dept ceiling?

[cleanhoods 43]

Congress is considering raising the debt ceiling with cuts to be determined in the future. However, because tax revenues currently exceed interest payments on the debt with money to spare, it is actually possible for Congress to not raise the debt ceiling and to focus solely on reining in spending. Following the poll from earlier today, do you think that Congress should raise the debt ceiling or just cut spending?

[cleanhoods 43]

My opinion is they need to cut there wasteful spending!!

[Doug Black 18]

It would take "insanely" drastic changes to put America back on any real fiscal course and yet it's treated as a political debate.

In my opinion, we should prepare for collapse.

[Tonyg 14]

It seems politically expedient to throw accusations at the other party but why are we so focused on the debt ceiling?

If it takes $10,000 for my business to pay my employees and to pay my vendors/taxes/debt then I need $10,000 to break even just to survive to operate another month. If I only make $6,000 each month and I have to go to the bank or use my credit cards to get $4,000 every month, I would accumulate $48,000 in debt in one year.

Now, at the end of the year I tell the bank that I am going to raise rates by 2% and I would only need them to help fund me another $45,560 so I can operate my business and just break even for another year. And, if they could also loan me another $4,000 so I could pay the additional interest.

No Problem! If you're a Democrat you will say that we should cut our expenses by $100 each month and raise our rates from our customers to bring another $900 each. Eventually over time we will make enough in sales to our customers, even though we keep raising rates, so that we will be break even. But, for now, we should it makes perfect sense to to only make enough to cover 40% of what we need because in 30-40 years it will all work out.

You're a republican? No Problem! They say understand that sooner or later the well runs dry, the borrower becomes slave to the creditor, and instead of investing in our future we spend eternity underwater as our debt is so massive that it will be impossible for any reasonable company, or country, to works its way out without major revisions. Unfortunately, they do not understand that in order to cut enough to make a difference we will have to eliminate our entire work force and tell our vendors that our taxes have increased so we will only be able to pay them half. If we raise rates from our customers, by any amount, we will jeopardize our future business and therefore we must only cut our expenses down until we are able to produce more sales.

If we could only figure out fundamental change is what we should be talking about. If we could only figure out that we Must reduce expenses because no business can operate indefinitely with negative returns but we Must increase sales in a way that will not be jeopardize losing business.

[John Orr 206]

I saw a congressman speaking about a 1% solution. Makes sense to me, here's the link...We endorse the One Percent Spending Reduction Act of 2011

[Scott Stone 604]

I would rather see a 3% reduction per year. I just don't think anyone has the testicular fortitude to go through with it.

[Doug Black 18]

David Walker: Former General Accountability Office Head (resigned in protest) :

Can start at 3 minute mark.

‪GAO: "USA is living beyond its means"‬‏ - YouTube

This is from 2007. "The numbers just don't add up."

[cleanhoods 43]

I am sure the congress and senates own money is managed and spent correctly.......so easy to spend other peoples money and vote YES to raises and so on.

It is weird where ever you look they are spending unnecessary money..for example the roads around NC are being repaved and shouldered....why? The roads was fine but heck we get free fed money why not spend it... they say helping the people get back to work but all they are doing is keeping the government working not the people.

If we the people dont make enough money we will not spend money and then if no money is spent less money comes into the governments hands. Government forgot who pays them and it isnt the rich and well off it is the working class people,the self employed small business owner,you know us!

[cleanhoods 43]

When a cut is not a cut

By Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) - 08/01/11 12:15 PM ET

One might think that the recent drama over the debt ceiling involves one side wanting to increase or maintain spending with the other side wanting to drastically cut spending, but that is far from the truth. In spite of the rhetoric being thrown around, the real debate is over how much government spending will increase.

No plan under serious consideration cuts spending in the way you and I think about it. Instead, the "cuts" being discussed are illusory, and are not cuts from current amounts being spent, but cuts in projected spending increases. This is akin to a family "saving" $100,000 in expenses by deciding not to buy a Lamborghini, and instead getting a fully loaded Mercedes, when really their budget dictates that they need to stick with their perfectly serviceable Honda. But this is the type of math Washington uses to mask the incriminating truth about their unrepentant plundering of the American people.

The truth is that frightening rhetoric about default and full faith and credit of the United States is being carelessly thrown around to ram through a bigger budget than ever, in spite of stagnant revenues. If your family's income did not change year over year, would it be wise financial management to accelerate spending so you would feel richer? That is what our government is doing, with one side merely suggesting a different list of purchases than the other.In reality, bringing our fiscal house into order is not that complicated or excruciatingly painful at all. If we simply kept spending at current levels, by their definition of "cuts" that would save nearly $400 billion in the next few years, versus the $25 billion the Budget Control Act claims to "cut". It would only take us 5 years to "cut" $1 trillion, in Washington math, just by holding the line on spending. That is hardly austere or catastrophic.

