THE WATCHDOG’S ABSURDITY COLLECTION 5
SEPTEMBER 2011
Jobs, Jobs, Jobs
The Seventh Quarterly Report on the economic impact of the Obama administrations stimulus package shows what little the Keynesian effort accomplished in stimulating the economy. The White House’s Council of Economic Advisors, whose economists were appointed by President Obama, authored the report. The wizard of smart economists reported that using “mainstream estimates of economic multipliers for the effects of fiscal stimulus has added or saved just under 2.4 million jobs at a cost of $666 billion. That is a cost to taxpayers of $278,000 per job. Jeffrey Anderson of the Weekly Standard articulates the obvious, “The government could simply have cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was made possible by the stimulus and taxpayers would have come out $427 billion ahead.”
If you look at the employment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics they show that the unemployment rate was 7.3 percent when the stimulus package was being debated.
Project Gunrunner
I find it unfortunate and quite disconcerting of how little has been made of the Project Gunrunner story where the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms ended up purchasing guns for Mexican Drug Lords, and where one of those guns killed an American Drug Enforcement Agent. This is a major scandal that has been brushed under the rug quite effectively by the press. As it turns out, the stimulus package funded the project. “$40,000,000 for competitive grants to provide assistance along the Southern border and in High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas to combat criminal narcotics activity stemming from the southern border, of which $10,000,000 shall be transferred for the ATF Project Gunrunner.”
Diversity Manuals
The Omaha Public schools used more than $130,000 in federal stimulus dollars to buy each teacher, administrator and staff member a manual on how to become more culturally sensitive. The authors of the book, of which we were forced to buy; states that American government and institutions create advantages that “channel wealth and power to white people,” that color-blindness will not end racism and that educators should “take action for social justice.” The book says that teachers should acknowledge historical systemic oppression in schools, including racism, sexism, homophobia and “ableism,” defined by the authors as discrimination or prejudice against people with disabilities. The Omaha school board bought 8,000 books, one for every employee, including members of the custodial staff.
Who is Pitching? Who is Catching?
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) subsidized a study attempting to find out if a gay man’s penis size has any correlation with his sexual health. The research titled “The Association Between Penis Size and Sexual Health Among Men Who Have Sex With Men.” I refuse to get into details here, but the reason for this study and the expenditure of your tax dollars was to determine if penis size had anything to do with who was on the mound and who was crouching behind the plate.
This Guy Is A Real Life Governor.
Governor Mark Dayton of Minnesota said this about the American Revolution during their recent shutdown, “It is significant that this shutdown will begin on the 4th of July weekend. On that date, we celebrate our independence. It also reminds us that there are causes and principles worth struggling for, worth even suffering temporary hardships to achieve. Our American Revolution was very much about fair and just taxes, where the middle-class was over-taxed while the very rich went tax-free. In the absence of fair taxes, the basic services people relied upon for health and well-being were denied them.”
Not only is this idiot too stupid to be Governor but also I highly doubt this guy could pass a citizenship test. Wealthy landowners and businessmen led the American Revolution. Washington, Hancock, Madison, Adams, Jefferson, etc. decided to risk everything so they could tax spend and redistribute wealth. The colonists revolted because of the fact that their taxes were not applied in a fair and equitable manner and they were not allowed representation in Parliament.
What government services were being denied by the British, which Dayton is alluding to in his statement?
Was it…Food Stamps, Social Security, Medicare, Student Loans, or Section 8 Housing?
Nope. The colonists did rely on one thing that is foreign to leftists like Governor Dayton…themselves.
Taxpayer Airlines
Note to government: If you are planning on running an airline or any business for that matter, you want the customer to pay you for providing the service. No the other way around.
From the Associated Press, “On some days the pilots with Great Lakes Airlines fire up a twin-engine Beechcraft 1900 at the Ely, Nevada airport and depart for Las Vegas without a single passenger on board. And the federal government pays them to do it.”
Government statistics show that in 2010, just 227 passengers flew out of Ely while at the same time the airline received from you and I $1.8 million. The travelers flying out of Ely paid $70 to $90 for a one-way ticket, we chipped in $4,107 per flyer. Funny, I don’t recall getting a note, thanking me for my generosity.
