Sen. Coburn: “The Most Egregious Ways Taxpayers’ Money is Being Squandered”
Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) released his annual report on government waste almost two weeks ago. The report titled “Wastebook 2012” 100 of the mostegeregious was in which taxpayers’ money is squandered by the federal government.
Among the items Coburn mentions in his report are the following:
Coburn also included the $325,000 contributed to the construction of robotic squirrels to observe their interaction with rattlesnakes and described it as “When robot squirrels attack.”
“The Highway Trust Fund, which has been bailed out several times over the last five years, is a good example, as billions of dollars intended for transportation are wasted on questionable projects that do little to fix congestion or other transportation problems. An unused Ohio bridge – not even connected to a road or trail – received a half-a-million dollar makeover this year,” says Coburn. “An Oregon town will pay $388,000 for just five bus stops – enough to buy two houses in the same town! And in West Virginia, thousands of dollars were spent to reconstruct a historic streetscape…out of Legos. Would the dollars spent on these transportation projects not have been better spent to fix some of the 22,158 deficient bridges plaguing our national highway system?”Coburn concludes his report, “These and the other examples of mismanagement, wasteful spending and special interest deals highlighted in this report represent missed opportunities to assist those in need and to shore up the nation’s finances….As you look at these examples, put your personal political persuasion aside and ask yourself: Would you agree with Washington that these represent national priorities, or would you conclude these reflect the out-of-touch and out-of-control spending threatening to bankrupt our nation’s future?”
No doubt our founders had the same mindset as Coburn. George Washington said, “No pecuniary consideration is more urgent than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt.”
Thomas Jefferson warned against indebtedness saying, “The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
Even later on in our history, a president I consider the one that completely did away with our Constitution, Abraham Lincoln stated, “You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.”
My friends, if the federal government is so blindly wasteful with our money, what do they actually think of us? Do they even care enough to do the moral and right thing and stop wasteful spending? It doesn’t seem that they do.
http://freedomoutpost.com/2012/11/the-most-egregious-ways-taxpayers-money-is-being-squandered/
Obama Lost the Battle of Benghazi
Hollywood, according to the New York Times
is trying to really embellish President's Obama role in the SEAL raid
that killed Osama bin Laden "Thanks to the magic of editing, President
Obama will have a starring role in a television drama about one of his
biggest accomplishments - the killing of Osama bin Laden - that will be
shown just two nights before the presidential election."
It is very simple to understand; they attacked -- we left -- they stayed -- we lost -- his fault.
It was not a military failure, nor an Intelligence Community failure, it was a strategic failure of judgement and political will at the presidential level assisted by his National Security team--everything else is second order.
The Battle of Benghazi was both a tactical and strategic loss personally for President Obama. Voters can reflect on the Hollywood portrayal of President Obama saying simply "go" but now they have an another real world point of context.
His possible re-election would solidify the US tactical battlefield defeat in Libya as a significant strategic defeat for America during an Obama second term. But if Governor Romney is elected it will not stay a lasting strategic loss for America because Governor Romney will not own the consequences of President Obama's lack of will and bad judgement. The President of the United States was personally paralyzed in action during a battle in which Americans were attacked, overrun and killed.
America would have to go back to the dark days of the end of the Vietnam War to see such a nasty event as our forces retreating under fire from American territory. We evacuated out of Benghazi in a combat situation and it was the first time we retreated in combat since flying off the roof of our Embassy in April 1975. It can not be stressed strongly enough that the US suffered a tactical defeat with potential strategic consequences because in combat we were removed by force from " the Shores of Tripoli."
"...promotional materials and a copy of the movie provided to The New York Times this week also show that the film has been recut, using news and documentary footage to strengthen Mr. Obama's role and provide a window into decision-making in the White House."So if any Americans care to watch the President give the "go order" there is a very important additional event to remember on Election Day. On 9/11 2012, President Obama as Commander-in-Chief went from his campaign slogan that -- Osama is dead and Al-Qaeda is on the run -- to personally losing the first battle against Al-Qaeda in our nations history.
It is very simple to understand; they attacked -- we left -- they stayed -- we lost -- his fault.
It was not a military failure, nor an Intelligence Community failure, it was a strategic failure of judgement and political will at the presidential level assisted by his National Security team--everything else is second order.
