Porker of the Month

[lonestar]

MArch 2011

CAGW Names Senator Harry Reid Porker of the Month

Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) bestowed upon Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) the March “Porker of the Month” Award for his absurd belief that a federally-funded Cowboy Poetry Festival in Elko, Nevada (pop. 17,000) constitutes essential government spending. The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), which allots a small part of its $146 million budget to the festival, was defunded under H.R. 1, the Full-Year Continuing Resolution for fiscal year 2011, which Sen. Reid helped defeat in the Senate. On March 8, 2011, he described the proposed termination in a Senate floor speech as “mean-spirited,” stating that were it not for NEH’s federal money, the Cowboy Poetry Festival and “the tens of thousands of people who come there every year, would not exist.”

One day after Sen. Reid made his preposterous statement, Western Folklife Center Executive Director Charlie Seemann commented that the NEH funds just seven percent of the festival, and that he and his fellow cowboys “could certainly continue if we lose that funding.” That’s the individual, entrepreneurial spirit that has made America great, and it contrasts sharply with the attitude of Sen. Reid, who believes that taxpayers should pay for everything, even if a program can and should stand on its own.

In tribute to Sen. Reid and the Cowboy Poetry Festival, CAGW has decided to try its hand at a bit of verse. As Robert Frost wrote, “a poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong.” So we begin.

Dollar’s Inferno

Midway upon the journey of his life,
Reid found himself in Washington, D.C.
Once there he gathered money from us all,
Convinced the world would call it charity.

Kubla Con

In Carson Mr. Reid began
To guzzle from the public trough;
Engorged with pork, each term he ran
With gifts to Special Interest Man,
Which ticked the taxpayers off.





For more information, contact:




Leslie K. Paige
202-467-5334
media@cagw.org

[lonestar]

CAGW Names Senator Lindsey Graham Porker of the Month

Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) its April 2011 Porker of the Month for threatening to bring the Senate to a standstill over a $40,000 earmark for a federal study on deepening the port of Charleston. The study would investigate the effectiveness of deepening the port from 47 feet to 50 feet, an improvement that Sen. Graham claims will allow it to accommodate the types of ships that will “dominate shipping lanes” in the future. The earmark began as a $400,000 request that was rejected by the Senate Appropriations Committee in October, 2010. There was also no money for the project in the President’s fiscal year (FY) 2012 budget. Sen. Graham reduced his request to $40,000, but even that amount was not included in Congress’s FY 2011Continuing Resolution.

On April 11, 2011, Sen. Graham threw a fit over the failure to fund the project, telling reporters that he would “tie the Senate in knots” until the port study money was approved. On April 12, he tweeted, “No nominations go forward in Senate until we address CHS port.” Unfortunately, the tantrum paid off. Despite Congress’s ongoing earmark moratorium, on April 15 Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) pledged on the Senate floor that he would find funding for the study before the end of FY 2011. Sen. Reid stated that the money would “not be limited to South Carolina,” since Charleston is just one of 12 eligible recipient cities, but Sen. Graham was satisfied enough to stop his protest, indicating that he knows full well where the cash will land. The deepening of Charleston’s port is expected to cost $350 million.



The senator from South Carolina is no stranger to pork-barrel spending. His earmark requests totaled $78.9 million in FY 2010 and $126 million in FY 2009. Sen. Graham has claimed through his website that “260,800 jobs, $11.8 billion in wages, and $1.5 billion in state and local taxes” hinge on the Port of Charleston’s improvements.

“This project and the study it requires both reek of pork,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz. “If the benefits to South Carolina even approach the numbers cited by Sen. Graham, private backers and the state government should be chomping at the bit to fund it themselves. Instead, taxpayers everywhere will pay for a study, the results of which are a foregone conclusion – it will prove the importance of upgrading the port and cost taxpayers much more money.



“If each of the 260,800 people whose jobs supposedly depend on the port deepening were to contribute just 19 cents apiece, the study would be funded in full. There is absolutely no reason that taxpayers in places like Omaha or Denver should be forced to finance Charleston’s port,” concluded Schatz.



For insisting that federal taxpayers deep-six their dollars into a project that should be funded by the state and the private sector, CAGW names Sen. Lindsey Graham its April 2011 Porker of the Month.

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.



For more information, contact:




Leslie K. Paige
202-467-5334
media@cagw.org

[lonestar]

AGW Names Sebelius Porker of the Month

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius its May Porker of the Month for the consistently murky process by which HHS grants or denies waivers from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Sec. Sebelius received the dubious honor in the wake of preferential treatment HHS granted to the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), which aggressively supported the new healthcare law prior to its passage in 2010 but is seeking relief from the law now. AARP is just one of 1,372 unions, businesses, and insurers, covering 3.1 million Americans, that have received waivers from the PPACA’s onerous regulatory burdens.

“It is disgraceful that Sec. Sebelius is arbitrarily choosing when to enforce the mandates of a bill that just one year ago she claimed would be universally embraced by the American public,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz. “Clearly, groups like AARP do not view the bill as quite the expansion of choice or affordability in healthcare that the administration claimed it would be.” Numerous CEOs and business owners, including at Starbucks, White Castle, IHOP, and the National Council of Chain Restaurants, have expressed deep concern about the impact of PPACA, stating that its provisions and mandates will dramatically drive up their costs, forcing them to lay off workers in order to remain solvent.

On May 17, 2011, the White House issued a statement trying to justify its capricious waiver-granting process, saying that HHS has the power to “issue temporary waivers from the annual limit provision of the law if it would disrupt access to existing insurance arrangements or adversely affect premiums, causing people to lose coverage,” which is exactly what the new bill was supposed to prevent. In addition, it is unclear how the annual limit provision will avoid similar problems in the future. The White House simply explains that the waivers “will not be available beginning in 2014 when annual limits are banned and all Americans will have affordable coverage options.”

“One of the many objectionable elements of the PPACA was the unprecedented level of unchecked power that will accrue to the secretary of HHS; the unaccountable nature of this waiver frenzy is just a first taste of the new imperial bent of the secretary’s position,” added Schatz. “On March 22, 2010, one day after the PPACA was passed in the Senate, Sec. Sebelius predicted that ‘once people understand what's in the bill … they'll be very enthusiastic about what Congress did last night.’ Instead, it has become clear that businesses are wary of what this bill will do to their bottom line, and that it will not control costs or improve healthcare outcomes. We are still three years away from the full implementation of the PPACA and that date is looking more and more ominous as it approaches. The time has come to give all Americans a waiver from this monstrosity by repealing the PPACA in its entirety.”

For the disjointed manner with which her department has been handing out regulatory relief to businesses that want an egress from the increasingly sickly PPACA, CAGW names HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius its May 2011 Porker of the Month.

