legislation to prohibit these actions more effectively.

    Minor reforms enacted by HHS in 2001 and 2002 are expected to save Medicaid $70 billion over the next decade. A small sample of financing schemes uncovered in a few states suggests that, if Congress acts, even larger savings are available.[18]

    9. Earned Income Tax Credit Overpayments

    The earned income tax credit (EITC) provides $31 billion in refundable tax credits to 19 million low-income families. The IRS estimates that $8.5 billion to $9.9 billion of this amount-nearly one-third-is wasted in overpayments.

    The complexity of the EITC law leads to many of these mistakes. Calculating the credits is more complex than calculating regular income taxes. While the credit amount depends on the number of children in a household, the tax code does not clearly define how a child qualifies for the credit. In addition, fraud and underreporting of income are common, and the IRS lacks the resources to verify the qualifications of all EITC claimants.

    Efforts are being made to address this problem, but Congress can do more by requiring better verification of incomes and by clearly defining the standards by which a child qualifies for the EITC.[19]

    10. Redundancy Piled on Redundancy

    Government's layering of new programs on top of old ones inherently creates duplication. Having several agencies perform similar duties is wasteful and confuses program beneficiaries who must navigate each program's distinct rules and requirements.

    Some overlap is inevitable because some agencies are defined by whom they serve (e.g., veterans, Native Americans, urbanites, and rural families), while others are defined by what they provide (e.g., housing, education, health care, and economic development). When these agencies' constituencies overlap, each relevant agency will often have its own program. With 342 separate economic development programs, the federal government needs to make consolidation a priority.

    Consolidating duplicative programs will save money and improve government service. In addition to those programs that should be eliminated completely, Congress should consolidate the following sets of programs:

    • 342 economic development programs;
    • 130 programs serving the disabled;
    • 130 programs serving at-risk youth;
    • 90 early childhood development programs;
    • 75 programs funding international education, cultural, and training exchange activities;
    • 72 federal programs dedicated to assuring safe water;
    • 50 homeless assistance programs;
    • 45 federal agencies conducting federal criminal investigations;
    • 40 separate employment and training programs;
    • 28 rural development programs;
    • 27 teen pregnancy programs;
    • 26 small, extraneous K-12 school grant programs;
    • 23 agencies providing aid to the former Soviet republics;
    • 19 programs fighting substance abuse;
    • 17 rural water and waste-water programs in eight agencies;
    • 17 trade agencies monitoring 400 international trade agreements;
    • 12 food safety agencies;
    • 11 principal statistics agencies; and
    • Four overlapping land management agencies.[20]

    Conclusion

    Lawmakers have an opportunity to take a strong stand for efficient government and spending restraint. Reforming wasteful programs will build essential momentum for the larger reforms that are needed to bring the budget under control.

    .

  18. Posted · Edited by cleanhoods · Report reply

    If your boss really wants you to do powerwashing work for him, have him send you to a power washer school and learn first.

    I assume usmc you are a marine you wouldnt expect a normal citizen like me do what you can do without training and machine wise you as a marine wouldnt go to combat in a ford escort and a sling shot for a weapon..yes it will work but not like a hummer and a m16 right?

    Go to a school have boss pay for it and then get a good machine that will last,rebuild,and perform and do the job like your boss would like.

    Just advice.

  19. Posted · Report reply

    Allen West Reacts to Democrats Blaming Tea Party for U.S. Credit Downgrade

    by Fox and Friends Posted in: Allen West, Credit Downgrade, John Kerry, S&P, Standard & Poor's, Tea Party, Tim Geithner

    Some are pointing fingers at the Tea Party for the U.S. downgrade, saying their refusal to allow higher taxes kept Congress from reaching an even larger debt agreement. Even Massachusetts Senator John Kerry (D) had some harsh things to say on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press.’

