Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist

Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist
Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Md Troopers Assoc #20 & Westminster Md Fire Dept Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist
Showing posts with label Govt spending fiscal restraint. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Govt spending fiscal restraint. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

THE NIGHT WATCHMAN: Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert.

From an e-mail.... Nevertheless, it tells a compelling story:

THE NIGHT WATCHMAN

Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert.

Congress said, "Someone may steal from it at night." So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job.

Then Congress said, "How does the watchman do his job without instruction?"

So they created a planning department and hired two people, one person to write the instructions, and one person to do time studies.

Then Congress said, "How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?"

So they created a Quality Control department and hired two people. One was to do the studies and one was to write the reports.

Then Congress said, "How are these people going to get paid?"

So they created two positions: a time keeper and a payroll officer then hired two people.

Then Congress said, "Who will be accountable for all of these people?"

So they created an administrative section and hired three people, an Administrative Officer, Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary.

Then Congress said, "We have had this command in operation for one year and we are $918,000 over budget, we must cut back."
So they laid-off the night watchman.

NOW slowly, let it sink in.

Quietly, we go like sheep to slaughter. Does anybody remember the reason given for the establishment of the DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY during the Carter administration?

Anybody?

Anything?

No?

Didn't think so!

Bottom line is, we've spent several hundred billion (BILLION with a B) dollars in support of an agency, the reason for which very few people who read this can remember!

Ready??

It was very simple... and at the time, everybody thought it very appropriate.

The Department of Energy was instituted on 8/04/1977, TO LESSEN OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL.

Hey, pretty efficient, huh?

AND NOW IT'S 2015 -- 38 YEARS LATER -- AND THE BUDGET FOR THIS "NECESSARY" DEPARTMENT IS AT $24.2 BILLION A YEAR. IT HAS 16,000 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES AND APPROXIMATELY 100,000 CONTRACT EMPLOYEES; AND LOOK AT THE JOB IT HAS DONE!

(THIS IS WHERE YOU SLAP YOUR FOREHEAD AND SAY, "WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?")
38 years ago 30% of our oil consumption was foreign imports. Today 70% of our oil consumption is foreign imports.

Ah, yes -- good old Federal bureaucracy.

NOW, WE HAVE TURNED OVER THE BANKING SYSTEM, HEALTH CARE, AND THE AUTO INDUSTRY TO THE SAME GOVERNMENT?

Hello!! Anybody Home?

Signed....The Night Watchman
*****

Sunday, September 15, 2013

News from The Hill: Angry House Republicans demand better communication By Molly K. Hooper

News from The Hill:

Angry House Republicans demand better communication 


By Molly K. Hooper

Republican lawmakers are growing increasingly frustrated with what they say is a lack of communication from their leaders.

Both centrist and conservative members in the House believe that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his lieutenants could have done more earlier this year to counter the Tea Party's effort to defund ObamaCare. 

Some Republicans on Capitol Hill say such an effort is politically impossible with a Democratic-controlled Senate and a Democrat in the White House. Regardless, the rift on what to do on ObamaCare has opened up a civil war within the GOP.

That deep division is flaring at a time when fiscal showdowns are front and center following the August recess.


Read the story here.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/322305-angry-house-republicans-say-gop-leaders-need-to-communicate-better


For all the latest news:
Visit TheHill.com 
Follow @TheHill on Twitter
Like The Hill on Facebook
Connect with The Hill on Google+

Tuesday, January 03, 2012

Washington Post editorial board: Overcharged - Pull the plug on electric-car subsidies


THERE MAY NOT have been a party in Times Square to celebrate, but two of the most wasteful subsidies ever to clutter the Internal Revenue Code went out with the old year. Congress declined to renew either the 45-cent-per-gallon tax credit for corn-based ethanol or the 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on imported ethanol, so both expired Dec. 31.
Taxpayers will no longer have shell out roughly $6 billion per year for a program that badly distorted the global grain market, artificially raised the cost of agricultural land and did almost nothing to curb greenhouse gas emissions. A federal law requiring the use of 36 billion gallons of ethanol for fuel by 2022 still props up the industry, but the tax credit’s expiration is a victory for common sense just the same.... http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/overcharged/2011/12/30/gIQAzQ0yUP_story.html

Meanwhile, a lesser-known but equally dubious energy tax break also expired when the year ended Saturday: the credit that gave electric-car owners up to $1,000 to defray the cost of installing a 220-volt charging device in their homes — or up to $30,000 to install one in a commercial location... http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/overcharged/2011/12/30/gIQAzQ0yUP_story.html
*****

Friday, December 30, 2011

News from The Hill: White House delays $1.2T debt hike to allow votes in Congress




News from The Hill:

White House delays $1.2T debt hike to allow votes in Congress 
By Peter Schroeder 
The White House has agreed to hold off on formally requesting a $1.2 trillion increase in the debt limit to give Congress time to vote on it. The Obama administration had said that the the Treasury Department could formally request the debt increase as soon as Friday. Officials say the federal debt is nearing the maximum permitted under the law.