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.

###



For more information, contact:




Leslie K. Paige
202-467-5334
media@cagw.org

[lonestar]

Rep. Buck McKeon Porker of the Month

(Washington, D.C.) - Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.) its June Porker of the Month for littering the fiscal year (FY) 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) with what appears to be pork. The defense authorization bill, drafted and approved on Chairman McKeon’s watch, originally included a $1 billion slush fund – dubbed the Mission Force Enhancement Transfer Fund (MFET). The final MFET contains 111 legislative provisions costing taxpayers $651.7 million; 59 of the provisions, or 53 percent, appear to be similar to projects defined as earmarks in CAGW’s 2010 Congressional Pig Book. According to Chairman McKeon, the bill – passed in the House by a vote of 322-96 – contains no earmarks. However, the MFET did not exist in FY 2011, and it seems to be designed to allow members to secure pork for their districts without violating the congressional earmark moratorium.

Luckily, Rep. Jeff Flake’s (R-Ariz.) amendment to eliminate the remaining $348.2 million from the MFET passed by a vote of 269-151 before the entire slush fund could be raided, but much of the damage had already been done. CAGW is analyzing the 111 provisions to match as many as possible to both specific earmarks from 2010 and their sponsors in the House. For example, on May 26, 2011, freshman Republican and Armed Services Committee member Chris Gibson (R-N.Y.) bragged in a press release that he secured $7 million for the SUNY Albany College of Nanoscale Science “to assess the desirability of establishing a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) for nanotechnology.” Chairman McKeon has stated that his committee will not tolerate members “pressuring the Department of Defense to use any funds other than to comply with competitive, merit-based solutions,” and a Hill staffer was quoted saying the process “has been transparent.”

CAGW President Tom Schatz said, “If Republicans wish to retain their credibility on the earmark moratorium, House leadership must immediately inform every other House committee that schemes such as the MFET will not be tolerated. In addition, there should be complete transparency for any communication, such as letters and phone calls, from members of Congress to the Pentagon that are intended to influence where MFET money should be spent. The chairman’s tactics represent exactly the type of unaccountable behavior that the earmark moratorium was intended to eliminate.”

The FY 2012 authorization bill also includes language which would keep the door slightly ajar for future funding of the alternate engine program for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) by requiring the Department of Defense (DOD) to reopen competition between the two engines if the JSF engine requires upgrades in the future. The alternate engine program survived on earmarks of $1.2 billion from FY 2004 through FY 2010, and the NDAA could still enable its zombie-like subsistence if President Obama does not veto the bill, as he has threatened.

For his dogged pursuit of pork and weaseling his way around the ongoing earmark ban, CAGW names Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon its June 2011 Porker of the Month.



For more information, contact:




Leslie K. Paige
202-467-5334
media@cagw.org

[lonestar]

Rep. Edward Markey Porker of the Month

(Washington, D.C.) - Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.) its July 2011 Porker of the Month for accusing proponents of federal spending cuts of indifference toward potential victims of weather emergencies. On July 19, 2011, Rep. Markey issued a press release in which he accused House Republicans of “foolishly cutting funding for our nation’s weather and climate forecasters.” According to Rep. Markey, reducing expenditures for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – which contains the National Weather Service (NWS) – “won’t change the climate or end a heat wave, but … will lengthen the time it takes to alert our citizens about an incoming storm, or reduce our ability to give our nation’s farmers the information they need to manage their crops.” Rep. Markey added, “When a tornado or other deadly weather event is bearing down on you, minutes matter. Yet these kinds of vital capabilities don’t seem to matter to House Republicans.”

Contrary to Rep. Markey’s accusations, spending at the NOAA is greater than ever, and dramatically higher than it was just a few years ago. Its budget is slated to reach $5.5 billion in fiscal year 2012, an increase of 46 percent since 2002. And private organizations have been performing many of the functions of NOAA and NWS for decades. AccuWeather, founded in 1962, hosts more meteorologists at its headquarters than any other location in the world, and the Weather Channel, founded in 1981, provides storm tracking and forecasts for 98,000 locations around the globe. Both companies disseminate vital weather information on the Internet, television, and radio 24 hours a day.

CAGW President Tom Schatz said, “Rep. Markey, like many supporters of ever-expanding government spending, is under the impression that every federal outlay is essential. He suffers from ‘Washington Monument Syndrome,’ or ‘Mount Rushmore Syndrome,’ a common affliction among politicians who expect that cuts to any agency will immediately result in the termination of government’s most visible functions. Just as reductions to the National Park Service budget will not automatically cause Abraham Lincoln’s stone likeness in South Dakota to crumble, cuts to NOAA will not abruptly put Americans unwittingly in the path of a tornado or tsunami.

“Private organizations can and will easily pick up any slack created by lower funding for NOAA and the NWS,” added Schatz. “Weather forecasting and storm tracking would survive and thrive, and there would likely be even more competition to improve the gathering and dissemination of weather forecasts.”

For insinuating that politicians and citizens keen to prevent a fiscal disaster are guilty of apathy toward weather disaster victims, Rep. Edward Markey is CAGW’s July 2011 Porker of the Month.

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.

- ### -



For more information, contact:




Leslie K. Paige
202-467-5334
media@cagw.org

[lonestar]

Sec. Vilsack Porker of the Month

(Washington, D.C.) - Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack its August 2011 Porker of the Month for asserting that the Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the Food Stamp Program, qualifies as economic stimulus drives economic growth. In an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on August 16, 2011, Sec. Vilsack called SNAP “an economic stimulus,” explaining that “every dollar of SNAP benefits generates $1.84 in the economy in terms of economic activity.” Sec. Vilsack did not specify where he got such a precise estimate for the multiplier effects of SNAP, but it is likely that he was referring to Kenneth Hanson’s “The Food Assistance National Input-Output Multiplier (FANIOM) Model and Stimulus Effects of SNAP,” a study published in 2010 by the Department of Agriculture.

Sec. Vilsack’s claims ignited outrage from many members of the political news media and blogosphere, several of whom compared the remarks to Senate Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) July 2010 claim that unemployment insurance “creates jobs faster than almost any other initiative,” and to White House Press Secretary Jay Carney’s August 10, 2011 statement that extending unemployment benefits will create “up to a million” jobs.

“We are entering a brave new world for economics,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz. “If one takes the ludicrous analyses of prominent Democrats seriously, it is a shame that millions more Americans do not qualify for SNAP benefits. Indeed, the best course of action going forward would be to extend SNAP to all Americans, even affluent ones with huge salaries. That seems to be the administration’s pro-growth strategy.