    After listening to those comments, Florida Congressman Allen West ® says, “I find those comments to be the absolute most insidious thing I’ve ever heard. I think what you continue to see from the Left is them looking for someone to blame. It’s very simple. When we go back to 2007 when the Democrats took over the House and the Senate, the debt at that time was $8.6 trillion. Today, we see the debt at $14.5 trillion. They have to look at themselves and tell themselves they are the ones totally to blame.”

    In discussing Tim Geithner’s decision to stick around until President Obama’s reelection, West drew an unlikely comparison. “When you open that refrigerator, the lights don’t come on. So, I really think that he should move on and we should have someone else.”

    West closes the interview by saying that due to the climate in the country, he thinks he and fellow politicians “need to be back in Washington, D.C.”

    Washington, D.C.”

    Watch video on..... Allen West Reacts to Democrats Blaming Tea Party for U.S. Credit Downgrade « Fox News Insider

  20. Posted · Report reply

    Obama won’t escape blame for credit downgrade

    byPhilip Klein

    Standard and Poor’s explanation for why it downgraded U.S. debt is written in such a way that it can be seized upon by all ideological stripes. The statement cites the unwillingness of Republicans to raise taxes and of Democrats to agree to entitlement cuts. And the rating agency’s discourse about the political dysfunction will provide column fodder for Washington pundits who long for the days when both parties would work together to reach compromises. But make no mistake, when all the dust settles, it will be difficult for President Obama to escape blame for this.

    Defenders of Obama will attempt to pin the blame on his predecessor, President Bush, and on intransigent Tea Party radicals in the current Congress. But that would leave out the part in between. For his first two years in office, Obama’s party controlled both chambers of Congress – for part of that period, he had a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. During that time period, he and his fellow Democrats could have passed his supposedly ideal, long-term, deficit-reduction package -- one that represented a “balanced approach” between spending cuts and tax increases. It also could have delayed the deficit reduction for several years, so it wouldn’t have affected the current weak economy or the “investments” he considers crucial. Forget about actually accomplishing serious deficit reduction -- he didn’t even attempt it.

    When Obama came into office, he argued that we needed deficit spending to boost the economy, so he passed a $800 billion stimulus package. Then, in one of his first supposed pivots to the deficit, he convened a ‘fiscal responsibility summit’ in February 2009. But that actually turned out to be part of a different pivot altogether. It was during that summit that then White House Budget Director Peter Orszag declared, “health care reform is entitlement reform.”

    And so, for the next 13 months, Obama spent all of his energies trying to get health care legislation across the finish line. The end product was a plan that, according to both the Congressional Budget Office and actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, did not bend the health care cost curve down. Let’s even set aside the argument over the accounting gimmicks that were employed to obtain a CBO score that showed modest deficit reduction. The reality is this: the law used money raised through tax hikes and Medicare cuts that otherwise would have been available for deficit reduction, to instead expand Medicaid by 18 million beneficiaries and create a massive new health care entitlement.

    Of course, there’s more. After health care passed last March, Obama punted on the debt for the rest of the year as he awaited a report from his fiscal commission. He then ignored its recommendations and released a budget so ludicrous that within two months, it failed 0 to 97 in the Senate and he himself rejected it. He instead delivered a speech about his deficit reduction vision, which didn’t have enough details for the CBO to score. And then he spent the last few months arguing that he was prepared to offer Republicans a “grand bargain,” but to this day he hasn’t released details of this supposedly awesome deal that Republicans refused, beyond calculated leaks to favored reporters.

    But there’s another reason why Obama won’t escape blame for this. Obama was elected president at a time when Americans felt the nation was in decline, and his central job was restore their faith that our best days were ahead of us, as President Reagan did after the Carter era. Whether you think he was dealt a poor hand or not, the bottom line is that the sense of decline has only deepened during the Obama presidency, and the first-ever downgrade of U.S. credit, whatever its ultimate financial implications, is yet another symbol of that decline.

  21. Posted · Report reply

    What’s Wrong with Making Future Generations Pay for our Debt?

    Unless they get so angry at us that they send terminators from the future to kill us.