The Battle of Benghazi was both a tactical and strategic loss personally for President Obama. Voters can reflect on the Hollywood portrayal of President Obama saying simply "go" but now they have an another real world point of context.
His possible re-election would solidify the US tactical battlefield defeat in Libya as a significant strategic defeat for America during an Obama second term. But if Governor Romney is elected it will not stay a lasting strategic loss for America because Governor Romney will not own the consequences of President Obama's lack of will and bad judgement. The President of the United States was personally paralyzed in action during a battle in which Americans were attacked, overrun and killed.
America would have to go back to the dark days of the end of the Vietnam War to see such a nasty event as our forces retreating under fire from American territory. We evacuated out of Benghazi in a combat situation and it was the first time we retreated in combat since flying off the roof of our Embassy in April 1975. It can not be stressed strongly enough that the US suffered a tactical defeat with potential strategic consequences because in combat we were removed by force from " the Shores of Tripoli."
Firing America’s CEO – Time to Act
We are down to the wire. We must decide. We must remove our current POTUS and replace him with a proven turn-around CEO and team to reverse America’s self-destructive course and restore American exceptionalism.If we look at the POTUS’ legislative, social, economic, military, and foreign policies and actions since 2009, they do not align with a vision and mission consistent with proven American principles, practices, values, and performance expectations. As a result, he has not restored the economy, reversed unemployment, increased productivity, or restored global economic leadership, as he committed to do within his first term. His actions have aligned, unfortunately, with principles, practices, and values destructive to American individual and business best-interests and which are consistent with known, failed ideologies.
Let’s review a few examples. Rather than start immediately to focus on common sense strategies and tactics America needed to implement to reverse course and recover, the POTUS focused instead on:
- Shaping and selling the largest piece of legislation (2,700 page legislation plus 6,000 pages of federal regulations) that: represented a de-facto takeover of approximately 17.3% of the American economy and the greatest increase in fixed business costs, regulation, and overall tax burden for individuals and businesses ($569B) in U.S. history; bypassed both individual’s rights and state’s rights held sacred in America and our Constitution, forcing Americans to buy a product they may not want or need (“Individual Mandate” deemed a Tax by the SCOTUS); exempted members of Congress and other cronies from the plan; implemented at a time when this action was completely, historically, counter-intuitive to what is necessary to turn-around a declining economy; is predicted to ultimately destroy our healthcare system, reduce healthcare quality and benefits, and increase healthcare costs by potentially billions of dollars, at a cost of between $1.76 to $2.7 Trillion dollars, while adding $823B to our already meteoric deficit — via ObamaCare (A total of 20 new taxes or higher taxes for businesses and the middle-class, 5 starting in 2013, including, taxes that hit the top line — sales — for medical device manufacturers which will cause a major loss of jobs)(1).
- Driving anti free-market policies and programs, such as “Cash for Clunkers” (CARS), where $3B scarce American taxpayer dollars were mal-invested in, and re-distributed to, a specific group of American automobile owners and auto industry/union cronies (not socially equitable as is his stated goal as all Americans did not benefit equally), paying an estimated $24,000 for each of 125,000 incremental old cars traded (of the 690,000 cars traded under this program, industry experts estimate that only approximately 18% were incremental to what would have already been sold or traded if the program was not implemented) — via “Cash for Clunkers” (auto industry)(2).
- Destroying pensions for thousands of Delphi Automotive non-union auto workers (the largest and most diversified supplier of automotive parts and GM spin-off) while “topping” off UAW pensions and making them whole (this is possibly the latest scandal, “DelphiGate”, to add to Fast and Furious, “BenghaziGate”, and others) and bailing out General Motors and others at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars which is still not completely repaid and is estimated to cost the American taxpayer, not the banks, not the politicos…$27.2 Billion dollars (CBO) while “the much-touted production of the eco-minded Chevy Volt has been suspended due to anemic sales–and GM’s 2011 annual report reveals that two-thirds of GM’s jobs are located in foreign countries” — via the 2009 Auto Industry “Bailout”.(3)
- Interfering and blocking energy recovery, and thus economic recovery, in line with his commitment to ensure that “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket”(4) and energy costs increase overall to achieve his “green” agenda by: stalling deep water drilling and permits in the Gulf much longer than was necessary (if at all) providing an advantage to foreign companies(5); blocking critical pipeline projects — such as the rejection of the Keystone Pipeline; as a result of overall energy policy and legislative decisions, driving increases in gasoline costs alone from $1.80s to around $4.00 per gallon; destructive legislation and attacks upon the coal industry which provides the single largest energy source for America’s electricity generation(6); enabling and driving crippling de-facto legislation and mandates from un-elected Agencies such as the EPA — via the Endangerment Finding(7) (and now California Cap and Trade legislation that followed).