“These statements reek of desperation,” added Schatz. “The Obama administration is presiding over an abysmal economy, staggering under persistent 9 percent plus unemployment. They have done nothing to help and plenty to make it worse. If food stamps qualify as stimulus, then literally any government expenditure can be justified as such. Sec. Vilsack’s comments are indicative of the mentality that nobody spends money more wisely than government, and that if only pesky taxpayers would get out of the way and let the government spend as it sees fit, America’s economy would be back on track. At CAGW, we maintain that private citizens spend their own money most effectively, and that the best stimulus program is a leaner government,” Schatz concluded.

For attempting to convince taxpayers that the road to prosperity is paved with food stamps, CAGW names Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack its August Porker of the Month.

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers



For more information, contact:




Leslie K. Paige
202-467-5334
media@cagw.org

[lonestar]

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) its September Porker of the Month for suggesting that the United States Postal Service (USPS) could solve its financial problems by embarking on a new ad campaign. At a September 6, 2011Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing at which Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe speculated that the USPS could be out of business by the end of the year, Sen. McCaskill stated, “I really believe that if somebody would begin to market the value of sending a written letter to someone you love, you might be surprised [by] how you could stabilize first-class mail.” She admitted that her comments were “corny, naïve and pollyanish;” the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart agreed.

While Sen. McCaskill’s solution is certainly offbeat, the House and Senate have failed to prevent the USPS from running up against its $15 billion line of credit on September 30; without congressional action, the USPS will either go bankrupt or start borrowing directly from taxpayers to pay its bills. An April 12, 2010 Government Accountability Office report stated that the USPS business model “is not viable due to USPS’s inability to reduce costs sufficiently in response to continuing mail volume and revenue declines.” The agency is projected to lose $10 billion this year after losing $8 billion in 2010. First class mail, which makes up more than half of USPS revenue, peaked in 2006, fell 20 percent over the last four years, and will continue to fall. The impending financial crisis is certainly not a surprise, and as usual, Congress is more likely to write a multi-billion dollar check from taxpayers than solve a problem.

The USPS has 600,000 employees and is the second-largest employer in America behind Wal-Mart. The USPS Office of Inspector General reported that employees were paid $21.9 million for 875,540 hours of “stand-by” time in FY 2010, and $4.3 million for 170,666 hours in the first half of FY 2011. The USPS also has a 24 percent vacancy rate in its 284 million square feet of interior office space.

The root of Congress’s failure to solve the USPS’ financial woes is demonstrated by two diametrically opposed postal reform bills. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is working to pass legislation that will protect taxpayers and steer the USPS toward solvency by eliminating Saturday delivery, changing the retirement system for future workers, and closing excess facilities. The other bill, introduced today by Committee Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), would allow the USPS to enter new lines of business with the help of a “chief innovation officer,” among other provisions.

“Freeing the agency to engage in non-postal businesses which will compete unfairly with private sector businesses is a lousy idea,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz. “Any reforms that fail to address the USPS’ command-and-control business model must be dismissed in favor of reform that scales the agency’s labor pool to meet shrinking demand and moves it toward a free market solution. Sen. McCaskill’s wistful idea of a PR campaign is indicative of how out of touch Congress is with the condition of USPS’s finances.”

For dreaming up silly letter-writing commercials while the USPS careens toward insolvency, Sen. Claire McCaskill is CAGW’s September Porker of the Month.

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.

###

For more information, contact: Leslie K. Paige
202-467-5334
media@cagw.org

[UltimateHoboW/Shotgun]

We really need to get rid of every Dem and Rino out of there, now!

[W*GS]

Contrary to Rep. Markey’s accusations, spending at the NOAA is greater than ever, and dramatically higher than it was just a few years ago. Its budget is slated to reach $5.5 billion in fiscal year 2012, an increase of 46 percent since 2002.

Why? Can you tell us?

And private organizations have been performing many of the functions of NOAA and NWS for decades.

No, they haven't.

The NWS collects, quality-controls, and disseminates the data that private companies then value-add and then sell to their buyers. Without that NWS data, and without NOAA satellites (hint, hint) the private forecasters and weather companies would be up **** creek.

[...]cuts to NOAA will not abruptly put Americans unwittingly in the path of a tornado or tsunami.

Uh, yes, they will.

“Private organizations can and will easily pick up any slack created by lower funding for NOAA and the NWS,” added Schatz. “Weather forecasting and storm tracking would survive and thrive, and there would likely be even more competition to improve the gathering and dissemination of weather forecasts.”

Pure articles of faith.

When will Accuweather and/or TWC start setting up monitoring networks and launching satellite observing systems? Neither company has remotely enough cash to launch a single dinky satellite, much less the sophisticated and utterly vital set of NOAA satellites.

What do you think the cost of an unobserved and undetected Cat 5 hurricane smashing into the East Coast would be? CAGW would have us return to the level of knowledge about the weather that we had at the time the Cat 4 hurricane hit Galveston in 1900. 8,000 people died, and they had no clue that it was coming. It also cost nearly $100 billion damages in 2005 dollars. Now that's expensive.

[lonestar]

We really need to get rid of every Dem and Rino out of there, now!

Term limits would be great but these morons are not stupid enough to vote themselves out of a plush job..

[lonestar]

Why? Can you tell us?



No, they haven't.

The NWS collects, quality-controls, and disseminates the data that private companies then value-add and then sell to their buyers. Without that NWS data, and without NOAA satellites (hint, hint) the private forecasters and weather companies would be up **** creek.



Uh, yes, they will.



Pure articles of faith.

When will Accuweather and/or TWC start setting up monitoring networks and launching satellite observing systems? Neither company has remotely enough cash to launch a single dinky satellite, much less the sophisticated and utterly vital set of NOAA satellites.

What do you think the cost of an unobserved and undetected Cat 5 hurricane smashing into the East Coast would be? CAGW would have us return to the level of knowledge about the weather that we had at the time the Cat 4 hurricane hit Galveston in 1900. 8,000 people died, and they had no clue that it was coming. It also cost nearly $100 billion damages in 2005 dollars. Now that's expensive.


Frankly I did not publish the articl merely brought it to your attention..

There is a contact on each of those posts if you want to debate them..


For more information, contact: Leslie K. Paige
202-467-5334
media@cagw.org

I have been remiss the past year, in keeping up with the goings on with politics.

Been remodeling a 50 year old house since JAN a total re-do and when not watching a contractor or work crew I've been doing some of it myself..

been to busy to spend much time doing much of anything..so I sleep well at night..

will wait till about a year from now to start making decision on which moron gets my vote..

Not that it counts anymore, with all the acorn and associated voting fraud especially where I live my vote is virtually worth less.

[Spider]

Frankly I did not publish the articl merely brought it to your attention..

There is a contact on each of those posts if you want to debate them..


