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When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; When the government fears the people, there is liberty.  ~ Thomas Jefferson

 

Entries Tagged as 'Wasteful Spending'

Democrat Senate shuns push for elimination of pet projects: Votes for Money Stealing.

November 30th, 2010 · Accountability, Deception, Democrats, Economy, Ethics, Federal Spending, Greed, Non-Transparency, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Terrorism from Within

By ANDREW TAYLOR – The Associated Press
Tuesday, November 30, 2010; 11:41 AM

WASHINGTON — The Senate Tuesday rejected a GOP bid to ban the practice of larding spending bills with earmarks – those pet projects that lawmakers love to send home to their states.

Most Democrats and a handful of Republicans combined to defeat the effort, which would have effectively forbidden the Senate from considering legislation containing earmarks like road and bridge projects, community development funding, grants to local police departments and special-interest tax breaks.

The 39-56 tally, however, was a better showing for earmark opponents, who lost a 29-68 vote earlier this year. Any votes next year should be closer because a band of anti-earmark Republicans is joining the Senate.

Earlier this month, Republicans bowed to tea party activists and passed a party resolution declaring GOP senators would give up earmarks. House Republicans have also given up the practice, but most Democrats say earmarks are a legitimate way to direct taxpayer money to their constituents.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Tuesday that Democrats had made the earmarking process far more transparent than it previously had been under GOP control of Congress. The reforms include requiring lawmakers to document every projects they seek and receive.

Seven Democrats voted with all but eight Republicans to ban the practice.

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Bowing to growing budget concerns, Obama announces 2-year pay freeze for federal workers.

November 29th, 2010 · Accountability, Economy, Federal Spending, Government

By Ed O’Keefe, Perry Bacon and Joe Davidson

Bowing to growing budget concerns and months of Republican political pressure on federal pay and benefits, President Obama today announced he would stop pay increases for most of the two million people who work for the federal government.

The freeze applies to all Executive Branch workers — including civilian employees of the Defense Department, but does not apply to military personnel, government contractors, postal workers, members of Congress, Congressional staffers, or federal court judges and workers.

“Getting this deficit under control is going to require some broad sacrifices and that sacrifice must be shared by the employees of the federal government,” Obama said in a speech Monday afternoon explaining the decision. He added, “I did not reach this decision easily, this is not a line item on a federal ledger, these are people’s lives.”

The freeze would take effect on Jan. 1, pending Congressional approval by the end of this year. The 2012 pay freeze will be proposed as part of fiscal 2012 budget proposals to be unveiled early next year.

The pay change will not impact bonuses for federal workers or when a federal worker is promoted to a new level of pay, meaning federal workers promoted in the next two years will receive a new level of pay, but not receive any additional annual raises.

Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said she disagreed with Obama’s decision.

The union “is mindful of our nation’s economic circumstances, but we are very disappointed with the White House’s position and intend to explore all of our options, including working with Congress to overturn it,” Kelley said. The union represents more than 150,000 federal employees nationwide.

John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, blasted the announcement, calling it “a superficial, panicked reaction to the deficit commission report.”

“This pay freeze amounts to nothing more than political public relations,” Gage said in a statement, suggesting government nurses, border patrol agents and other personnel are being unfairly targeted for Democratic election losses.

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Obama administration gives billions in stimulus money without environmental safeguards

November 29th, 2010 · Accountability, Deception, Democrats, Economy, Environment, Federal Spending, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Stimulus

By Kristen Lombardi and John Solomon – Center for Public Integrity
Sunday, November 28, 2010; 9:41 PM

In the name of job creation and clean energy, the Obama administration has doled out about $2 billion in stimulus money to some of the nation’s biggest polluters while granting them exemptions from a basic form of environmental oversight, a Center for Public Integrity investigation has found.

The administration has awarded more than 179,000 “categorical exclusions” to stimulus projects funded by federal agencies, freeing the projects from review under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. Officials said they did not consider companies’ pollution records in deciding whether to grant the waivers. They said that creating jobs quickly was an important part of the stimulus plan, and that past environmental violations should not disqualify a company from pursuing federal contracts for unrelated projects.