- Driving an ineffective “Green” and “Sustainable” energy policy that resulted, among other failures and scandal (1,900 investigations and 600 convictions), in the loss of billions of taxpayer dollars via failed investments in companies like Solyndra and 34 others(8), while crony capitalist insiders like Al Gore have increased their wealth substantially ($100M) from investments in these deals.(9)
- Flooding America’s money supply with money “printed out of thin air” (ex nihilo – out of nothing) to artificially “stimulate credit and the economy”, via “Quantitative Easing I, II, III (‘Infinity’)”, a financial strategy and process which many have stated (including former Chairs of the FED, Keynes, and Lenin) is a sure way to destroy a capitalist economy. QE was used not once, not twice, but three times, with no clear success… except creation of greater wealth for banks and global financial elite who gained from bailouts and other favors (and zero prosecutions). In reality, however, the economy has primarily suffered from ideological, regulatory, and tax shock — pre 2008 starting with President Carter’s and Clinton’s (“creative measures to promote home ownership”) mortgage policy, as well as, Obama’s 1995 lawsuit against CitiBank to force banks to lend to unqualified buyers, and post 2008 with easing and financial regulation. Our economy has not needed nor would it benefit from this clearly ineffectual monetary policy, resulting in a devaluing of all dollar based assets and the dollar itself while also driving inflation(10)(11)(12)(13)(14).
- Driving a hard-left ideology which divided Congress such that no budget was approved during his administration and the last budget proposal did not garner a single vote from his own party — zero votes. Proposed POTUS budget did “nothing to address the nation’s serious short-term and long-term fiscal problems” and in reality would only “push spending, taxes, and debt to historic levels, placing America’s economic future at grave risk”(15). Hard-left partisan driven deadlock resulted in a net zero effort to address the spiraling U.S. budget, which led to a record increase in debt in his term, greater than all previous presidents combined, resulting in — not a cutting in half of the U.S. debt within his term as promised — rather a spiraling debt of $16 Trillion dollars and an annual deficit of $1.1T — “The $1.1 trillion deficit in 2012 marked the fourth consecutive year the deficit exceeded $1 trillion.” Our POTUS cannot blame this feat on America’s previous CEO, Bush. Obama has personally pushed policies and legislation that made any deficit spending during the Bush years ten times worse, “the real cause of our deficits today, the answer lies primarily with Obama” as “President George W. Bush’s deficits averaged $415 billion over eight years in office” while President Obama deficits are averaging over $1T per year(16)(17)(18).