For more information, contact: Leslie K. Paige
202-467-5334
media@cagw.org

I have been remiss the past year, in keeping up with the goings on with politics.

Been remodeling a 50 year old house since JAN a total re-do and when not watching a contractor or work crew I've been doing some of it myself..

been to busy to spend much time doing much of anything..so I sleep well at night..

will wait till about a year from now to start making decision on which moron gets my vote..

Not that it counts anymore, with all the acorn and associated voting fraud especially where I live my vote is virtually worth less.

Just saying a few years back NOAA saved a bunch of lives near oakley Kansas , highway patrol got the people off the interstate ........ Not sure what happened in Holly Colorado , but the people had warning .....
weather is nothing to toy with I have been in 2 flash floods , more blizzards then I can remember ,strong winds etc .......

[cutthemdown]

Ok I didn't read them all but sometimes those pork add ons make sense. They one for deepening a port etc. I can see where the feds could say by using tax money to make a port more modern, it helps the whole country. For the arts though i think it is a joke. Time to tighten the belts, if its worth seeing, as far as art goes, people will pay for it or a rich person will donate.

[Rohirrim]

Ok I didn't read them all but sometimes those pork add ons make sense. They one for deepening a port etc. I can see where the feds could say by using tax money to make a port more modern, it helps the whole country. For the arts though i think it is a joke. Time to tighten the belts, if its worth seeing, as far as art goes, people will pay for it or a rich person will donate.

I don't believe in that at all. Art, and the institutions of art, are vital to a society. They proclaim to their children that their culture is important, that their people are a people of art and refinement, that they are worth more than just the money collected in their counting houses. You want to live in a Scrooge-world without art, music, theater, museums, etc? You're giving the Scrooge argument - if somebody wants it, let them pay for it.

Intrinsically, people know this. Else, why would the Golden Gate Bridge look the way it does? Why not just make a flat steel bridge with no extras? The only point to it is to move freight across more cheaply. Why not build it as cheaply as possible? Or how about the Chrysler Building? It doesn't need that art-deco bull****. Just build a big box where people can go to work in cubicles.

Yeah. **** art. Let our children grow up in a world without art, music, architecture, theater, et al. They'll be better for it. Like Orwell pointed out, if the only point to your existence is to serve the interests of your overseers, why do you require the trappings of individuality?

[lonestar]

CAGW Names Rep. Rosa DeLauro October Porker of the Month

(Washington, D.C.) - Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn.) its October Pooper – er, Porker of the Month for proposing the putrid Diaper Investment and Aid to Promote Economic Recovery Act (DIAPER). The bill would amend the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 1990 to include diapers among the items that may be purchased with the grants. When the nation is already swaddled in $14.9 trillion of debt, creating a new diaper distribution program is a fetid idea.

Rep. DeLauro certainly qualifies as the diaper diva of Capitol Hill. On October 7, 2011, in an attempt to elevate diapers to a level of national significance that they clearly do not deserve, Rep. DeLauro issued a press release stating that “No family should have to choose between buying diapers for their child or buying groceries.” Rep. DeLauro added that she “applaud[s] the work of Joanne Goldblum, who has been operating a Diaper Bank in Connecticut for years now, and whose good work has served as the inspiration for this legislation.”

However, Ms. Goldblum and her diaper bank have done more than just inspire. In the fiscal year 2009 Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations Act, Rep. DeLauro disposed of $133,000 in taxpayer money with an earmark to the diaper bank.

“DIAPER leaves no doubt that the U.S. is moving ever closer to becoming a ‘Nanny State,’” said CAGW President Tom Schatz. “It is another example of the mission creep within federal programs that gives taxpayers a bad rash. Even as the Joint Special Committee on Deficit Reduction is holding hearings on how to cut $1.2 trillion from this bloated federal budget and wrangle some control over spiraling government spending, members like Rep. DeLauro are still trying to load on more spending and more debt. On behalf of taxpayers, we think this bill is, well…just offal. It should be left on the congressional compost heap.”

For discharging a bill that needlessly dumps on taxpayers, Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro is CAGW’s October Porker of the Month.

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.



For more information, contact:



Leslie K. Paige
202-467-5334
media@cagw.org

[W*GS]

I already smacked around one of these PR pieces from CAGW; that they got it so wrong in that instance makes me very dubious about the credibility in all instances.

Besides, where do you get off posting inane PR pieces here?

You're just a spammer.

[Requiem]

I already smacked around one of these PR pieces from CAGW; that they got it so wrong in that instance makes me very dubious about the credibility in all instances.

Besides, where do you get off posting inane PR pieces here?

You're just a spammer.

His journey is a long one, but lets sum it up like this: he hasn't been liked anywhere he has posted on either stances re: Broncos or politics.

:curtsey:

[UltimateHoboW/Shotgun]

I already smacked around one of these PR pieces from CAGW; that they got it so wrong in that instance makes me very dubious about the credibility in all instances.

Besides, where do you get off posting inane PR pieces here?

You're just a spammer.

says the other spammer on the board. LOL

[W*GS]

says the other spammer on the board. LOL

How have I spammed?

Put up or STFU.

[cutthemdown]

I don't believe in that at all. Art, and the institutions of art, are vital to a society. They proclaim to their children that their culture is important, that their people are a people of art and refinement, that they are worth more than just the money collected in their counting houses. You want to live in a Scrooge-world without art, music, theater, museums, etc? You're giving the Scrooge argument - if somebody wants it, let them pay for it.

Intrinsically, people know this. Else, why would the Golden Gate Bridge look the way it does? Why not just make a flat steel bridge with no extras? The only point to it is to move freight across more cheaply. Why not build it as cheaply as possible? Or how about the Chrysler Building? It doesn't need that art-deco bull****. Just build a big box where people can go to work in cubicles.

Yeah. **** art. Let our children grow up in a world without art, music, architecture, theater, et al. They'll be better for it. Like Orwell pointed out, if the only point to your existence is to serve the interests of your overseers, why do you require the trappings of individuality?

LOL I am a musician I love art and music. I just don't think the federal govt needs to worry about promoting culture and music. That stuff does fine on its own because humans have a built in desire to create art and music. Money for school to teach it yes, money for it to be performed? no, if it cant make money that means no one wants to pay for it because its not good enough art. If people in a state want to vote, for the state to use tax money to support the arts, then yes I am all for it.

Just open your eyes and try and understand. It's not about not liking something, or not believing something has value, it's whether or not the federal govt should be funding it. Why can't you get that?

[DomCasual]

I already smacked around one of these PR pieces from CAGW; that they got it so wrong in that instance makes me very dubious about the credibility in all instances.

Besides, where do you get off posting inane PR pieces here?

You're just a spammer.