The projects include:

- An electrical-grid upgrade project in Kansas led by Westar Energy, the state’s largest coal-burning utility, which settled a major air pollution case by paying half a billion dollars in penalties and remediation costs. The Energy Department granted the NEPA waiver to Westar’s project, funded by a $19 million stimulus grant that was approved on the same day the settlement became official. Westar considers its “smart grid” project to be “our basic,standard, above-ground upgrade,” said Brad Loveless, the company’s environmental director. “From everybody’s perspective, there really wasn’t the potential for smart grid to have environmental problems.”

- A wind farm project in Texas, as well as an electrical-grid upgrade project in five additional states, undertaken by Duke Energy. The department granted the NEPA waiver to both Duke projects, funded by a combined $226 million in stimulus grants, even as the energy corporation continues its decade-long defense against two of the largest air pollution cases involving coal utilities in the nation’s history. “We’re basically adding communication infrastructure on top of what is already there so it is not disturbing the environment,” Duke’s Paige Layne said.

- A project to create clean-burning biofuel from seaweed led by chemical giant DuPont, which received $8.9 million in stimulus funds in February. That amount nearly equals the environmental fine DuPont paid in 2005 for hiding the dangers of its toxic chemical known as C8 from federal regulators for two decades. In a statement, DuPont stressed that it “has not applied for an environmental exclusion” for its project, but rather is “following the necessary process set forth by the Department of Energy.” It concludes, “Each project that we work on includes, by our own policy, a comprehensive and individualized product stewardship program.”

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Fed lowers economic expectations for 2011

November 24th, 2010 · Deception, Dissention, Economy, Federal Spending, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars

By Neil Irwin Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 24, 2010; 12:40 AM

Unemployment is set to remain higher for longer than previously thought, according to new projections from the Federal Reserve that would mean more than 10 million Americans remain jobless through the 2012 elections – even as a separate report shows corporate profits reaching their highest levels ever.

Top Federal Reserve officials project that the unemployment rate, now 9.6 percent, will fall only to about 9 percent at the end of 2011 and about 8 percent when the next presidential election arrives, in late 2012. The central bankers had envisioned a more rapid decline in joblessness in their previous forecasts, prepared in June.

The sober economic forecast comes despite signs that the recovery is picking up slightly. The Commerce Department said Tuesday that gross domestic product rose at a 2.5 percent annual rate in the three months ending in September, not 2 percent as earlier estimated. And there have been solid readings in recent weeks on job creation, manufacturing and retail.

The apparent contradiction reflects the brutal math that faces a nation trying claw out of a deep recession: Moderate growth, which would be fine in normal times, will do little to bring down sky-high joblessness, a reality reflected in the Fed’s forecasts.

Even as conditions are likely to remain miserable for job seekers for years to come, an extraordinary bounce-back is underway in the nation’s corporate sector, with profits rebounding 28 percent over the past year to an all-time high in the third quarter.

Businesses’ spending on compensation for employees, by contrast, rose only 7.6 percent.

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Snowe, Collins back lawsuit challenging health-care law (The only Repulicans to Sign the HC Law)

November 22nd, 2010 · Accountability, Deception, Democrats, Healthcare, Non-Transparency

By Matt DeLong

The Portland (Maine) Press-Herald reports that both of Maine’s senators — Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins — are signing on to a friend-of-the-court brief in support of a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the new health-care law.

The brief was initiated by U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and boasts the signatures of 30 Senate Republicans. The lawsuit was brought by the attorneys general for several states and the National Federation of Independent Businesses, a small-business trade organization.

At issue is a requirement that U.S. citizens purchase health insurance beginning in 2014 or face a fine — known as the “individual mandate.”

As the lone Republican on the Senate Finance Committee who voted to move the bill — which at the time included an individual mandate (though Snowe made clear then that she didn’t support that provision) — to the full Senate last year, Snowe was the only Republican senator who supported the bill at any stage. She did not vote for final passage of the bill in March. Snowe and Collins are widely viewed as two of a dwindling number of GOP moderates remaining in Congress.

Snowe is up for reelection in 2012, and Maine tea party groups have already pledged to mount a primary challenge. Snowe is no doubt taking the threat seriously, considering the Maine GOP adopted a tea party-backed platform this year and Paul LePage, a combative conservative candidate who promised to tell President Obama to “go to hell,” won the state’s gubernatorial race in November. Collins faces reelection in 2014.

