govt spending

by

News/Politics 12-12-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Well maybe we don’t have a deal……

From RollCall  “Unsure whether they have the votes to pass a trillion-dollar federal spending package, House GOP leaders on Thursday afternoon delayed a final vote on the “cromnibus.”

They did so with mere hours to go until the government is set to run out of funding, and just before the House was scheduled to vote.

GOP leaders called a recess to floor proceedings, with a GOP leadership aide confirming “no conference meeting [is] planned at this time.” The aide said “leadership teams are still talking to their respective members,” and noted, “We still plan to vote this afternoon.”

It’s not clear, however, what they will be voting on.

If Republicans can’t surmount the impasse, they could decide to proceed with swiftly moving a short-term continuing resolution through the chamber, which the Senate could also pass before 11:59 p.m., when current funding expires.”

So will Elizabeth Warren now call herself a “hostage taker” or an “economic terrorist” like she did to Republicans during the last shutdown, or is that only when Republicans do it?

_______________________________________

2. Now about Boehner’s prior spending deals….

From CNSNews  “The federal debt has increased by $3.8 trillion in the 3.8 years that have passed since House Speaker John Boehner cut his first spending deal with Senate Democrats and President Obama.

That works out to $32,938.38 for every household in the United States—including those taking federal welfare benefits—and $42,783.20 for every full-time year-round private-sector worker in the United States.

In fact, the $42,783.20 that the federal government has borrowed per full-time year-round private-sector worker since Boehner cut his first federal spending deal exceeds the $41,916 that according to the Census Bureau was median annual earnings of full-time year-round private-sector wage and salary workers in 2013.”

That should answer Bob’s question from yesterday about per taxpayer costs.

_______________________________________

3. Here’s a “phony scandal” update. All evidence continues to point to White House involvement.

From Forbes  “Sadly, the 18 month investigation into the IRS targeting of conservative groups isn’t over, and it may be worse than anyone thought. A federal judge has broken loose more emails that the DOJ had surely hoped would never surface. The picture it reveals isn’t pretty. The documents prove that Lois Lerner met with DOJ’s Election Crimes Division a month before the 2010 elections.

It has to be embarrassing to the DOJ, which may not be the most impartial one to be investigating the IRS. In fact, the DOJ withheld over 800 pages of Lerner documents citing “taxpayer privacy” and “deliberative privilege.” Yet these internal DOJ documents show Ms. Lerner was talking to DOJ officials about prosecuting tax-exempt entities (yes, criminally!) two years before the IRS conceded there was inappropriate targeting.

Ms. Lerner met with top officials from the DOJ’s Election Crimes Branch in October of 2010. Although Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the DOJ (Judicial Watch v. Department of Justice, No. 14-cv-01239), the DOJ coughed up dirt only on court order. Even then, the DOJ handed over only two pages of heavily redacted emails.”

“What’s more, the DOJ withheld 832 pages in their entirety. They revealed that Mr. Obama’s DOJ called an October 8, 2010 meeting with the IRS “concerning 501(c)(4) issues.” 

_______________________________________

4. 70% of respondents want Congress to keep digging.

From FoxNews  “Call it a “kumbaya” question, as majorities of Democrats (60 percent), independents (75 percent) and Republicans (78 percent) support lawmakers continuing to dig. 

The new poll also asked why the White House is refusing to release thousands of pages of documents related to the IRS targeting.  By nearly three-to-one people think it’s because the administration wants to keep its role in the scandal secret (63 percent) rather than to keep taxpayer information confidential (22 percent). 

Even Democrats are more likely to say the Obama White House is withholding documents to hide its involvement (45 percent) rather than to protect taxpayers (35 percent).  Another 20 percent is unsure.”

_______________________________________

5. Yet another backdoor to citizenship for illegal immigrants?

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “President Obama’s recently unveiled immigration scheme creates a new path for illegal immigrants and those who overstay their visas to become legal citizens nearly instantly, according to Utah Sen. Mike Lee.

Taking to the Senate floor Thursday to reveal the backdoor he said Obama is opening to millions more illegals beyond the parents of children here legally, the Republican said, “This is the danger of unilateral executive action.””

“It would also provide a way for those here illegally to be waived into America without any punishment.

Lee said that the Obama plan would provide “advance parole” to illegals, putting them on the fast track to a green card and citizenship. That status has been difficult to get in the past.

Now, however, he said that the president plans to ease the 3-10 year waiting period for those who leave then try to reenter legally by granting provisional waivers for entry. What’s more, in some cases illegals will be allowed to stay in the United States while waiting for those provisional waivers.”

_______________________________________

by

News/Politics 12-11-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. So what’s in that spending bill? Here’s a good summary.

From TheWashingtonPost  “The $1.01 trillion spending bill unveiled late Tuesday will keep most of the federal government funded through next September — and it’s packed with hundreds of policy instructions, known on Capitol Hill as “riders,” that will upset or excite Democrats, Republicans and various special interest groups.