I'm not sure I see what's wrong with him posting this stuff. I don't doubt some of it is not properly researched. But most people with a little intelligence can read through it, and see if it passes the sniff test. There are certainly members of Congress on both sides of the spectrum that shamelessly abuse the process. I'm glad someone is trying to call them on it.

[lonestar]

I'm not sure I see what's wrong with him posting this stuff. I don't doubt some of it is not properly researched. But most people with a little intelligence can read through it, and see if it passes the sniff test. There are certainly members of Congress on both sides of the spectrum that shamelessly abuse the process. I'm glad someone is trying to call them on it.

FOr those that blindly allow congress to call the shots on their pet projects, I guess you'd call them uber liberals that want government to do every thing for them cradle to grave..

I want the pork stopped regardless of who is supporting it..

if one would take the time to go back and look at the site they would see it is an Equal Opportunity Blaster PORK IS PORK whether it be from the right or the left..

I'm kind of believer that light shed on something tends to disinfect it..

as for dream/requeim/ one any of the other 4-5 logons you have used I could care less about how you feel and the constant commentary about who does or does not like my posts just shows how little person you really are.

Petty punk ass kisser trying to curry favor with the BIGGIES on teh forum..

Really thought I'd give you another chance to see if you grew up but appears your still a weak kneed mommas boy..

[lonestar]

LOL I am a musician I love art and music. I just don't think the federal govt needs to worry about promoting culture and music. That stuff does fine on its own because humans have a built-in desire to create art and music. Money for school to teach it yes, money for it to be performed? no, if it can't make money that means no one wants to pay for it because its not good enough art. If people in a state want to vote, for the state to use tax money to support the arts, then yes I am all for it.

Just open your eyes and try to understand. It's not about not liking something, or not believing something has value, it's whether or not the federal govt should be funding it. Why can't you get that?

I agree 100% although I do not believe that even state or Local governments need to promote it with tax dollars..

There are plenty of foundations, corporations and the rich that get tax breaks for doing so..

I personally do not want a dime spent on much more than, protecting our borders, maintaining a standing army and printing money. Those were pretty much the original mandates of the federal government..

As for spending money on schools that is a state city issue..

paying for AMtrak, postal service etc a waste of money..

[W*GS]

The problem is that what CAGW labels as "pork" isn't always correct.

The PR piece on NOAA is an example.

CAGW defines "pork" as "any program we don't like", which is BS.

[DomCasual]

The problem is that what CAGW labels as "pork" isn't always correct.

The PR piece on NOAA is an example.

CAGW defines "pork" as "any program we don't like", which is BS.

Sure, that's probably true. But they seem to be right more often than not. And honestly, I would rather have someone highlighting these types of things - even if there is some degree of personal bias in them.

Take the one you responded to. When I read that, knowing nothing about anything related to it, the first thing I thought was, "Surely, companies like The Weather Channel and AccuWeather uses NWS satellites for a lot of the information they provide." So, the information didn't pass the "sniff test."

On the other hand, the average citizen probably would never hear about some of these other items, like cowboy poetry and diaper banks. There is nothing wrong with bringing those up, letting the members of Congress know that someone is paying attention, and letting them defend their pet projects to their constituents.

I would hope that every time one of these is highlighted, the staff of the Congressman in question gets calls, letters, and emails from people in his state or district. If the project is legitimate, it will be easily defended. If it isn't, or the Congressman just blows off the questions about it, then I would hope people would show their dissatisfaction when they vote.

[DenverBrit]

Is this thread an example of 'Pork', or its cousin, Spam!?

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/JYtE_eUeMw4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[DomCasual]

Is this thread an example of 'Pork', or its cousin, Spam!?

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/JYtE_eUeMw4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Your mom is spam.

:D

[lonestar]

Sure, that's probably true. But they seem to be right more often than not. And honestly, I would rather have someone highlighting these types of things - even if there is some degree of personal bias in them.

Take the one you responded to. When I read that, knowing nothing about anything related to it, the first thing I thought was, "Surely, companies like The Weather Channel and AccuWeather uses NWS satellites for a lot of the information they provide." So, the information didn't pass the "sniff test."

On the other hand, the average citizen probably would never hear about some of these other items, like cowboy poetry and diaper banks. There is nothing wrong with bringing those up, letting the members of Congress know that someone is paying attention, and letting them defend their pet projects to their constituents.

I would hope that every time one of these is highlighted, the staff of the Congressman in question gets calls, letters, and emails from people in his state or district. If the project is legitimate, it will be easily defended. If it isn't, or the Congressman just blows off the questions about it, then I would hope people would show their dissatisfaction when they vote.



Funny you mentioned that, My Older brother just published his own book of Cowboy Poetry and did not get a dime from Uncle Sam to do so..

He did so because he wanted to do it.. Not because some one would subsidize it..

[snowspot66]

LOL I am a musician I love art and music. I just don't think the federal govt needs to worry about promoting culture and music. That stuff does fine on its own because humans have a built in desire to create art and music. Money for school to teach it yes, money for it to be performed? no, if it cant make money that means no one wants to pay for it because its not good enough art. If people in a state want to vote, for the state to use tax money to support the arts, then yes I am all for it.

Just open your eyes and try and understand. It's not about not liking something, or not believing something has value, it's whether or not the federal govt should be funding it. Why can't you get that?

I don't agree with that at all. The problem is people don't understand art and what it contributes and therefore don't value it properly. For example where I live the graphic design is completely atrocious. Nobody knows what good design is and they have no intention of shelling out the money necessary to get good design. They have no concept of what art can actually do to help a business sell its product. Everybody thinks their nephew and his cracked copy of Photoshop can do it just as well.

If you cut the funding for art you cut the exposure for art. You reduce the general public's understanding of art even further and make it even more inaccessible.

I should also make clear I'm not saying it shouldn't be immune to budget considerations in times like these. But eliminating all funding would be a huge mistake.

[Bronx33]

wags pretending like hes refuting anything in this thread Hilarious!

[Bronx33]

Sure, that's probably true. But they seem to be right more often than not. And honestly, I would rather have someone highlighting these types of things - even if there is some degree of personal bias in them.

Take the one you responded to. When I read that, knowing nothing about anything related to it, the first thing I thought was, "Surely, companies like The Weather Channel and AccuWeather uses NWS satellites for a lot of the information they provide." So, the information didn't pass the "sniff test."

On the other hand, the average citizen probably would never hear about some of these other items, like cowboy poetry and diaper banks. There is nothing wrong with bringing those up, letting the members of Congress know that someone is paying attention, and letting them defend their pet projects to their constituents.