UPDATE: In an interview last year with Karen Tumulty — then of TIME and now of The Post — Snowe voiced opposition to the individual mandate on affordability grounds, but didn’t say anything about the provision’s constitutionality.

By Matt DeLong | November 22, 2010; 12:25 PM ET

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Government made $125 billion in improper payments last year

November 22nd, 2010 · Deception, Economy, Federal Spending, Government

By Ed O’Keefe Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 17, 2010; 7:57 PM

The federal government’s improper payments totaled about $125 billion in fiscal 2010 as unemployment insurance and Medicaid payments increased, officials said Tuesday. But agencies also recovered about $687 million mistakenly paid to delinquent government contractors and beneficiaries.

The government’s total improper payment amount climbed $15 billion from the previous year, according to statistics from the Office of Management and Budget. The payments included about 89,000 checks for $250 each sent to dead or incarcerated people as part of the economic stimulus program.

“This is an unfortunate result of the recession and of basic math: the more that is paid out, the more paid out in error even if the overall rate declines,” OMB Deputy Director Jeffrey Zients wrote Tuesday on his blog.

The overall payment error rate dropped to 5.49 percent in fiscal 2010, down from 5.65 percent the previous year. The drop means the government avoided making about $3.8 billion in improper payments, OMB said.

President Obama wants agencies to recoup at least $2 billion in improper payments by the end of fiscal 2012. In order to do so, he ordered the establishment of a government-wide “do not pay” database to stop payments made to dead or incarcerated people and debarred or suspended contracting firms. He also signed a law in July that penalizes agencies for failing to do so.

“We’re right on target – in fact, as we look at the numbers, we’re ahead of schedule,” OMB Controller Danny Werfel said Tuesday.

Eight of the 10 largest government programs that account for most of the government’s improper payments reported lower error rates last fiscal year, Werfel said. The Labor Department’s unemployment insurance program and the Social Security Administration’s old age survivor benefits program made more improper payments, he said.

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‘Soul-searching’ Obama aides: Democrats’ midterm election losses a wake-up call

November 14th, 2010 · Accountability, Change of Power, Deception, Democrats, Dissention, Ethics, Government Control, Greed, Non-Transparency, Obama Exposed, Selling Out the US, Terrorism from Within

"Soul Searching" or "Tee Time"?

By Anne E. Kornblut Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 14, 2010; 12:41 AM

After nearly two weeks of introspection, President Obama‘s top advisers have concluded that the “shellacking” Democrats took on Election Day was caused in large part by their own failure to live up to expectations set during the 2008 campaign, not merely the typical political cycles and poor messaging they pointed to at first.

While the president has been on a trip to Asia for the past 10 days, all but a few of his top aides stayed behind to figure out what went so wrong and what to do about it. Wearing casual clothes and with the White House to themselves, they determined that the situation they face is serious and will take significant adjustments to reverse.

The advisers are deeply concerned about winning back political independents, who supported Obama two years ago by an eight-point margin but backed Republicans for the House this year by 19 points. To do so, they think he must forge partnerships with Republicans on key issues and make noticeable progress on his oft-repeated campaign pledge to change the ways of Washington.

Even more important, senior administration officials said, Obama will need to oversee tangible improvements in the economy. They cannot just keep arguing, as Democrats did during the recent campaign, that things would have been worse if not for administration policies.

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ObamaCare and Voters: Clinton and Obama told Democrats it would be popular. Whoops.

October 31st, 2010 · Corruption, Dissention, Healthcare, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Terrorism from Within

By the time anyone finds out, the bill will already have passed!!

Midterm elections amid a lousy economy are usually bad for the President’s party, but it looks as if a neutron bomb may detonate on Democrats in 2010. And one of the major reasons that this year shifted from ordinary losses to potential catastrophe is ObamaCare. This election is a referendum on an entitlement the public never wanted and continues to hate, as evidence from around the country is showing.

Take almost any poll at random. Even this week’s New York Times-CBS poll has repeal leading among likely voters, 47% to 43%. The latest Pew-National Journal survey shows that a majority of likely voters—51%—favors repeal, including 53% of independents. The Real Clear Politics average of all polling shows support for the law at 40.9%—and opposition at 50.6%.