    Wow, that whole debt-ceiling debate was scary. For a while there, it looked like a few radical extremists were going to keep the country from going further into debt. And then where would we be? Without all the free stuff we like, because some people are stuck on the primitive notion that a budget should balance? I think you can say without hyperbole that people who think like that are literally terrorists, except a million times worse.

    What makes people think the government should spend less money than it brings in? Probably racism. Also, a lust for violence. Because there is no logical reason for the government to spend less. None.

    I do know one reason people keep bringing up as to why we should spend less: Because otherwise we leave the debt for future generations. But no one ever explains why that’s a problem.

    Let’s look at this logically. There are three groups who could possibly pay our debt: People of the present, people of the past, and people of the future. Basically, the extremists are arguing that people of the present should pay for the debt, but that’s obviously insane. For one thing, the national debt is currently over 14 trillion dollars, and we don’t have that kind of money. If we were to even think of paying it down, we’d have to cut spending, when right now we need to be spending even more. That first trillion of stimulus money didn’t turn the economy around, so we clearly need to spend another trillion. And probably another trillion after that. Because that will create jobs by… well, I’m not sure how jobs are created. Ask Paul Krugman; he’ll explain it to you.

    Anyway, the point is that it’s quite apparent that people of the present — us — just can’t pay down the debt. So let’s move on.

    The other possibility is to have people of the past pay it down, but we can’t make them do it without a time machine. And even if we had a time machine and could go back and steal all their gold, that’s the exact sort of thing that would get you kicked in the face by Jean-Claude Van Damme. So let’s just give up on that idea.

    That leaves only one possible group to pay down the debt: People of the future. We can leave the debt for them to pay without the use of time machines and without angering any time cops, so it’s perfect. The only objection I ever hear to it is that we should feel bad for leaving all this debt to our children and our children’s children. This is also stupid reasoning. Why, you ask?

    Because future generations are a bunch of jerks.

    Come on; we all know what future generations are like. They’re going to look back at us and say, “Oh, look at those people from 2011 with their backwards morals and primitive scientific knowledge! What a bunch of cavemen!” Yeah, that’s right; they’re going to make fun of us. And while they’re making fun of us, they’ll be playing around with their laser guns and jet packs and robot maids — all of which they’ll completely take for granted. Future generations are a bunch of arrogant, over-privileged punks! I hate them. And I don’t see any reason to feel bad for leaving such awful people tons of debt. Maybe that will wipe those smug smiles off their genetically altered faces.

    So there’s really no downside to leaving debt to those horrible jerks in the future. None.

    …Unless they get so angry at us that they send terminators from the future to kill us. That’s definitely a possibility, but if they try that, we can easily fight back. For instance, we could bury a bunch of time capsules that are not to be opened for fifty years. Then when future generations open them — BOOM!

    Yes, some might label this “terrorism,” but the true terrorism is the notion that we should be paying this debt now, and we’re not going to stand for it. We need to send the message to future generations that he who controls the present controls the future, and that means we can easily hurt them — much more easily than they can get to us. And if those arrogant scumbags think that we’re going to pay for that debt here in the present, well, we have a few violent messages for them. They should just be happy that debt is the only thing we’re leaving for them, because it could be a lot worse.

    So, to any future generations reading this in the internet archives on your holographic screens — or perhaps downloading it directly to your brains — I have this to tell you: It would be nothing for us to destroy everything you hold dear. Why, we can just nuke this whole world now, and that’s the end of you. And you can’t stop us. So that’s why you’re going to pay all of our debt and like it.

    Or you can just leave the debt to your children as well. I don’t see any problem with that. Frankly, I think we should all just keep passing it on until society collapses under it and the apes takeover. Then they can pay down the debt. Big hairy jerks.

    Frank J. Fleming writes political humor at IMAO.us and has restraining order requiring him to stay one hundred years away from the future.

