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Stupid Government Spending
Mar 18, 2013 20:36:41   #
Ambrose Loc: North America
 
Put left and right wing aside for a second and just read this as an American.

I caught a story about the fact that the legistlative branch of our government spent $400,000 of OUR tax dollars last year....on haircuts. Hair. Cuts.

This got me curious (and incredibly ticked off). Where else are we wasting money?

It didn't take me long to find some doozys. No matter who's side your on - these were either promoted by or allowed to pass via earmarks by YOUR representatives. Brace yourself....

> Washington spends $25 billion annually maintaining unused or vacant federal properties.
> Over half of all farm subsidies go to commercial farms, which report average household incomes of $200,000.
> More than $13 billion in Iraq aid has been classified as wasted or stolen. Another $7.8 billion cannot be accounted for.
> The Defense Department wasted $100 million on unused flight tickets and never bothered to collect refunds even though the tickets were refundable.
> Congress recently spent $2.4 billion on 10 new jets that the Pentagon insists it does not need and will not use.
> Washington recently spent $1.8 million to help build a private golf course in Atlanta, Georgia.

This is just the tip of the iceberg and is only a small example of far more overlapping programs, wasteful entertaining costs, Medicare waste or billions in funds that are simply "lost" and unaccounted for.

These are the areas we as citizens should be watching and calling our representatives on - be they Democrats, Republicans or otherwise - it doesn't matter.
The next time you hear of wasteful spending of any kind - forget what party you're affilited with, write your senator or congressman immediately and hold them accountable.
(end rant).

Reply
Mar 19, 2013 08:39:26   #
Penny MG Loc: Fresno, Texas
 
Ambrose wrote:
Put left and right wing aside for a second and just read this as an American.

I caught a story about the fact that the legistlative branch of our government spent $400,000 of OUR tax dollars last year....on haircuts. Hair. Cuts.

This got me curious (and incredibly ticked off). Where else are we wasting money?

It didn't take me long to find some doozys. No matter who's side your on - these were either promoted by or allowed to pass via earmarks by YOUR representatives. Brace yourself....

> Washington spends $25 billion annually maintaining unused or vacant federal properties.
> Over half of all farm subsidies go to commercial farms, which report average household incomes of $200,000.
> More than $13 billion in Iraq aid has been classified as wasted or stolen. Another $7.8 billion cannot be accounted for.
> The Defense Department wasted $100 million on unused flight tickets and never bothered to collect refunds even though the tickets were refundable.
> Congress recently spent $2.4 billion on 10 new jets that the Pentagon insists it does not need and will not use.
> Washington recently spent $1.8 million to help build a private golf course in Atlanta, Georgia.

This is just the tip of the iceberg and is only a small example of far more overlapping programs, wasteful entertaining costs, Medicare waste or billions in funds that are simply "lost" and unaccounted for.

These are the areas we as citizens should be watching and calling our representatives on - be they Democrats, Republicans or otherwise - it doesn't matter.
The next time you hear of wasteful spending of any kind - forget what party you're affilited with, write your senator or congressman immediately and hold them accountable.
(end rant).
Put left and right wing aside for a second and jus... (show quote)


Ambrose,, you are correct. ALL citizens of the U.S. should be fighting to get this kind of wastefulness done away with.

Reply
Mar 19, 2013 08:43:45   #
larryg Loc: Central Wi.
 
Ambrose wrote:
Put left and right wing aside for a second and just read this as an American.

I caught a story about the fact that the legistlative branch of our government spent $400,000 of OUR tax dollars last year....on haircuts. Hair. Cuts.

This got me curious (and incredibly ticked off). Where else are we wasting money?

It didn't take me long to find some doozys. No matter who's side your on - these were either promoted by or allowed to pass via earmarks by YOUR representatives. Brace yourself....

> Washington spends $25 billion annually maintaining unused or vacant federal properties.
> Over half of all farm subsidies go to commercial farms, which report average household incomes of $200,000.
> More than $13 billion in Iraq aid has been classified as wasted or stolen. Another $7.8 billion cannot be accounted for.
> The Defense Department wasted $100 million on unused flight tickets and never bothered to collect refunds even though the tickets were refundable.
> Congress recently spent $2.4 billion on 10 new jets that the Pentagon insists it does not need and will not use.
> Washington recently spent $1.8 million to help build a private golf course in Atlanta, Georgia.

This is just the tip of the iceberg and is only a small example of far more overlapping programs, wasteful entertaining costs, Medicare waste or billions in funds that are simply "lost" and unaccounted for.

These are the areas we as citizens should be watching and calling our representatives on - be they Democrats, Republicans or otherwise - it doesn't matter.
The next time you hear of wasteful spending of any kind - forget what party you're affilited with, write your senator or congressman immediately and hold them accountable.
(end rant).
Put left and right wing aside for a second and jus... (show quote)


Great post Ambrose. It is amazing how few responses you get with a post like this when both sides get bashed. But insult one side or the other and all hell breaks loose. http://priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/ here is another place our money goes that is totally unnecessary.