Logic Suspension
If you owe your credit card company or mortgage holder money, would you turn around and give them more money? Would you donate funds that were not used to pay down your loan balance, but rather a donation to cover their catering bill?
Ridiculous…not if you are some of our wonderful leaders.
We the people are providing hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign aid to some of the world’s richest countries, while simultaneously borrowing billions back. The Congressional Research Service released a report which shows that in 2010 we the people handed out $1.4 billion to sixteen countries that lent us over $10 billion. And yes…we did give foreign aid to China, $27.2 million to be exact.
Look Fellow Bureaucrats! Big Ben! Parliament!
How does this sound?
Twelve days, featuring world-class meals and luxury hotels in beautiful Sydney, Australia. Then hop on a plane and fly first-class to Sweden for a few days, then off to the Netherlands. Follow that up with a trip to Scotland, and wrap the whole trip up with a stay at grand hotel around the corner from Buckingham Palace in London, England.
Sounds a lot like the grand prize in the 2011 version of the Pig in a Poke game show. However it is not the Griswold’s defeating the Froeger’s this time. No this is Bureaucrat Vacation!
That’s right, this trip is official government business of our Department of Transportation to study foreign billboards. Every year we spend millions of dollars to send bureaucrats around the globe to produce a report on foreign outdoor advertising policy. Certainly makes for a bad movie script and even worse use of our money.
Government Naughty Chair
Our health care overlord, Kathleen Sebelius, stated to CNS News that the administration’s new $500 million early learning initiative is designed to deal with children from birth onward to prevent such problems as five-year-olds who “can’t sit still.” in a kindergarten classroom.
Well it’s about time! Our founding father’s dream has been realized! When founding this country they dreamed of a day where the United States of America could confiscate it’s citizens money and use it to solve the age-old problem of getting five-year-olds to sit still. Hallelujah!
No Shame
Leroy Fick of Michigan won $2 million in a state lottery game eighteen months ago. The same Leroy Fick is still on food stamps. Eligibility for food stamps is based on gross income and follows federal guidelines; lottery winnings are considered liquid assets and don’t count as income. Fick told WNEM-TV in Saginaw, “If you’re going to try to make me feel bad, you’re not going to do it.”
How Not To Save Money
Our fearless leaders have come with a way to save us $116,000 per year. The pathetic and sad thing about this is that they are going to spend over $4 million to do it. The government is implementing a program in five cities where employees will be using plug in cars. In San Diego, the General Services Administration will buy 116 Chevy Volts and Nissan Leafs. The gas savings will amount to 29,000 gallons a years saving us a whopping $116,000. The cars will cost a total of $4,508,500. That allows us to pay for our investment in 39 years. Factor in battery replacement cost and car replacement cost we will never pay this “green investment in our future” off.
Buenos Dias! Here Is Your Check.
Investors Business Daily asks the question, “If the federal government had actually wanted to encourage illegal immigration, wouldn’t a big tax credit be the way to bring them in? Lucky us, that’s what the IRS is doing…and with our money.”
The Treasury department was recently audited and what was found was that “individuals not authorized to work in the United States were paid $4.2 billion in refundable credits.” These credits are meant to get rid of any taxes paid by the poor and amount to dollar amounts as high as $1,000. In the past five years over 2.3 million illegal immigrants felt that they too like many Americans are entitled to money that is not theirs. Money confiscated by the government or borrowed by the government and put on our children’s credit cards.
It gets worse…The Treasury report noted that payment of these credits to illegals is in fact against the law. People who are prohibited by U.S. law from working here are not allowed to receive federal benefits.
Yeah right, are they kidding? The I.R.S. claims that it’s not its job to check the immigration status of those requesting U.S. money. Is it really that hard to see if the person you are handing our money to, has a valid Social Security number? You do have 93,000 employees! Isn’t that special everyone, the I.R.S. only cares about laws when it involves sticking the audit microscope up an American’s body orifice.
Political Guitars
The Department of Justice found it necessary to send armed agents into the factories of the Gibson Guitar Company in Nashville and Memphis, TN to seize illegal wood. No not Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones, actual wood from trees. Gibson released this statement:
The Federal Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. has suggested that the use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because it is the Justice Department’s interpretation of a law in India. This action was taken without the support and consent of the government in India.