I would hope that every time one of these is highlighted, the staff of the Congressman in question gets calls, letters, and emails from people in his state or district. If the project is legitimate, it will be easily defended. If it isn't, or the Congressman just blows off the questions about it, then I would hope people would show their dissatisfaction when they vote.


Well put but as we all know wags thinks his work in boulder is beyond questions from simpletons such as you and i ( or anybody) simply stfu and pay the bill and accept whatever we say without question.

[W*GS]

Well put but as we all know wags thinks his work in boulder is beyond questions from simpletons such as you and i ( or anybody) simply stfu and pay the bill and accept whatever we say without question.

If you ever have a good question or valid point, I'll let you know.

Up until now, you've done nothing but parrot denier nonsense.

[Bronx33]

If you ever have a good question or valid point, I'll let you know.

Up until now, you've done nothing but parrot denier nonsense.


Well you never disappoint do you.

[Bronx33]

Whats funny is 60 years from now ( when they really figure stuff out) you just might be laughed at just like 16th century doctors are now but hey we will be dead ( so who cares) so wags you either look like a fool in history or you dont (cool huh)

[W*GS]

Whats funny is 60 years from now ( when they really figure stuff out) you just might be laughed at just like 16th century doctors are now but hey we will be dead ( so who cares) so wags you either look like a fool in history or you dont (cool huh)

Thanks for providing the "**** the future" viewpoint.

[lonestar]

CAGW Names Sec. Chu Porker of the Month

(Washington, D.C.) – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today named Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Steven Chu its November Porker of the Month. Chu’s weak oversight of DOE’s loan guarantee program (LGP) resulted in huge losses to taxpayers when solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, the recipient of a $535 million loan guarantee, filed for bankruptcy in September. Now, the Department of Labor (DOL) has announced that Solyndra’s former employees qualify for federal aid packages worth $13,000 each under DOL’s Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program, which compensates and retrains American workers who can prove that their jobs were lost as a result of foreign competition. The TAA benefits far exceed normal unemployment benefits. The DOL granted Solyndra’s employees TAA by accepting the company’s claim that it went belly up as a result of unfair competition by Chinese solar panel manufacturers, rather than from mismanagement by company executives.

Solyndra was granted the $535 million loan through a green energy technology section of the LGP, which received a massive increase in funding on the 2009 stimulus package. The LGP program itself has been the subject of three Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports since its inception, all detailing its management weaknesses, arbitrary selection process, and vulnerabilities to manipulation and politicization.

Unfortunately, Solyndra was not Sec. Chu and DOE’s only ill-fated LGP recipient. Beacon Power and Evergreen, Inc., both of Massachusetts, along with SpectraWatt of Oregon, filed for bankruptcy after receiving DOE loan guarantees. A July, 2010 GAO report concluded that the LGP lacked clear goals and failed to hold all applicants to the same standards. GAO said that the LGP “has treated applicants inconsistently, favoring some and disadvantaging others,” and that “some applicants … receive conditional commitments before incurring expenses that other applicants had to pay. It is unclear how DOE could have sufficient information to negotiate conditional commitments without such reviews.”

“Sec. Chu and his colleagues dismissed numerous warning signs that the LGP was a ticking time bomb,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz. “The dramatic program expansion in 2009 and the continued funneling of taxpayer dollars toward poor investments reeks of poor management and crony capitalism, since Solyndra’s major investors were among the President’s largest campaign donors. Energy officials interfered in the business and financial operations of the company; they pushed to have news of the Solyndra’s layoffs and escalating financial woes delayed until the day after the elections of 2010, which only amplifies the stench. Solyndra’s bankruptcy is another example of the waste that results when government officials try to dabble in the markets with the public’s money, and it casts a very unflattering light on all federal loan guarantees, along with all 2009 stimulus spending package itself. If this is the Obama administration’s idea of how America can ‘invest’ in its economic recovery, taxpayers would much rather keep the money and do it themselves.”

For trying to pick winners and losers in a volatile sector, for acting as if winning a Nobel Prize in physics also magically confers the title of venture capitalist, and for frittering away taxpayers’ hard-earned money, DOE Sec. Steven Chu is CAGW’s November 2011 Porker of the Month.

CAGW is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers. ???


- ### -
http://www.cagw.org/newsroom/releases/2011/cagw-names-sec-chu-porker-of-the-month_nr.html

[lonestar]

((Washington, D.C.) - Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named National Park Service (NPS) Director Jonathan Jarvis its December 2011 Porker of the Month for continuing to coddle the Occupy Wall Street protesters in Washington, D.C. at the same time the NPS has a $10 million backlog of unmet maintenance needs. District of Columbia Mayor Vincent Gray has estimated that the additional police and sanitation efforts imposed by the protesters have cost the city $1.6 million since October, an amount that he has justifiably requested be reimbursed by the federal government. As other cities close down the occupier camps, people are flocking to the nation’s capital, where they have been welcome by the NPS with both open arms and open taxpayer checkbooks.

The protesters arrived in D.C. on October 1 and have since been sleeping overnight in tents and preparing meals in the parks, despite federal regulations that permit camping only in areas designated by the NPS. No such provision has been granted for any park in D.C. Mayor Gray told NBC Channel 4 that while the city sets aside money each year to handle protests, it does not have “this kind of money.” He added that the protesters have the right “to exercise their First Amendment right,” but that he would not “tolerate the breaking of the law.” The mayor’s concerns have been echoed by House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who wrote a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on December 12, 2011, asking why protesters have been allowed to damage McPherson Square’s $400,000 in stimulus-funded rehabilitations, including new grass, light poles, trash cans and paint. “While the merits of this stimulus funding are debatable,” wrote Chairman Issa, “we can all agree that once the federal government had invested the funds, no government agency should have allowed it to be damaged or destroyed.” D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier has noted that the occupiers’ activities have become increasingly provocative, which requires greater use of scarce police resources. At least 70 people have been arrested in D.C. for drug use, public urination and other nuisances. The Greater Washington Board of Trade went on record saying that the lengthy presence of congested and unsightly tent cities has adversely impacted tourism in the nation’s capital.

A December 17, 2011 Washington Post story addressed growing tensions between the protestors and District officials, who were not consulted by NPS officials when the permits were granted for the months-long protests. Costs of cleanup in other cities have reached into the multi-millions of dollars. In Denver, Philadelphia, Oakland, New York City, and San Francisco, public officials have removed the occupiers for reasons that include public safety concerns and the diversion of scant police resources to deal with the camps.

For turning public parks in Washington, D.C. into magnets for occupiers from all over the country, flouting long-standing rules regarding overnight camping, putting all taxpayers at risk for costly lawsuits and millions of dollars in cleanup costs, while repeatedly complaining about the $10 million backlog of unmet NPS maintenance needs, CAGW names NPS Director Jonathan Jarvis its December, 2011 Porker of the Month.