The Kaiser Family Foundation—whose outlier tracking poll has consistently shown the most ObamaCare support—now reports that only 42% view the law favorably. That’s a seven-point drop since September, and it happened to coincide with the start date for the “patients bill of rights,” which Kaiser says is among the bill’s popular parts. Voters are learning that mandates—like those that allow “children” to remain on their parents’ health insurance until age 26—tend to increase costs.

There are many other such scales-from-the-eyes moments. The New England Journal of Medicine, another outlet for ObamaCare partisans, recently conceded in a “perspective” akin to an editorial that “it seems clear that Americans today have very negative views about the general direction of the country,” in large part because of the health bill.

Speaking of the shock of recognition, there’s the case of Earl Pomeroy. The nine-term North Dakota Democrat earned liberal plaudits for his numerous TV ads defending ObamaCare and his vote for it, as well as blasting Republican Rick Berg for ostensibly putting “big insurance first.”

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Obama administration’s sex-ed program criticized by both sides of abstinence debate

October 29th, 2010 · Corruption, Deception, Democrats, Ethics, Federal Spending, Government Control, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Terrorism from Within

By Rob Stein Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 28, 2010; 12:27 AM

Over the past decade, politicians have battled about how to reduce the teen pregnancy rate: safe-sex vs. abstinence-only sex education programs, even as films such as “Juno” and births by famous teens such as Bristol Palin and Jamie Lynn Spears seemed to make adolescent pregnancies more socially acceptable.

At the same time, after declining for years, the teen pregnancy rate increased, but the pace at which teens were having babies appeared to stop falling or even inch up.

Now, the Obama administration has entered the politically sensitive debate, promising to put scientific evidence before political ideology. A $110 million campaign will support a range of programs, including those that teach about the risks of specific sexual activities and the benefits of contraception and others that focus primarily on encouraging teens to delay sex.

The initiative exemplifies the administration’s oft-repeated quest to find new strategies to defuse some of the nation’s most divisive issues. In this case, officials are hoping to appease advocates of teaching teens about condoms and other forms of birth control as well as those who oppose sex outside marriage.

Although the program is being hailed by many adolescent health experts, it is being denounced by some on both sides of the abstinence debate.

“This is one of those emotionally charged issues where it’s very difficult to find compromise,” said Amy E. Black, a political scientist at Wheaton College in Illinois. “It inevitably becomes entangled in a larger constellation of issues, such as abortion, that raise ideological, moral and religious questions.”

During the George W. Bush administration, the federal government spent $1.5 billion on programs that encouraged teens to delay sex until marriage. Critics said it was grounded in religious tenets and conservative doctrine, failed to educate teens about condoms in the age of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, and ineffective.

In response, the Obama administration launched a teen pregnancy prevention program that officials promised would fund only programs that had been proven to work. Last month, the Department of Health and Human Services awarded $75 million to 75 groups to try to reproduce some of the 28 programs deemed to have been “proven effective through rigorous evaluation.”

HHS also awarded $35 million to 40 organizations to test “innovative strategies” that appeared promising. Altogether, 115 programs in 38 states and the District received funding.

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Most Americans worry about ability to pay mortgage or rent, poll finds

October 29th, 2010 · Deception, Democrats, Economy, Federal Spending, Housing Industry, Reform, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Unemployment

By Ariana Eunjung Cha and Jon Cohen Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 28, 2010; 12:52 AM

A majority of Americans now say they are worried about making their mortgage or rent payments, underscoring the extent of economic anxiety in the country heading into midterm elections.

A new Washington Post poll shows that concerns about housing payments have spiked since 2008 despite some improvements in the overall economy. In all, 53 percent said they are “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” about having the money to make their monthly payment. Worries are the most intense among those with lower incomes and among African Americans.

The poll results highlight the political challenge facing the Obama administration: Despite committing hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out troubled financial firms, create jobs and keep distressed borrowers in their homes, it has not been able to make many people feel better about their personal situations or even relieve fears about the cost of a need as basic as shelter.

The recent foreclosure mess provides another example of this gap between the policy decisions in Washington and the sentiment of ordinary Americans. The poll reveals that just over half of the country thinks the administration should impose a national moratorium on foreclosures to sort out whether banks are improperly seizing the homes of struggling borrowers. But the White House rejected that idea, saying it would gravely wound the fragile housing market.

White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said the administration has deployed every possible resource at its disposal to “pull our economy back from the brink.”

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