A balanced budget is similarly simple and within reach if Washington had just a tiny amount of fiscal common sense. Our revenues currently stand at approximately $2.2 trillion a year and are likely to remain stagnant as the recession continues. Our outlays are $3.7 trillion and projected to grow every year. Yet we only have to go back to 2004 for federal outlays of $2.2 trillion, and the government was far from small that year. If we simply returned to that year's spending levels, which would hardly be austere, we would have a balanced budget right now. If we held the line on spending, and the economy actually did grow as estimated, the budget would balance on its own by 2015 with no cuts whatsoever.

We pay 35 percent more for our military today than we did 10 years ago, for the exact same capabilities. The same could be said for the rest of the government. Why has our budget doubled in 10 years? This country doesn't have double the population, or double the land area, or double anything that would require the federal government to grow by such an obscene amount.

In Washington terms, a simple freeze in spending would be a much bigger "cut" than any plan being discussed. If politicians simply cannot bear to implement actual cuts to actual spending, just freezing the budget would give the economy the best chance to catch its breath, recover and grow.

[cleanhoods 43]

Great video....it is true and easy to fix the problem we are all in the middle of... Congress and the senate needs to stop spending the peoples money,giving peoples money away,free to ship other countries products to us but our products cost to enter theres..and this country worries about the world but forgets itself..we need to worry about us for a bit i am sure the world will understand, see we are the bearing in the gears and if the bearing is sticking the gears wont work properly so all the gears are affected but when we are running smooth the world runs smooth.

[Doug Black 18]

Great video....it is true and easy to fix the problem we are all in the middle of... Congress and the senate needs to stop spending the peoples money,giving peoples money away,free to ship other countries products to us but our products cost to enter theres..and this country worries about the world but forgets itself..we need to worry about us for a bit i am sure the world will understand, see we are the bearing in the gears and if the bearing is sticking the gears wont work properly so all the gears are affected but when we are running smooth the world runs smooth.

Honestly though, Obama ran on the fact that he planned on running huge deficits and turning the nation completely over to the Banks. We can't, therefore, really expect him to do much else.

Our leaders and most of our citizens don't even believe in basic economics so ???

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Tonyg has a balanced method of looking at things and if Americans did the same thing and had an equivalent understanding of economics, neither party would have it over another.

Everyone else from what I have read seems to be taking only one side and favoring it.

This is the problem. My way or the highway.

That approach lacks any ability to understand the other views without bias.

What everyone must understand is that one parties actions does not remain within that party. It affects an entire nation regardless of party association.

What one side doesn't want/need, the other does want/need for what ever reason.

But each refuses to accept the validity of the othersides arguement and we have impasse.

This is a good idea to be put into the tax code: if you don't want the programs ... opt out, leave them intact for those who do and they shall bear the tax burden.

But remember, once you opt out, you cannot receive any benefit from those programs. ie. unemployment and other federally funded programs.

***The other thing no one seem to be taking into account is that when government slashes spending, it affects us on the state and local level and our taxes and fees go up to continue projects in the works, and fund municipal services that many states are relying on government aid to support. Police, firefighters, road services, libraries and more WILL be affected. These are not just state funded, they rely upon federal tax dollars too.

It just doesn't make sense that people don't look into things more thoroughly before jumping in and supporting a political cause.

Rod!~

Edited August 3, 2011 by Beth n Rod

[Scott Stone 604]

I would actually be good with allowing an opt out. My kids don't take advanage of federally funded lunches or breakfasts, so I would opt out.

WIC is a foreign concept to me, so I opt out.

Unemployment is supposed to be paid by employers, so I would opt out of the FUTA taxes.

Social Security is a big bugaboo for me. I am pretty certain that with the income I have, I could invest the 15% of income turned over to the federal government with a far better return then what they deem is necessary at my retirement. What is more, I am certain that leaving it to my kids is more important to me then losing it.

The problem with opting out of social programs is that the people that pay for them are not the people that use them. In fact, it is quite the contrary. I am not one that is typically in favor of a lot of social programs, because I firmly believe in taking care of myself, and my family. It is one of my prime responsibilities in life. I think so much more and better things could be done with those funds on a local level. Or even a personal level.

[cleanhoods 43]

China Joins Russia in Blasting U.S. Borrowing

Q

By Bloomberg News - Aug 3, 2011

China, the largest foreign investor in U.S. government securities, joined Russia in criticizing American policy makers for failing to ensure borrowing is reined in after a stopgap deal to raise the nation’s debt limit.