  22. Posted · Report reply

    China Tells U.S. 'Good Old Days'

    of Borrowing Are Over

    Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's on Friday downgraded the credit rating of the United States, stripping the world's largest economy of its prized AAA status.This has caused China to lash out. The US government received a good scolding from its largest foreign creditor. Although Beijing officials have so far been publicly mute about the blow to Washington after Standard and Poor's stripped the United States of its cherished top-tier AAA credit rating, the People's Daily, the main newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party, gave a bleak assessment of the potential consequences for China and other emerging economies.

    "The lowering of the United States' long-term sovereign credit rating has sounded a warning bell for the international currency system dominated by the U.S. dollar," said economist Sun Lijian, writing in the paper.

  23. Posted · Report reply

    Rod you are correct the problem is the house, for example chess. everyone knows chess, see the president is like the king in chess very important but useless without the rest. Republican or democrat both parties are responsible for our mess, presidents come and go but the congress and senate are the ones there president after president and are the bosses of the USA and the cause of this mess we are all in.

  24. Posted · Report reply

    Remember when liberals claimed Barack Obama was “probably the smartest guy ever to become president” and was “a sort of god”? Today they say “we are watching him turn into Jimmy Carter right before our eyes,” and the center point of his presidency is “a disaster.” So what changed exactly?

    Is President Obama really a different man today than he was before he entered the Oval Office? The same Illinois legislator who voted “present” 129 times is now the debt-crisis-AWOL president who refused to present a specific plan of his own. The same presidential candidate who wanted to “spread the wealth” has unleashed redistributionist, collectivist policies on everything from health care and energy supply to runaway Keynesian spending and ever-increasing taxes. Should we be surprised?

    The president may still win re-election in 2012, of course, but in recent weeks, his approval rating has crumbled, particularly among liberals, to an all-time low of 40 percent in a recent Gallup poll. Another poll shows that even among liberal Democrats, strong support for Mr. Obama’s record on jobs has plummeted 22 points, to a paltry 31 percent. The hope and change of 2008 have given way to the joblessness and foreclosures of Obamanomics.

    The only thing worse than the abject failure of a liberal president, at least in the eyes of the liberal, is the undeniable failure of liberalism itself. To claim Mr. Obama has been a good president no longer even remotely passes the laugh test. Consider the results thus far of the Obama presidency:

    • Two million-private sector jobs have been lost.
    • Unemployment jumped from 7.8 to 9.2 percent with a simply terrible 2011 first-quarter economic growth rate of just 0.4 percent.
    • A record 1 in 7 Americans is on food stamps.
    • Gasoline prices more than doubled, from $1.83 to $3.74 per gallon.
    • National debt increased 35 percent, to $14.5 trillion, or $137,000 for each taxpayer.
    • National unfunded liabilities increased 47 percent, to $114.9 trillion, or a cool $1 million for each taxpayer (and this does not yet include Obamacare).
    • America is on the verge of losing its AAA credit rating.

    What’s worse, and was as easily predictable, is the systematic dishonesty Team Obama unleashed to persuade Americans to tolerate its big-government, collectivist agenda. America is, after all, a center-right nation with nearly 3-to-1 self-described conservatives compared to liberals. How else besides trickery could Mr. Obama further an agenda so unpopular with voters? Witness the dishonesty:

    • The stimulus would keep unemployment below 8 percent.
    • Stimulus funds would go to “shovel-ready” jobs.
    • Obamacare would create 4 million new jobs - 400,000 almost immediately.
    • You could keep your own doctor.
    • The president’s mother was denied health insurance.
    • Obamanomics would mean a “net spending cut.”

    So, as the liberal presidency of Mr. Obama becomes increasingly indefensible, the liberal is faced with an unthinkable dilemma: acknowledge the fundamental failure of his collectivist liberal philosophy, which tends toward socialism, or blame its failures on a single man whom, until just recently, the liberal deified.