Reply
 
 
Mar 19, 2013 11:24:28   #
stevenelson Loc: Pauls Valley, Oklahoma
 
Great find. Our leaders are STUPID, all of them. They made sure that they cut only where it would affect the lower & middle class people. I am so sick of those insecure cry babies. I think that there pay should be dropped to minimum wage until they learn to work together. I would bet if this was done, they would come up with a budget. I lost my job in 2008 and we had to rebalance our budget. We did it and are still doing ok. Those idiots need to learn how to live within the countries means and quit trying to keep up with the Jones.

Reply
Mar 19, 2013 11:57:27   #
PrairieSeasons Loc: Red River of the North
 
Ambrose wrote:
Put left and right wing aside for a second and just read this as an American.

I caught a story about the fact that the legistlative branch of our government spent $400,000 of OUR tax dollars last year....on haircuts. Hair. Cuts.

This got me curious (and incredibly ticked off). Where else are we wasting money?

It didn't take me long to find some doozys. No matter who's side your on - these were either promoted by or allowed to pass via earmarks by YOUR representatives. Brace yourself....

> Washington spends $25 billion annually maintaining unused or vacant federal properties.
> Over half of all farm subsidies go to commercial farms, which report average household incomes of $200,000.
> More than $13 billion in Iraq aid has been classified as wasted or stolen. Another $7.8 billion cannot be accounted for.
> The Defense Department wasted $100 million on unused flight tickets and never bothered to collect refunds even though the tickets were refundable.
> Congress recently spent $2.4 billion on 10 new jets that the Pentagon insists it does not need and will not use.
> Washington recently spent $1.8 million to help build a private golf course in Atlanta, Georgia.

This is just the tip of the iceberg and is only a small example of far more overlapping programs, wasteful entertaining costs, Medicare waste or billions in funds that are simply "lost" and unaccounted for.

These are the areas we as citizens should be watching and calling our representatives on - be they Democrats, Republicans or otherwise - it doesn't matter.
The next time you hear of wasteful spending of any kind - forget what party you're affilited with, write your senator or congressman immediately and hold them accountable.
(end rant).
Put left and right wing aside for a second and jus... (show quote)


I'm sure they will fix these oversights as part of the sequester.

Reply
Mar 19, 2013 12:04:06   #
stevenelson Loc: Pauls Valley, Oklahoma
 
:thumbup:

Reply
Mar 19, 2013 13:14:47   #
Ka2azman Loc: Tucson, Az
 
What gets me is that we say it's our leaders that are stupid. Stupid is us! We let them lie and tell us what we want to hear to get elected, then they do as they wish. We don't hold them accountable in any way, shape, or action.

For example of cutting the budget: to say you want to cut military spending the rethoric is we are letting our troops down if we don't give them every dollar they ask for. Yet we spend 10X what the entire world spends on the military, and one dollar will will let them down. They also say cutting military spending wouldn't put a very big dent in the deficit. 10x the world's budget? Come on - get real. If you would cut it by 10x it certainly put a dent into it and we would be spending the same equivelant of the world yet.

Ands since when is our borders, which the military is suppose to be protecting, in S. Korea, Japan, Okanawa, Iraq, Afganistan, Germany, and perminantly else where and even now trying to be in Africa? Yet our borders here are pourious. We could take our military from all these countries and put them on our own borders and get rid of Border Patrol which is not doing such a good job.

We are in a sequester, yet we just gave Egypt 250 million, and we have people going hungry in this country.

Stupid - we are.

Reply
 
 
Mar 19, 2013 16:15:10   #
Drigby1 Loc: American Fork, UT
 
CONGRESS- What Mark Twain said, but could be applied to all the federal officials.

Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a Congressman can.
- What Is Man?

...the smallest minds and the selfishest souls and the cowardliest hearts that God makes.
- Letter fragment, 1891

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
- Mark Twain, a Biography

Congressman is the trivialist distinction for a full grown man.
- Notebook #14, Nov. 1877 - July 1878

All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity.
- Mark Twain's Autobiography; also in Mark Twain in Eruption
Congressman and flea
Illustration from AMERICAN EXAMINER, 1910
from the Dave Thomson collection

The lightning there is peculiar; it is so convincing, that when it strikes a thing it doesn't leave enough of that thing behind for you to tell whether--Well, you'd think it was something valuable, and a Congressman had been there.
- Mark Twain's Speeches, "The Weather"

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
- Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar

It is the foreign element that commits our crimes. There is no native criminal class except Congress.
- More Maxims of Mark, Johnson, 1927

Whiskey is carried into committee rooms in demijohns and carried out in demagogues.
- Notebook, 1868

...I never can think of Judas Iscariot without losing my temper. To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature, Congressman.
- "Foster's Case," New York Tribune, 10 March 1873

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