People’s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said China’s central bank will monitor U.S. efforts to tackle its debt, and state-run Xinhua News Agency blasted what it called the “madcap” brinksmanship of American lawmakers. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said two days ago that the U.S. is in a way “leeching on the world economy.”

The comments reflect concern that the U.S. may lose its AAA sovereign rating after President Barack Obama and Congress put off decisions on spending cuts and tax increases to assure enactment of a boost in borrowing authority. China and Russia, holding a total $1.28 trillion of Treasuries, have lost nothing so far in the wake of a rally in the securities this year.

“It’s probably frustration more than anything else for China,” said Brian Jackson, a senior strategist at Royal Bank of Canada in Hong Kong. While the nation has concerns, “they realize there’s not a lot of options for them out there and so they need to keep buying Treasuries.”

China held $1.16 trillion of Treasuries as of May, U.S. Treasury Department data show. The nation has accumulated the holdings as a by-product of holding down the value of its currency, a policy U.S. officials have said gives China an unfair advantage in trade.

Treasuries Gain

Expressions of concern about the fiscal health of the U.S. and the impasse among lawmakers have failed to dent global demand for the securities, with yields on 10-year notes declining to the lowest levels since November. Two-year yields fell to a record low in Tokyo trading today.

Investors in Treasuries earned 3.12 percent in the three months ending July 31, based on Bank of America Merrill Lynch data. That means a $10 million holding earned $312,000 in the period.

China’s central bank welcomes this week’s legislation that raised the U.S. debt limit, preventing a default, and will “closely observe” the implementation, Zhou said in a statement on the central bank’s website today. Xinhua said the move “failed to defuse Washington’s debt bomb for good,” in a commentary dated yesterday.

Standard & Poor’s indicated last week that anything less than $4 trillion in deficit cuts would jeopardize its AAA rating for the U.S. The measure enacted by Obama yesterday threatens automatic spending cuts to enforce $2.4 trillion in spending reductions over the next 10 years.

‘First Step’

Obama said yesterday the debt measure was a “first step” on a path that must also include increasing revenue. The $14.3 trillion debt ceiling will be raised by at least $2.1 trillion.

“They are living beyond their means and transferring part of the problems onto the world economy,” Putin told a youth camp at Lake Seliger outside Moscow Aug. 1. “In a way, they are leeching on the world economy.”

Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings say their AAA credit ratings for the U.S. may be downgraded if lawmakers fail to enact deficit-reduction measures and the economy weakens. China’s Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. today cut its grade for the U.S. to A from A+ with a negative outlook.

“China hopes the U.S. administration and the Congress would take responsible policy measures to handle its debt issue,” Zhou said. He highlighted the global role of U.S. Treasuries, saying that any “large fluctuations and uncertainties” in the market for the securities would undermine financial stability and hinder the world economic recovery.

‘Madcap Farce’

The Xinhua commentary said that the higher debt ceiling and plans to reduce spending were not enough to make any sizable dent in the nation’s fiscal burden. It referred to a “madcap farce of brinksmanship” before the agreement was reached.

A previous Xinhua commentary on clashes between Republicans and Democrats said that “the ugliest part of the saga is that the well-being of many other countries is also in the impact zone when the donkey and the elephant fight,” referring to the symbols often used for the Democratic and Republican parties.

Obama signed the debt-limit compromise yesterday. The measure raises the ceiling until 2013.

In his statement, Zhou also commented on China’s foreign- exchange reserves, which are the world’s largest at more than $3 trillion.

The Asian nation will continue to “seek diversification in the management of reserve assets, strengthen risk management, and minimize the negative impacts of the fluctuations in the international financial market on the Chinese economy,” Zhou said. China will also take “effective measures to maintain relatively rapid growth to safeguard economic and financial stability,” he added.

[cleanhoods 43]

Government Losses to Top $1 Billion After Congress Fails to Reach Deal on FAA

Published August 03, 2011

| Associated Press

WASHINGTON – The government is likely to lose more than $1 billion in ticket taxes because lawmakers have left town for a month without resolving a partisan standoff over a bill to end the partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration.

The government already has lost more than $200 million since airlines are unable to collect taxes on ticket sales because the FAA's operating authority has expired.

The Senate recessed on Tuesday until September, erasing any possibility for quickly resolving the issue. The House left Monday night.

Caught up in the partisan acrimony are nearly 4,000 FAA employees who have been furloughed. The FAA also has issued stop work orders on more than 200 construction projects, threatening the jobs of thousands of other workers. Air traffic controllers, however, remain on the job.

