Due To Sequestration

Now that the sequestration deadline has come and gone, and the nation is at medium alert (due to sequestration, there is no more high alert), we can now anticipate how this is going to affect us as a civilized society.

The White House is closed to tours because it's spring break and the kids want to see where Obama goes when he's not on vacation. It costs governmental chump change to keep the tours open ($74,000 per week on average), and the head of the WH tours is still employed there (at about $100,000 annual salary), along with the White House calligrapher (about the same salary), but Obama's cronies cannot find a better place to cut. So the GSA parties and other government parties will continue, Moochelle Obama will continue to in a separate jet to Spain and other cool vacation spots around the world while hubby goes golfing with the stars; and actual patriots and kids who want to see the White House will have to be satisfied seeing statues and memorials of presidents far better than Barry while visiting Washington D.C.

I tried to get a trend going on twitter about how ridiculous this sequestration ploy is on the part of Obama. If you want to see some of my thoughts, go to #DueToSequestration and hopefully you'll get a good laugh. But of course, it's really no laughing matter. We have got to win in 2014 and again two years later.

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Putting a Hole in the Sinking Ship to Let the Water Out

"When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny." Thomas Jefferson

With sequestration here and our leaders seemingly clueless as to how we can cut spending, I have a few ideas, some lifted from minds more brilliant than Obama's, (which, in order to be more brilliant than him, is referred to in India as a "left hand job"), and I have a few of my own. If you have some thoughts you feel might stem the gushing of government spending that you believe might help, please feel free to comment. If you are a liberal and even so much as mention George W. Bush in your comment, please feel free to remove your head from your anatomy south of your waist and get real.

First of all, we need to stop government funding of loser companies such as Solyndra and Sun Power Solar Panels. They suck the sunlight to produce energy, but at a cost higher than they can recover in profit. If this sounds like the US Postal Service's methods of operating, you're on the right track. And speaking of the USPS, there are literally thousands of postal workers who have no work to do and sit on their butts all day collecting a salary. No wonder it's going bust. I say get rid of these useless positions  by putting the workers where they can be most useful--in military bases as civilian employees or in the military as patriots.

Next, we must stop giving Obama-supporting companies, or any politically involved company for that matter, tax breaks. According to Wikipedia, Facebook netted $5.1 billion in profits in 2012 and yet they paid no taxes. To put icing on the vomit in your mouth, they received a tax refund of $429 million, according to the Daily Mail Online, Citizens for Tax Justice, and MSN Money. Is it just me, or does this seem a bit unfair to Joe the Taxpayer who's paying an additional two grand per year, on average? Let's face it, Facebook isn't totally kosher (forgive me Mark Z.), when it comes to keeping their customer's identity private. They agreed to settle with the US Trade Commission in 2011 on this matter.

I believe the president should take vacations along with his First Squeeze. I honestly don`t hold anything against that. But when a POTUS talks about tightening the belt, and then jets off on separate jets from his wife, that`s just wasteful and hypocritical. If W. did it with Laura, Chris Matthews would have a conniption. They say Obama`s trips to Hawaii alone, since becoming monarch, has totalled over $20 million. If he and the family didn't wander off so far on vacation, they could save us a fortune by taking the helicopter as opposed to Air Force One, which costs about $180 thousand an hour to operate.

Then there`s the GSA and their elaborate parties. They got to party in Vegas, baby, last year, and the taxpayer got to pay the bill of $823 thousand. Nancy Pelosi`s airborne parties didn`t even cost the taxpayer that much, although the booze flowed like Niagara Falls at her parties too. The MSM forgot to cover that little fact.

Emily Goff of The Foundry cites ten examples of wasteful federal spending and poor investing, which I will outline, but you can read her entire article if you click here

1. A reality TV show in India
2. An EPA grant awarded to China (because they need the money) for $1.2 million to study pig poop.
3. Amtrak, a government subsidized company, that lost $833.8 million in a ten year period over its food and drinks for customers.

4. US Navy purchase of 450 thousand gallons of biofuel at a cost of $12 million, or in brain friendlier terms, $27 per gallon. What's it going to be next, algae aircraft?
5. A total of 1832 conferences between 2008 and 2009 at a cost of $121 million. And what did these government workers learn about running a business on our tax money? Zero. Zilch. Nada.

6. "Robo Squirrel" where $325 thousand was spent on the development of a robotic squirrel in order to learn how rattlesnakes don't like them so much. I could have told that to the National Science Foundation myself and saved us all some money.
7. $2 million on Cupcake small business shops. Don't ask; read Goff's article.
8. Food Stamp waste. Yes, believe it or not, some people on Food Stamps don't just use them for food wholesome anymore--they buy alcohol, junk food, sugary drinks, and some person has even used the SNAP program to buy an exotic dancer, and didn't even get a lap dance in the process.
9. Beer brewing in New Hampshire. I guess if it's good enough to brew beer on our dime in the White House, why not New Hampshire?
10. A "Bridge to Nowhere." Yes, we taxpayers have paid $520 thousand to pay for the Stevenson Road Covered Bridge in Green County, Ohio. (Now you know why it's called Green County). The bridge was last used in 2003--do you see my point?

While all the wasted money I've cited above is merely a wiz in the ocean, it still shows how we need to look more closely, much more closely, at how we allow the government to spend our money. In a very short time, our deficit is going to reach $17 trillion. It takes over half a million years to count that high at one number per second. Even if you count fast, you're not going to make it to the end. Will we?





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