Reid, Boehner, Obama ... Get a clue!

Ok, so I didn’t really want to get involved in this because I think I would have to write a book to really explain it all and there have been quite a few complaints that my last couple of blog posts were too long and people were falling asleep while reading them. This becomes a huge problem when you factor in that 12% of pinkosworld readers read while driving and then they fall asleep and crash. I know that you’re wondering how we know that ... we just do, OK?
This week’s post is brought to you by Speciation ...the study of species separated for long periods of time, subjected to vastly different environmental conditions, then brought back together where they do not mate and then some scientists declare them different species and pat themselves on the back for proving evolutionary theory. Which has absolutely nothing to do with the Federal Budget ... unless the government is funding the experiments, which they probably are, so it’s not as bad of a segue as had hoped for, but I hope you’ll agree that it was pretty bad.
Ahhh, the Federal Budget. Let me just say this, I researched this post for one hour (not as long as a normal news post, but I have been really sick and there is so much information out there that I could write ten posts from what I learned in that hour) so in no way does this paint a full picture of what the government spends money on, but my hope is that it is shocking enough to make you really, really angry. I did not get into Social Security or Medicare, I know that that is where most of the money goes, but like I said, I’ve been sick and ... whatever, if you want me to solve those two somebody is going to have to start sending me a paycheck, suffice to say we spend a lot of money on the elderly, we loooove the elderly. $1.6 trillion love.
Here are some of the obsurdities I uncovered in 60 minutes of really hard work, there is a Bureau of the Public Debt ... and they’re on twitter. So that’s reassuring, along with the Office of Thrift Supervision ... wow.
The Department of Education gets $92.9 Billion per year spends $15 billion on “Accelerating Achievement and Insuring Equity” $393 million on “Supporting Student Success” which seem to cover some of the same areas to me and then I have to wonder how effective they are, how much over lap they have, do they both have an administrator and a staff? Oh, and did you know that we spend $234 million per year to fund Howard University? A private college. It doesn’t say why, I suppose it has something to do with historical prejudice at universities, but I went to college and didn’t see much of that still going on. I could be wrong. $234 million? Wow. They spent $750 million to fund “English Learner Education”. Is that ESL? Does the government really spend 3/4 billion dollars to teach people English? Not to brag, but I learned German for the cost of a plane ticket, and a year’s time, but I assume that the beneficiaries of this program are already here, so what’s the money for? They need to go out and mingle a bit. And let us not forget the $1.76 billion for “Salaries and Expenses”. Wow. Double wow. Does that mean that the salaries of the people teaching English in the “English Learner Program” aren’t included in their number?
The Department of Energy gets $30 billion and either don’t publish their budget (required by law?) Or they make it really hard to find.
Here we go with the Department of Labor did you know that your tax dollars insure the pensions of private workers? Seriously, if a pension fund goes broke from mismanagement or graft or whatever the reason, you’re backing it up. The “Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation” gets $7.2 billion per year and spent $2.8 million on supplies and materials and another $8.3 million on equipment. Seriously. $10 million on paper and staplers and laptops and photocopiers and dividers. Wow. There’s a law, you may have heard of it, the Family Medical Leave Act, in case not it basically says that for certain reasons you can leave your job and it must be there for you when you return, which I have always been in favor of because the worker who left would not be paid in their absence which insures as short a leave as is necessary. Not for long, the 2012 DOL budget proposes $23 million for “State paid Leave Fund”. If states want to pay people out on leave, people protected by FMLA, the feds are going to help pick up the tab. That’ll go great, no one is going to abuse that bit of genius. I could never afford paternity leave when my first three children were born, but if you’re going to pay me to hang out with my family for 6 months or so I might seriously consider having some more kids. You know the people who lie every month about unemployment? You know how they say it’s going down because the work force is shrinking (translation-if you’ve been unemployed too long we don’t want to count you anymore so you don’t exist) they get some money too, $655 million for the Office of Labor Statistics. Seriously. I will save the government $654 million dollars and make up some phoney numbers at my kitchen table, I’ll start right now. In March the unemployment rate fell to 8.7% even though 158,000 jobs were lost and 143,000 jobs were created. Where’s my million? But all that waste explains why there is only $ 48 million left over for Veterans Employment and Training. They don’t really need that do they? The Army recruiter said that you would learn something that would be great for you once you got out of the Army, who needs training? Oh, there’s no position open for someone who is exceptional at recognizing enemy combatants in an urban setting? Accuracy with a rifle? Avoiding IED’s? Calling in air strike coordinates? Oh ... sorry, we spent all the real money making up some numbers that help no one, so you’ll have to go work at McDonalds, or you could ... stay in the Army and go back to war.
And I really tried, but I can’t Find Heath and Human Services Budget, which is cool, they only get $854 billion ...no biggie. I will say this, from spending far too much time searching their web site for some answers, the Secretary of HHS, Kathleen Sebelius, really loves herself. Check it out, there’s a whole lot of Kathy on www.hhs.gov.
With all of this I’m just trying to show you that government spending is stupid. There is no oversight, no one is watching to make sure that 15 people aren’t doing the same job ... no one asks, “Is this necessary?” or “Is this the government’s job?”. It’s just yee haw! Let’s do some spendin’!
So as the powers that be sit around Obama’s office and argue about a couple of billion dollars for the rest of the year and hang the pay of the bravest men and wonmen on planet earth in the balance ... I just want to say to them that I am ashamed of each and every one of them. I am ashamed that our nation is run by people who do not care one bit about the American people, I am ashamed that my President has sent my brothers and sisters to fight and die in the four corners of earth without first making sure that their families would be taken care of back home, I am ashamed that the argument is about cutting a few dollars. Do they not see? I spent ONE HOUR analyzing their budget and have found exactly what I thought I would find. Washington spends our money in ways that none of us ever would, Washington passes spending bills with out forethought or afterthought, just vote “yea” and go home. Most of all I am ashamed that they have been able to pacify all of us and do it in front of our faces. Tonight I pray that all of the people serving this nation do not have to worry if their children have food on the table back home, that the leaders of out nation would get this one thing right, and I pray that these same leaders will be inspired not to change the amount they spend, but the entire way they govern.
I hope it was short enough, and you 12% ers need to wait until you get home to read ... or at least until you get to a red light. Happy Friday!