We can’t control what others do and we can’t stop misfortune from striking. But we can control our own actions. Those who are financially prudent will most likely enjoy success, even if events don’t always go their way.
If you want to vent your outrage at government waste and bureaucratic mismanagement, you really need to read this article from Bloomberg.com
A shelf in the office of Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma groans under the dozens of reports he has done on ridiculous government expenditures (he has documented more than $200 billion in overlapping and duplicative programs) and more than $200 million in silly conferences. Titles go from “Wastebook 2011” to “Subsidies for the Rich and Famous” to “Shooting the Messenger: Congress Targets the Taxpayers’ Watchdog” (that’s the Government Accountability Office, which does the spadework for Coburn’s tomes).
Little happens, Coburn explains, because Congress is “numb to stupidity and waste,” treating everything as just one more Bridge to Nowhere (which was never built, by the way, but Alaska’s politicians made sure the state still got its money). Congress is bored by oversight. It prefers to plant flowers in the form of new programs, not do the hard work of pulling weeds in the old, bloated and frivolous ones.
Exactly which one is the dummy?
Or, you could just focus in on this little issue as explained in the Washington Post which talks about the boondoggles enjoyed by the GSA staff.
I need your vote!
Keep in mind that tax increases are always the first recourse in balancing the budget. Oh yes, I know that in the scheme of defense spending and Medicare all this adds up to a pittance, but that is not the point. The point is accountability and responsiblity in government, just as we have in any well run business; one that actually cares about the bottom line and making shareholders happy, one that has to work for its revenue.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all balance our budget by waving a magic wand and increase our income so that we can go merrily along spending as we please? For most Americans it doesn’t work that way and it should be the same for our government.
Do you agree or disagree? Let’s hear what you have to say.
See: The Real GSA Scandal: Job-Killing Big Labor Payoffs
By Michelle Malkin – Wednesday, April 18, 2012
“Big-spending Democrats are finally up in arms over a federal boondoggle. Details of the U.S. General Services Administration bacchanalia get worse by the day. We’ve graduated from overpriced breakfasts in Vegas, friends-and-family junkets galore and in-house videos mocking their own profligacy to extravagant bonuses, alleged kickbacks, obstructionism and bribes. … But the scandal is still small potatoes compared to the potential billions GSA is pouring down the Big Labor drain.
… But this is just a sliver of the permanently enshrined waste that constitutes the bread-and-butter business of the behemoth agency, which runs on a $45 billion annual budget — including $5.5 billion in federal stimulus money to oversee capital building projects. Thanks to President Obama (whose White House reflexively tried to blame Party in the GSA-gate on the Bush administration), the federal government is steering that money toward Big Labor patrons with a proven track record of cost overruns, construction delays and corruption. As I’ve reported previously, the linchpin is E.O. 13502, a union-friendly executive order signed by Obama in his first weeks in office. It essentially forces contractors who bid on large-scale public construction projects worth $25 million or more to submit to union representation for its employees. The blunt instrument used to give unions a leg up is the “project labor agreement,” which in theory sets reasonable pre-work terms and conditions. But in practice, it requires contractors to hand over exclusive bargaining control, to pay inflated, above-market wages and benefits, and to fork over dues money and pension funding to corrupt, cash-starved labor organizations. The (Beacon Hill) Institute at Suffolk University testified on Capitol Hill last year: “The adoption of a PLA amounts, in effect, to the conferral of monopoly power on a select group of construction unions over the supply of construction labor.” The mandate serves “one purpose: to discourage competition from nonunion contractors (and, in some instances, union contractors) to the end of shoring up declining union power, along with union-mandated wages and benefits, against competitive pressures.” The institute’s studies show that PLAs have added between 12 and 18 percent to school construction costs in Massachusetts and Connecticut. …”
As someone recently said, in response to reports by Obama Reelection minions who publicized the fact that Mitt Romney was wasting money by building an elevator in his California home for his cars/garage, I guess I am supposed to be more concerned with how Mitt Romney spends his money, money he earned, than I am to be concerned with how the Obama Administration spends my tax dollars!
Wow, do I agree. We all know that there is enormous waste in government. But when you see some of it in the media it makes you want to strangle them. Have been reading the latest one re: the Las Vagas conference $860,000+. What did they do, take 50% of the DC employees? We need a real government cleansing but realistically we know that will never happen. As long as they can tax we will end up paying.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
See: The Real GSA Scandal: Job-Killing Big Labor Payoffs
By Michelle Malkin – Wednesday, April 18, 2012
“Big-spending Democrats are finally up in arms over a federal boondoggle. Details of the U.S. General Services Administration bacchanalia get worse by the day. We’ve graduated from overpriced breakfasts in Vegas, friends-and-family junkets galore and in-house videos mocking their own profligacy to extravagant bonuses, alleged kickbacks, obstructionism and bribes. … But the scandal is still small potatoes compared to the potential billions GSA is pouring down the Big Labor drain.
… But this is just a sliver of the permanently enshrined waste that constitutes the bread-and-butter business of the behemoth agency, which runs on a $45 billion annual budget — including $5.5 billion in federal stimulus money to oversee capital building projects. Thanks to President Obama (whose White House reflexively tried to blame Party in the GSA-gate on the Bush administration), the federal government is steering that money toward Big Labor patrons with a proven track record of cost overruns, construction delays and corruption. As I’ve reported previously, the linchpin is E.O. 13502, a union-friendly executive order signed by Obama in his first weeks in office. It essentially forces contractors who bid on large-scale public construction projects worth $25 million or more to submit to union representation for its employees. The blunt instrument used to give unions a leg up is the “project labor agreement,” which in theory sets reasonable pre-work terms and conditions. But in practice, it requires contractors to hand over exclusive bargaining control, to pay inflated, above-market wages and benefits, and to fork over dues money and pension funding to corrupt, cash-starved labor organizations. The (Beacon Hill) Institute at Suffolk University testified on Capitol Hill last year: “The adoption of a PLA amounts, in effect, to the conferral of monopoly power on a select group of construction unions over the supply of construction labor.” The mandate serves “one purpose: to discourage competition from nonunion contractors (and, in some instances, union contractors) to the end of shoring up declining union power, along with union-mandated wages and benefits, against competitive pressures.” The institute’s studies show that PLAs have added between 12 and 18 percent to school construction costs in Massachusetts and Connecticut. …”
LikeLike
As someone recently said, in response to reports by Obama Reelection minions who publicized the fact that Mitt Romney was wasting money by building an elevator in his California home for his cars/garage, I guess I am supposed to be more concerned with how Mitt Romney spends his money, money he earned, than I am to be concerned with how the Obama Administration spends my tax dollars!
LikeLike
Wow, do I agree. We all know that there is enormous waste in government. But when you see some of it in the media it makes you want to strangle them. Have been reading the latest one re: the Las Vagas conference $860,000+. What did they do, take 50% of the DC employees? We need a real government cleansing but realistically we know that will never happen. As long as they can tax we will end up paying.
LikeLike