Stay Informed
August 10, 2001
WHEN DID WE AS
AMERICIANS STOP FIGHTING BACK
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
SPENDING: FROM THE OUTRAGEOUS TO THE RIDICULOUS
Written by Cal Thomas
Tribune Media Services
Washington – Why is the government’s
surplus not as large as originally forecast?
Democrats say it’s because President
Bush’s “obscenely large” (actually paltry) tax cut and
his commitment to a missile defense system. Republicans say
it’s because Democrats spend too much.
The Republicans are right about spending
but wrong in accusing the Democrats of being the only guilty
party. Republicans know how to spend as well as Democrats.
Their problem is hypocrisy because the GOP is supposed to be
the party of fiscal restraint and smaller government.
Examples are numerous, but perhaps the
most ludicrous of all is an expenditure unearthed by the CATO
Institute. The Fair Taxes for All Coalition, which has opposed
the administration’s tax cut, has received $618 million in
taxpayer money to help with its campaign. What is more
preposterous than subsidizing an advocacy group that opposes
giving taxpayers their money back?
Two years ago, $14,000 of our money went
to convert a charcoal grill to natural gas at the U.S. Air
Force Academy. Did it not occur to anyone that a few hundred
bucks would have bought a gas grill at the local hardware
store? Another $40,000 was designated to move a bathroom wall
in the Commandant of Cadets residence so an adjoining bedroom
interior could be widened by one foot. The money came from an
account that’s supposed to support troop readiness,
according to the Air Force Auditing Agency.
The Sugar industry receives billions of
our dollars more in price supports than its sugar is worth,
according to the General Accounting Office. As Mike Thomas
wrote in the Orlando Sentinel: Sugar growers grow all the
sugar they can. They plow every acre possible in the
Everglades and pipe the dirty water onto public land. Last
year, because of the federal program, the government had to
buy $430 million is sugar. Maybe the feds can sprinkle it on
the cheese they give out. Until then, we pay $1.4 million a
month to store it.
Stories of lost money at the Department
of Education have been widely reported. At the Labor
Department, the Employment and Training Administration (ETA)
had been receiving, as recently as two years ago, about $9
billion a year, more than three-fourths of total discretionary
Labor Department funds. But when asked to account for the ETA
grants, the agency said the information was not available in a
"“single volume” or “in detail”. In addition, the
Department said producing the data on a fiscal year basis was
too time consuming, cumbersome, and difficult.
Then on July 28, 2001 the headlines in
the Blade Newspaper read $9 Billion Fraud; Credit cards
shortcut to cash piles at Pentagon.
Washington – Armed with 1.8 million
credit cards, Pentagon employees went on a $9 Billion shopping
spree last year that congressional investigators find filled
with fraud.
Military personnel did personal shopping
at Wal-Mart and The Home Depot, partied at Hooters and Bottoms
Up, and charged personal items such as DVD players, computers
and pet supplies to their government cards, according to
documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Documents from the Bank of America, which
handles Pentagon travel credit cards, detail the case of a
Marine sergeant who ran up $20,000 in charges, then left the
service and the bill unpaid.
The Marine’s credit card for travel,
issued in March of 2000, was restricted because he had a
questionable credit record. His bosses soon quadrupled its
limit from $2500 to $10,000 the documents show.
The bank issued a fraud warning in August
of 2000 after suspicious activity on the card but the Marines
raised the credit card limit twice more to $25,000. The
sergeant eventually made two cash withdrawals from the card
over two months totaling $8,500.
The bank’s records detail cases in
which an Army soldier spent $3,100 on six visits over a few
weeks to Hooters and Bottoms Up. An Army reservist’s wife
went on a $13,000 shopping spree in Puerto Rico. The widow of
a deceased sailor charged $3,565. An Air force National
Guardsman’s card was charged thousands of dollars for
Internet gambling by his wife.
I could go on and on about the government
wasting our hard earned money but there is not enough room on
the Internet and t some point t becomes redundant. The
question is at what point do you say enough is enough?
I don’t profess to have all the answers but after my
experience with government, at all levels, and then the
extortionist of the IRS, I’ve had more than my fill. This is
why we have developed endtheirs.org,
to finally give people a way to tell the government that
we have had enough.
In closing, it was the American people,
not the government that made our country the greatest country
on earth. The Federal Government stealing our rights and
money, isn’t it time to take it back?
Donald
E. Iiams, Jr.
endtheirs.org
Past Editions
Jul. 19, 2001
Jun. 25, 2001
Apr. 30, 2001
Apr. 23, 2001
Apr. 10, 2001
Mar. 12, 2001
Mar. 5, 2001
Feb. 19, 2001
Feb. 12, 2001
Feb. 5, 2001 |