- Driving a concerted effort to move America into supranational global sovereignty and scientific-integrity destroying agreement, as well as, global taxation via “COP 15″ Cap and Trade Agreement. This would have been a massive tax and regulatory action to re-distribute American taxpayer dollars to developing counties at a time when American assets (cash) needed to be in the hands of Americans to do with as the pleased to stimulate a real recovery. Fortunately, due to a stronger opposition from many and due to discovery of “ClimateGate” emails which showed scientific data manipulation by the IPCC and its report contributors to sell this global tax and sovereignty stealing treaty, COP 15 was defeated.(19)
- Driving a constant dialog of divisiveness, vilification of the successful, and class rhetoric of “redistribution” and “tax the rich” supposedly to resolve America’s economic ills. Yet, the “rich”, targeted in Obama’s tax plan, are the small business owners of America that produce 65% of the new jobs and who are sole proprietors making $200 to $250K — not exactly “rich” by today’s standards. “Thirty-seven percent of sole proprietor profits will face a tax rate hike under the Obama-Biden plan”. Not to mention the fact that this rhetoric and action is completely counter to American principles of free-markets and equal opportunity to succeed or fail, not favoring any class of individual over another, and rewarding success. Further, a “study by Ernst and Young projects that this tax rate hike will kill 710,000 small business jobs.”(20)
- Pushing an unrelenting attack upon religious freedoms, such as, attempting to force religious organizations to provide birth control to their students and employees, which is against their long-established religious beliefs. ObamaCare “requires nearly all employers to provide contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs through their health plans, regardless of any moral objections. This includes religious employers such as Catholic hospitals and universities, despite the fact that paying for such “services” contradicts settled Catholic doctrine.”(21)
- Driving a constant attack upon American natural and civil liberties and rights, from due process, privacy, and gun ownership, to free-speech — via the NDAA, Patriot Act II, the U.N. Small Arms Treaty, and even the acquisition of 30,000 spy drones to be used domestically. I have written so extensively on these topics over the last two years that it is really hard to believe I still live in America. Suffice it to say, this President has allowed our liberties and freedoms to be trampled, if not yet in results in all areas noted (given tremendous push-back), in his intent and on-going relentless efforts.(22)(23)(24)
- Running a constant apology tour for all things American, from: the first time in American history that an American president bowed to foreign leaders; to on-going support and kowtowing to organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood (self-stated enemies of “infidel” America); to support for failed and misguided intervention in foreign governments, such as Egypt and Libya, where Islamists are now in control and running amok while endangering the balance of power in the Middle East and possibly the world — via “Arab Spring” to “BenghaziGate” (see my Facebook page for latest updates on BenghaziGate) (http://facebook.com/david.chaney)
- Using American military forces outside of the War Powers act, specifically in Libya where Congress was not consulted and where our Secretary of Defense stated that allegiance to International directives via the U.N. was more important than allegiance to our representative Congress.(25)
- And possibly the worst dereliction of duty, and some have suggested possibly treason, that as Commander in Chief, or one of his direct reports (all information suggests that only the POTUS could make this decision, however) left American diplomatic leadership and military heroes to die on September 11th, 2012, in Benghazi, Libya, with no apparent attempt to rescue them from an obvious enemy attack. Worse, an order was given to “stand down” to those who requested to mount a rescue (evidently resulting in the firing of Gen. Carter Ham). This, even though multiple urgent requests were made for support. This is topped only with the audacity to lie to the American public and attempt to cover up the truth by blaming American free-speech (see my Facebook page for latest and developing updates on BenghaziGate) (http://facebook.com/david.chaney)
- Finally, and most egregiously, by wasting time and resources on these misdirected programs, actions, and policies, he did NOT focus on what would have been the most important, common-sense actions that could be taken to recover and turn-around the American economy — such as, reducing taxes, reducing regulation, increasing non-taxpayer funded incentives for job creation, and essentially returning to our founding principles, practices, and values. By not getting out of the way of the American people and allowing their natural creativity, intuitiveness, and can-do attitude to get the job done, he accelerated America’s decline near the point of no return.
All said — and I could continue however these examples are sufficient to illustrate the point — Mr. Obama has done everything to accelerate the decline of American exceptionalism and very little to enable and accelerate it. Yes, his actions align — from ObamaCare to Benghazi — with “progressive”, neo-Marxist, Alinksy-trained, anti-capitalist ideologies that could only eventually result in the failure of America and American free-market leadership.
“We the People” are America’s Board of Directors — appointed by our U.S. Constitution and by our founders to be the guardians of liberty — and as such, I move that we immediately remove this failed CEO of America, Inc. from office. To not do so would be a dereliction of our duty. I also move that we immediately replace him with a proven turn-around executive who will focus on the right things, at the right time, to turn America around. Although I may not agree with 100% of Mr. Romney’s ideology and actions, I agree with him on the MOST IMPORTANT THINGS that we need to do NOW to turn America around. And, I can assure you that as soon as Mr. Romney is in office we will not only support him in turning America around and onto the right course, we will also relentlessly push President Romney to return America to our founding principles, practices, and values of American exceptionalism driven by individual liberty and free-market economics.
Fighting for the cause of Liberty is an on-going, never-ending war. This is a battle we must win. Step one is to remove the clear and present failure and danger to America – our current POTUS.
For now, fire the failed CEO, and hire a turn-around CEO.
No comments:
Post a Comment