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.

For more information, contact: Leslie K. Paige
202-467-5334
media@cagw.org

http://www.cagw.org/newsroom/releases/2011/cagw-names-park-service-1.html

[lonestar]

CAGW Names Chairman Conrad Porker of the Month

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, in commemoration/lamentation of the 1,000th day since the United States Senate Budget Committee last performed its most significant task, which is to pass a budget resolution, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) its January Porker of the Month. The last time the Senate approved a budget was April 29, 2009. The House has voted in favor of two budget resolutions during the past two years.

“Today marks an important milestone in fiscal ineptitude and mindless brinksmanship,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz. “When the Senate last passed a budget, the national debt was an already appalling $11.15 trillion. In 2011, House Republicans drafted and passed a budget plan that would dramatically reduce America’s deficit and debt. The only Senate actions on budget resolutions last year were to vote 97-0 against President Obama’s fiscal year (FY) 2012 budget and 40-57 against House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (D-Wis.) Roadmap for America’s Future.

“Since April 2009, the budget deficit has exceeded $1 trillion for three straight years, and the national debt has climbed by more than $4 trillion to $15.27 trillion,” added Schatz. “Chairman Conrad’s bewildering reputation as a budget hawk makes his legislative catatonia all the more frustrating.”

The lack of activity by Chairman Conrad has not gone unnoticed. In June 2011, Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-N.Y.) introduced the “Just Do Your Job” Act, which would prohibit further transfer of funds to the House or Senate Budget Committees and the corresponding Office of the Majority Leader if that body of Congress failed to approve a budget resolution for FY 2012. As Rep. Buerkle pointed out at the time, “Even the Libyan government, in the middle of a civil war, passed a budget on June 15, 2011.”

However, Chairman Conrad and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) have made it clear that their decision to not enact a budget resolution is conscious, unified, and partisan. In a May 23, 2011 article in The Washington Examiner, Majority Leader Reid said, “There’s no need to have a Democratic budget, in my opinion. It would be foolish for us to do a budget at this stage.” The Examiner article also noted Chairman Conrad’s intent to “defer” work on the fiscal year (FY) 2012 budget indefinitely.

Consequently, for being the Kim Kardashian of the Senate budget entourage and cashing a hefty paycheck for doing nothing in the last 1,000 days, CAGW names Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad its January 2012 Porker of the Month.

CAGW is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.

http://www.cagw.org/newsroom/releases/2012/cagw-names-chairman-conrad.html

[lonestar]

Today, Citizens Against Government Waste named Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) its February 2012 Porker of the Month for calling President Obama’s fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget, which projects deficits above $500 billion each year through FY 2022, “a nervous breakdown on paper” that prematurely “turn[s] off the spigot completely.” On February 13, while appearing on CNN’s “Starting Point,” Rep. Cleaver declared, “We’re still in a recession, we’re still struggling. Unemployment is still too high … so, for the federal government to turn the spigot off completely, I think is to push the nation into a deeper economy (sic).”

Rep. Cleaver’s statement is completely disassociated with reality. Despite the histrionic wailings of many serial spenders, President Obama’s budget falls far short of austerity. On the contrary, his FY 2013 budget proposal confirms that the President will break his 2009 promise to “cut the deficit we inherited by half” by the end of his first term in office, since the federal deficit is projected to total $1.3 trillion at the end of FY 2012. In fact, the President’s budget signifies that he has dropped any façade of cutting or reducing spending, the deficit, or the national debt. By the Obama administration’s own calculations, the deficit will not fall below $575 billion in the coming decade and will begin climbing again by FY 2022. Spending will increase by $47 trillion over the next 10 years, a jump of 62 percent from FY 2011 to FY 2022.

By the end of his first term in office, the national debt will have risen by $6.4 trillion. It took the country 227 years, from 1776 to 2002, to reach $6.2 trillion in debt. The budget would add another $11 trillion to the debt by 2022, at which time interest payments on the debt would reach $1 trillion annually.

“Rep. Cleaver is right about one thing; President Obama’s budget is ‘a nervous breakdown on paper,’” said CAGW President Tom Schatz, “because it is a complete breakdown of fiscal responsibility. Rep. Cleaver’s comments that the reputed cuts are ‘draconian’ are indicative of the chronic denial of fiscal realities among some members of Congress and their inability or unwillingness to exert control over their spending mania.

“Despite the petering out of 2009 stimulus funds, which were pedaled as utterly essential to job growth, the economy sputters and unemployment lingers at record highs. And yet, if the President’s budget were enacted, real deficit reduction would not begin until FY 2018, two years after he has left office. The deficit would still be $704 billion in FY 2022 and gross federal debt will have climbed to $25.9 trillion. On behalf of taxpayers, we at CAGW would like to suggest that Rep. Cleaver and his congressional allies could use a good round of reality-based, behavior modification therapy.”

For comments that border on delusional and claiming that President Obama’s debt-expanding, spending-heavy 2103 budget proposal amounts to turning off the spending spigot and killing America’s economic recovery, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver is CAGW’s February 2012 Porker of the Month.

CAGW is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.

For more information, contact: Leslie K. Paige
202-467-5334
media@cagw.org

http://www.cagw.org/newsroom/releases/2012/

[lonestar]

read and weep

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Ayn Rand Worshippers Should Face Facts: Blue States Are the Providers, Red States Are the Parasites


There's only one way to demonstrate who America's producers and parasites really are. It's time to go Galt.
February 29, 2012

http://images.alternet.org/images/managed/storyimages_1330494739_shutterstock1750391.jpg_640 x426_310x220
Last week, the New York Times published a widely discussed article (http://%20http//www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/us/even-critics-of-safety-net-increasingly-depend-on-it.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all) updating an argument that progressive bloggers noticed a very long time ago. It's now well-understood that blue states generally export money to the federal government; and red states generally import it.

TPM published a great map showing exactly how this redistribution works:
<center>

http://www.alternet.org/images/managed/storyimages_1330391586_givetakesmallfinal.png (http://www.alternet.org/images/managed/storyimages_1330391586_givetakesmallfinal.png)

(click for larger version) (http://www.alternet.org/images/managed/storyimages_1330391586_givetakesmallfinal.png)

</center> Progressives believe in the redistribution of wealth, so we're not usually too upset by this state of affairs. That’s what it means to be one country. E pluribus unum, and all that. We’re happy to help, because we think we’ve got a stake in making sure kids in rural Alabama get educations and seniors in Arizona get healthcare. What’s good for them is good for all of us. We also like to think they’d help us out if our positions were reversed. It’s an investment in making America stronger, and we feel fine about that.
But maybe it's time to admit that we're being played for chumps, and that there are people in the rest of the country who are taking way too much advantage of our good nature. After all: it's now a stone fact that the blue states and cities are the country's real wealth creators. That's why we pay more taxes, and are able to send that money to the red states in the first place. We're working our butts off, being economically productive, going to college (http://chronicle.com/article/Interactive-Map-Proportion-of/65009/), raising good kids, supporting reality-based schools, keeping our marriages together, tending to our busy and diverse cities, and generally Playing By The Rules. And the fates have smiled on us in rough proportion to the degree that we’ve invested in our own common good.