Since when does our Justice Department have time to enforce Indian law? The Indian government has no problem with what Gibson is doing and has not asked the U.S. to do anything.
As it turns out this raid was not the first time…In 2009, more than a dozen agents with automatic weapons invaded the Gibson factory in Nashville. The Government seized guitars and a substantial amount of ebony fingerboard blanks from Madagascar. To date, criminal charges have NOT been filed, yet the government still holds Gibson’s property. Gibson has obtained sworn statements and documents from the Madagascar government and these materials, which have been filed in federal court, show that the wood seized in 2009 was legally exported under Madagascar law and that no law has been violated.
This might explain something…The CEO of Gibson Guitars Henry Juszkiewicz is a Republican donor. His chief competitor Chris Martin IV of C.F. Martin and Company, is a long-time donor to Democrats. It turns out that C.F. Martin uses the same shady Indian wood in its guitars. Has C.F. Martin been raided?
Nope.
Stimulus Strip Club
In a lawsuit filed this past August, D.C. Attorney General Irvin Nathan has accused a District HIV/AIDS service provider of spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on a strip club. A.G. Nathan stated that a charity group called Miracle Hands promised to build a job-training facility with the money for people with HIV/AIDS. Why would Washington D.C. need a specific job training facility for people with HIV/AIDS? My guess would be to employ more government workers. Anyway…the jobs center turned into the Stadium Club, a strip club that continues to operate. The owner of the charity and the Stadium Club is one Cornell Jones. Jones is a self-described former D.C. drug kingpin with convictions for narcotics distribution on his record. Do applications for government grants, loans or in other words taxpayer give-a-ways now limited to green, General Electric, or former felon applicants in the age of hope and change?
Made in China
My first reaction when I first saw the completed Martin Luther King memorial statue was disappointment. In my opinion it looked like something crafted out of the Soviet Union or China, one of those countless Stalin, Lenin or Mao statues. In my opinion I don’t feel that Martin Luther King is being well served in a “Communist Dear Leader” depiction.
As it turns out the new memorial on the national mall is Made In China. Lei Yixin is the Chinese sculptor that was chosen to carry out the work. I had to triple check this story to make sure that it was not a joke. Seriously…There is not a single starving artist/National Endowment of the Arts recipient that could do this? Are we now outsourcing our memorials to China?
The U.K. Telegraph reported, “Mr. Lei who has in the past carved two statues of Mao Tse-Tung, one of which stands in the former garden of Mao Anqing, the Chinese leader’s son, carried out almost all of the work in Changsha, China. More than 150 granite blocks, weighing some 1,600 tons, were then shipped from Xiamen to the port of Baltimore, and reassembled by a team of 100 workman, including ten Chinese stone masons brought over specifically for the project. He has also prepared a bronze bust of Barack Obama.”
I can hardly wait.
Anderson Jeffrey Obama Economists: Stimulus Has Cost $278,000 Per Job Weekly Standard 7/3/11
Boyle Matthew Feds Pay For Study of Gay Men’s Penis Sizes Daily Caller 7/18/11
Taranto James The First Rule of Liberalism Wall Street Journal 7/11/11
Begos Kevin & Sainz Adrian Government Pays For Empty Flights to Rural Airports Associated Press 8/11/11
Mail Editors U.S. Gives Billions of Dollars in Foreign Aid To World’s Richest Countries-The Asks To Borrow it Back U.K. Mail 6/3/2011
Santarelli Christopher Your Tax Dollars Funding Lavish World Trip To Photograph Billboards The Blaze 6/22/2011
Zilenziger James $500 Million Obama Program Will Help Kids Sit Still In Classroom CNS News 5/25/2011
French Ron $2 Million Lottery Winner Defends Use of Food Stamps Detroit News 5/18/2011
Blue Collar Todd Hey, Lets Spend Millions to Save $116,000 Hot Air 5/25/2011
Editorial Staff A $4.2 Billion Subsidy For Illegals? Investor’s Business Daily 9/2/2011
Howe Ben DOJ Raids Gibson Guitars Looking For Illegal Wood Red State 8/25/2011
Moore Malcolm Martin Luther King Memorial Made in China The Telegraph 8/22/2011
Klopott Freeman HIV/AIDS group Charged With Diverting Tax Dollars To Strip Club Washington Examiner 8/30/2011