The debacle could have had an upside for airline passengers because ticket taxes, which typically average about $30 on a $300 round- fare, are suspended during the shutdown. But airlines decided to pocket the windfall. Within hours of the shutdown on July 23, most airlines raised their fares by amounts equivalent to the taxes that disappeared.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood called airline CEOs to complain and lawmakers have sent letters demanding the fare hikes be reversed and the profits be placed in escrow. But their howls have largely been ignored. Airlines collectively lost about $440 million in the first six months of this year, according to the Air Transport Association.

Some passengers will be due tax refunds if they bought their tickets and paid taxes before the shutdown, but their travel took place during the time airlines no longer had authority to collect the Airlines and the Internal Revenue Service are quarreling over who will handle the complicated and expensive process of getting those refunds to passengers.

President Barack Obama implored Congress on Tuesday to settle the dispute before leaving town, calling the stalemate "another Washington-inflicted wound on America."

LaHood, a former GOP congressman, conveyed the same message in a series of private meetings on Capitol Hill and in phone calls to lawmakers, but was unable to clinch a deal.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate committee that oversees the FAA, held out the possibility that if the Senate were able to pass a bill acceptable to Democrats, it could still be approved by the House using obscure parliamentary procedures, and sent to the White House.

But his House counterpart, Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., ruled out that possibility. The only way left to end the shutdown is for the Senate to agree to a previously passed House bill containing $16.5 million cuts in air service subsidies to 13 rural communities that some Democrats — particularly Rockefeller — find objectionable.

"The only one holding this up now is Mr. Rockefeller," Mica said. One of the 13 communities that would lose subsidies is Morgantown, W.Va.

The entire air service subsidy program costs about $200 million a year, roughly the amount the government lost in uncollected ticket taxes in the first week of the shutdown. The program was created after airlines were deregulated in 1978 to ensure continued service on less profitable routes to remote communities. But critics say some communities receiving subsidies are within a reasonable driving distance of a hub

Subsidies per airline passenger range as high as $3,720 in Ely, Nev., to as low as $9.21 in Thief River Falls, Minn., according to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Republicans were trying to force Democrats to accept policy concessions they would be unable to enact through normal legislative procedures. Democrats tried repeatedly over the past two weeks to pass a bill extending the FAA's operating authority without the subsidy cuts, but were blocked by Republican senators each time.

"Republicans are playing reckless games with airline safety," Reid said in a statement. "We should not let ideology interfere with making sure that Americans' air travel runs as smoothly and safely as possible."

Underlying the subsidy dispute, was a broader, more politically-charged dispute over a provision inserted by House Republicans into a separate, long-term FAA funding bill. The FAA's last long-term funding bill expired in 2007. Since then, Congress has been unable to agree on a long-term plan. The agency has continued to operate under a series of 20 short-term extensions.

Democrats said the air services cuts were being used as leverage to force them to give in to the House on a labor provision, which the White House has said Obama would veto. They see the provision as part of a national effort by Republicans, both in Congress and in state capitals, to undermine organized labor.

The provision would overturn a National Mediation Board rule approved last year that allows airline and railroad employees to form a union by a simple majority of those voting. Under the old rule, workers who didn't vote were treated as "no" votes.

Democrats and union officials say the change puts airline and railroad elections under the same democratic rules required for unionizing all other companies. But Republicans complain that the new rule reverses 75 years of precedent to favor labor unions.

"Democrats have to decide if they are going to be the handmaidens of the labor unions in every policy," Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the No. 2 Senate GOP leader, told reporters. "Every now and then they should put the American people first instead of their constituency."

Read more: Government Losses to Top $1 Billion After Congress Fails to Reach Deal on FAA - FoxNews.com

Edited August 3, 2011 by cleanhoods

[cleanhoods 43]

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.

[cleanhoods 43]

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.

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

um, missing some major facts of cause and effect and excluding factors beyond the presidents control like republican defunding, NO to everything even if it was their idea and so forth.

Blaming Obama does not dismiss the relevant facts and controversies surrounding the precipitation of republican policies of the bush era.

http://politicalcorrection.org/factcheck/201107290002

http://politicalcorrection.org/factcheck/201108050002

http://politicalcorrection.org/factcheck/201108020003

This is the last post I will submit in this thread as I don't subscribe to just one side being at fault here...and the article...after following the course of events myself...I don't buy it.

Rod!~

Edited August 7, 2011 by Beth n Rod

[cleanhoods 43]

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.

[cleanhoods 43]

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.

[cleanhoods 43]

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.

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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.

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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

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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.)

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.

.

[cleanhoods 43]

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.

[Doug Black 18]

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.