So we've got every right to get good and angry about the fact that, by and large, the people who are getting our money are so damned ungrateful -- not to mention so ridiculously eager to spend it on stuff we don't approve of. We didn't ship them our hard-earned tax dollars to see them squandered on worse-than-useless abstinence-only education, textbooks that teach creationism, crisis-pregnancy misinformation centers, subsidies for GMO crops and oil companies, and so on. And we sure as hell didn't expect to be rewarded for our productivity and generosity with a rising tide of spittle-flecked insanity about how we’re just a bunch of immoral, godless, drug-soaked, sex-crazed, evil America-hating traitors who can’t wait to hand the country over to the Islamists and the Communists.

Ironically, the conservative movement's favorite philosopher had some very insightful things to say about this exact situation. Ayn Rand's novels divided the world into two groups. On one hand, she lionized "producers" -- noble, intelligent Übermenschen whose faith in their own ideas and willingness to take risks to achieve their dreams drives everything else in society. And she called out the evil of "parasites," the dull, unimaginative masses who attach themselves to producers and drain away their resources and thwart their dreams.
Conservatives love this story. They're eager to claim the gleaming mantle of the producers, insisting loudly that their tax money is going to support people (mostly in blue states and cities, it's darkly implied) who won't or can't work as hard as they do. If you want to arouse their class and race resentments, there are few narratives that can get them rolling like this producers-versus-parasites tale.
But the NYT story and that map up there prove beyond arguing that the conservative interpretation of events is 100 percent, 180-degrees, flat-out wrong. America's real producer class is overwhelmingly concentrated in the blue cities and states -- the regions full of smart, talented people who've harnessed technology and intellect to money, and made these regions the best, most forward-looking places in the country to live.

Continues: http://www.alternet.org/visions/154338/ayn_rand_worshippers_should_face_facts:_blue_state s_are_the_providers,_red_states_are_the_parasites/

[lonestar]

CAGW Names Senator Stabenow Porker of the Month

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, and in recognition of the potfuls of taxpayer gold that have been squandered on subsidizing ill-advised green energy programs, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) its March 2012 Porker of the Month.

Sen. Stabenow was chosen for submitting amendment #1812 to S. 1813, the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act, which would have extended federal subsidies for green energy, including alternative fueling stations, biofuels, refined coal, energy-efficient appliances, and wind power, among others. Many of the initiatives singled out for continued subsidies in Sen. Stabenow’s amendment, such as the Treasury Department’s 1603 grants, the Renewable Energy Production Tax Credit, and the tax credit for Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling, were expanded or begun as part of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (stimulus).

Fortunately, the amendment was defeated on March 13 when it garnered just 49 votes in its favor, 11 short of the 60 it required. Taxpayers need look no further than Advanced Ethanol Council Executive Director Brooke Coleman’s reaction to the amendment’s failure to know that it was a win for their wallets; he claimed that lawmakers “missed an opportunity” by failing to extend the Cellulosic Biofuels Producer Tax Credit, which eases the way for America’s expensive ethanol program.

Sen. Stabenow’s amendment exemplifies the public policy fallacy gripping the Obama administration and many lawmakers, which holds that the key to unlocking a green energy surge is simply more taxpayer money. But as Washington Post columnist Charles Lane put it in his March 5, 2012 column, “Advocates insist that the government should help them crank up mass production of electric vehicles. Once economies of scale kick in, they argue, electric vehicles can compete…Four decades after the 1973 oil crisis, this logic is wearing thin. Any company that figured out how to build a practical mass-market electric car would be swimming in cash. That no one has done so suggests we are bumping up against the limits of nature, not just politics or economics.”

“When the stimulus originally passed, one of the biggest concerns, beyond its exorbitant initial cost, was that supposedly temporary programs would become permanent and waste taxpayer dollars in perpetuity,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz. “Sen. Stabenow has demonstrated that those fears were not unfounded. The past six months have been marred by examples of the futility of picking winners in energy markets, which already have access to private capital. Failures at Solyndra, Ener1, Beacon, Tesla, Amonix, Evergreen Solar, SpectraWatt, SunPower, and others make it obvious that the government has about as much chance of stumbling across a four-leaf clover as it does of being successful as a venture capitalist,” added Schatz. “Not only should these programs not be extended, they should be terminated.”

For attempting to compound the federal government’s costly foray into green energy investment, and doing her best to bury taxpayer greenbacks at the end of the rainbow, Senator Debbie Stabenow is CAGW’s March 2012 Porker of the Month.

CAGW is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.




For more information, contact:




Leslie K. Paige
202-467-5334
media@cagw.org

http://www.cagw.org/newsroom/porker-of-the-month/

[orinjkrush]

if we could just get Congress, both H and S, to fund strategically and not tactically we would be so much better off. what i mean is that budgets should be restricted to Federal Agency level. No further down. (not based on each and every program/ project) So Congress would apportion the budget like:

DoD: 15%
HHS: 25%
DoE: 10%
DoT: 12%
and so on.

And then the Executive branch can manage from that point on, with the proviso that monies could NOT be transferred between Agencies.

instead of 535 + Captains of the Ship of State, there would be one: the administration.

accountability would go up; strategic use of resources would go up; pork would go down;

(assuming under the table deals were monitored and out-ed)

[lonestar]

if we could just get Congress, both H and S, to fund strategically and not tactically we would be so much better off. what i mean is that budgets should be restricted to Federal Agency level. No further down. (not based on each and every program/ project) So Congress would apportion the budget like:

DoD: 15%
HHS: 25%
DoE: 10%
DoT: 12%
and so on.

And then the Executive branch can manage from that point on, with the proviso that monies could NOT be transferred between Agencies.

instead of 535 + Captains of the Ship of State, there would be one: the administration.

accountability would go up; strategic use of resources would go up; pork would go down;

(assuming under the table deals were monitored and out-ed)

I'd perfer to give the President line item veto.

then HE would be responsible for any crap that gets spent..

UNlee ss the congress over rode the veto then they would be.

We would spend a hell of a lot less money and many of congress would be voted out because they were not bringing home the pork..

which would keep it fresher in congress ..

Then there is term limits but that is even less likely to happen..