    The conflict between liberal collectivist ideology and its application was easily predictable by anyone who has studied big-government economic failures throughout history, from the collectivist all-stars including Mao’s China, Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Soviet Union to today’s honorable mentions such as Castro’s Cuba or Chavez’s Venezuela. Enforcement of collectivism has always depended on government power, from Stalin’s iron-fisted gulags to Mr. Obama’s mere heavy-handed plan for punitive fines for failure to purchase your government-imposed health insurance. The degree of autocracy may vary, but still the collectivist road to economic ruin is universal.

    Here’s what I wrote one year ago:

    “As President Obama’s failures mount, there will be an awkward reversal of roles among liberals, and to a lesser degree, among conservatives, that we’re already beginning to see. It will be the liberals, rather than the conservatives, who will decry this man as personally incompetent. In the collapse of the social-welfare state, the last bastion for these scoundrels will be to sacrifice their own anointed deity as though it is his personal failures, rather than the inherent deep flaws of statism, that are to blame. Of course, one must ask how valuable an ideology can be if one man, even (or perhaps especially) a flawed man, can destroy it.

    “Conservatives will then find themselves in the uncomfortable position of defending Barack Obama personally, or at least reminding the liberals of their earlier effusive praise, in order to redirect the blame where it primarily belongs - at the feet of the statist policies themselves. The liberals will be left to explain, of course, how valuable the liberal ideology itself really is if even a learned and godlike leader cannot manage it. Further, if Barack Obama turns out not to be the deity they once claimed, what does that say of the liberals’ perception (and honesty) when they eventually anoint another?”

    This cycle of liberal, cannibalistic personal destruction is the predictable result of the Democrats’ cult-of-personality politics. Those purveyors of big-government rule are the mob that Ann Coulter described in her recent book “Demonic,” quoting Gustave Le Bon from a century ago, that “knows neither doubt nor uncertainty … it goes at once to extremes.” The absurdity of liberals’ deification and then condemnation of their own leaders is second only to their unwillingness to confront the failures of their collectivist philosophy.

    In the end, Barack Obama’s failures as president are not because he couldn’t faithfully execute the liberal collectivist philosophy - he ushered in the Obamacare era, after all - his failures are instead because he bought into the failed philosophy in the first place.

    Dr. Milton R. Wolf is a board-certified diagnostic radiologist and cousin of President Obama. He blogs at MiltonWolf.com.

    © Copyright 2011 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

  25. Posted · Report reply

    Gov't will borrow $72B in debt auctions next week

    Gov't will borrow $72B in debt auctions next week now that Congress has raised borrowing limit

    Daniel Wagner, AP Business Writers, On Wednesday August 3, 2011, 9:43 am EDT

    WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government will borrow $72 billion in debt auctions next week now that Congress has raised the nation's borrowing limit.

    The Treasury Department says it will sell 3-year notes, 10-year notes and 30-year bonds to raise the money. About one-third will go to repay debts that are due on Aug. 15.

    President Barack Obama cleared the way for the auction on Tuesday when he signed into a law a bill that raises the debt ceiling and promises more than $2 trillion in cuts to government spending over the next decade.

    The U.S. government currently borrows 40 cents of every dollar that it spends.

    An initial debt ceiling increase of $400 billion took effect immediately on Tuesday. That will allow the nation to borrow what it needs through September, the Treasury Department estimates.

    The next $500 billion boost will occur after lawmakers vote on resolutions stating they approve of the increase. The votes are mainly ceremonial, because the president can veto the resolutions.

    The final $1.5 trillion increase will occur after a bipartisan committee of lawmakers from both chambers identifies how the government can cut $1.5 trillion from the federal deficit over the next ten years. If the committee's fails to agree on the cuts, the borrowing limit will rise by between $1.2 trillion and $1.5 trillion.

    Treasury's advisory group of private bond sellers agreed that credit rating agencies are unlikely to downgrade the nation's sterling credit rating soon. However, they said that Treasury should continue to focus on selling longer-term bonds to minimize the threat of a downgrade based on high future deficits.

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