Read the story here.


For all the latest news:
Visit TheHill.com 
Follow @TheHill on Twitter
Like The Hill on Facebook

*****

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Dr. Coburn Releases New Report on Wasteful Government Spending in 2011: "Wastebook 2011"


(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) today released a new oversight report, “Wastebook 2011” that highlights over $6.5 billion in examples of some of the most egregious ways your taxpayer dollars were wasted. This report details 100 of the countless unnecessary, duplicative and low-priority projects spread throughout the federal government.
“Video games, robot dragons, Christmas trees, and magic museums. This is not a Christmas wish list, these are just some of the ways the federal government spent your tax dollars. Over the past 12 months, politicians argued, debated and lamented about how to reign in the federal government’s out of control spending. All the while, Washington was on a shopping binge, spending money we do not have on things we do not absolutely need. Instead of cutting wasteful spending, nearly $2.5 billion was added each day in 2011 to our national debt, which now exceeds $15 trillion,” Dr. Coburn said.
“Congress cannot even agree on a plan to pay for the costs of extending jobless benefits to the millions of Americans who are still out of work. Yet, thousands of millionaires are receiving unemployment benefits and billions of dollars of improper payments of unemployment insurance are being made to individuals with jobs and others who do not qualify. And remember those infamous bridges to nowhere in Alaska that became symbols of government waste years ago? The bridges were never built, yet the federal government still spent more than a million dollars just this year to pay for staff to promote one of the bridges.”
Examples of wasteful spending highlighted in “Wastebook 2011” include:
• $75,000 to promote awareness about the role Michigan plays in producing Christmas trees & poinsettias.
• $15.3 million for one of the infamous Bridges to Nowhere in Alaska.
• $113,227 for video game preservation center in New York.
• $550,000 for a documentary about how rock music contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
• $48,700 for 2nd annual Hawaii Chocolate Festival, to promote Hawaii’s chocolate industry.
• $350,000 to support an International Art Exhibition in Venice, Italy.
• $10 million for a remake of “Sesame Street” for Pakistan.
• $35 million allocated for political party conventions in 2012.
• $765,828 to subsidize “pancakes for yuppies” in the nation’s capital.
• $764,825 to study how college students use mobile devices for social networking.
Read the full report: here
###
12/20/11Current record
12/17/11Dr. Coburn Votes "No" on Omnibus Spending Bill
12/7/11The �Taxpayers Right to Know Act� Introduced in Both Chambers of Congress Today
11/30/11Dr. Coburn�s Statement on the NAT GAS Act
11/22/11Dr. Coburn�s Statement on Failure of the Super Committee
11/16/11Coburn Exposes Congress� War on Oversight; Appropriators Target Taxpayer Watchdog
11/13/11Dr. Coburn Releases Report Exposing Billions in Giveaways for Millionaires
11/9/11Drs Coburn and Barrasso Release a Doctors� Perspective of �Medicare & You 2012� Handbook
11/1/11Senate Rejects Savings Amendments to �Minibus� Appropriations Bill
10/21/11Senate Passes Coburn Amendments Ending Welfare for Millionaire Farmers, and Prohibiting Repayment of Federal Grants with Federal Loans, but Protects Greedy Slumlords
9/29/11Help Balance the Budget: Vote in the Back in Black Spending Cuts Poll
9/29/11Sens. Carper, Coburn Urge Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction to Focus on Medicare and Medicaid Waste, Fraud and Abuse
9/22/11Dr. Coburn Supports Senator Ron Johnson for Senate Republican Leadership
9/15/11Senate Votes to Compound Nation�s Financial Crisis Instead of Cutting Spending
9/8/11Dr. Coburn�s Statement on President Obama�s Jobs Plan
9/8/11Senate Votes to Protect the Diversion of Patent Fees
8/9/11Dr. Coburn to Host Town Hall Meetings in Oklahoma
8/6/11Dr. Coburn�s Statement on U.S. Credit Downgrade
7/28/11Senators Coburn, McCain, Vitter, Hatch, Cornyn, Isakson, Coats, Lee, Portman & Representatives Lankford and Flake Introduce Bill to Give States Freedom to Manage Federal Highway Tax Revenues
7/25/11Dr. Coburn�s Statement on Breakdown in Debt Talks
7/21/11Dr. Coburn's Report Exposing Wasteful Government Spending in Oklahoma
7/18/11Dr. Coburn Releases $9 Trillion Deficit Reduction Plan
6/29/11Senators Coburn, Udall, McCaskill and Paul Propose Senate Rules Change, Requiring Review of All Legislation for Duplication, Overlapping Programs
6/28/11Lieberman, Coburn Reveal Bipartisan Proposal to Save Medicare, Reduce Debt
6/23/11Dr. Coburn Urges House to Reject Modified Patent Bill

*****