So, what’s in the bill? We’ve sifted through the legislation, consulted supporting documents from Democratic and Republican aides, and called out some of the more notable and controversial elements below. (If you want to review detailed reports on all 12 parts of the spending bill, click here.)”

_______________________________________

2. The CIA is firing back.

From TheHill  “Current and former heads of U.S. spy agencies are criticizing a Senate report’s claim that the CIA tortured detainees and misled the public about its “enhanced interrogation” techniques.”

“George Tenet, who was CIA director through much of the Bush administration, said the report is “biased, inaccurate, and destructive” and said it “does damage to U.S. national security, to the men and women of the Central Intelligence Agency, and most of all to the truth.” “It is indeed a dark day for congressional oversight,” Tenet added.”

“A number of former officials with “hundreds of years of combined service” launched a website to push back on the report, which they described as “marred by errors of facts and interpretation and is completely at odds with the reality that the leaders and officers of the Central Intelligence Agency lived through.”

“It represents the single worst example of congressional oversight in our many years of government service,” they said.”

_______________________________________

3. So she doesn’t like being spied on, huh? Now you know how the rest of us feel Diane.

From CNN  “The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee accused the CIA of secretly removing classified documents from her staff’s computers in the middle of an oversight investigation, while another lawmaker said Congress should “declare war” on the spy agency if it’s true.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein said CIA Director John Brennan told her in January that agency personnel searched the computers last year because they believed the panel’s investigators might have gained access to materials on an internal review they were not authorized to see.

“The CIA did not ask the committee or its staff if the committee had access to the internal review or how we obtained it,” Feinstein said in blistering remarks on the Senate floor. “Instead, the CIA just went and searched the committee’s computer.”

_______________________________________

4. More proof the Obama admin is targeting legal businesses it doesn’t like. Just imagine the outrage from Democrats if Republicans did this.

From TheDailySignal  “Senior officials at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation actively sought to crack down on legal businesses that the Obama administration – or the officials themselves – deemed morally objectionable, a new congressional report finds.

Released today by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the 20-page investigative report details how the FDIC worked closely with the Justice Department to implement Operation Choke Point, a secretive program that seeks to cut off the financial lifeblood of payday lenders and other industries the administration doesn’t like.”

“Emails unearthed by investigators show regulatory officials scheming to influence banks’ decisions on who to do business with by labeling certain industries “reputational risks,” ensuring banks “get the message” about the businesses the regulators don’t like, and pressuring banks to cut credit or close those accounts, effectively driving enterprises out of business.”

“It’s appalling that our government is working around the law to vindictively attack businesses they find objectionable,” Issa, chairman of the Oversight Committee, said in a press release. Issa added:

Internal FDIC documents confirm that Operation Choke Point is an extraordinary abuse of government power. In the most egregious cases, federal bureaucrats injected personal moral judgments into the regulatory process. Such practices are totally inconsistent with basic principles of good government, transparency and the rule of law.”

_______________________________________

by

News/Politics 12-10-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. About that CIA torture report……..

From HotAir  “Is the report from the Democratic majority on the Senate Intelligence Committee on post-9/11 interrogations a “badge of honor,” as Joe Biden put it — or an attempt to scapegoat the CIA for doing what it was asked to do? NBC’s Richard Engel told Ronan Farrow that it’s much more the latter, allowing the political leadership in the Bush administration and Congress off the hook. It also curiously doesn’t address the interrogation programs in the military, which leaves the CIA “held out to dry,” as Engel’s sources tell him:

“So many people knew what was going on. This wasn’t a program that was over one or two weeks in a couple of dark sites,” Engel told MSNBC’s Ronan Farrow. “Everybody knew about it.”

Engel said that some of those implicated told him that they were being used as scapegoats by the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by outgoing Chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.).

“The CIA was asked to do this; was given authorizations to do this. And now many people involved are saying to me privately, ‘Now we’re being held out to dry. You asked us to do this, and now the world is coming down on top of it,” Engel said.

If you’re wondering why CIA officers are telling Engel that Senate Democrats left them twisting in the wind, you can read their explanation on the website they’ve set up to rebut the SSCI majority report. Bearing in mind that they have their own motivations, the CIA argues that the report flatly disregards both testimony and evidence that would at the very least mitigate against the conclusions reached in the report:

Astonishingly, the SSCI Majority staff interviewed no CIA officers responsible for establishing, implementing, or evaluating the program’s effectiveness. Let us repeat, no one at the CIA was interviewed.”

So yet another “investigation” where no one talked to the witnesses/victims/perps. Just like the with the IRS and Benghazi “investigations”.

______________________________________

2. At least one group is benefitting financially from Obama’s amnesty plan.

From CapitolCityProject  “The Department of Health and Human Services dished out over $182 million to one organization in order to house unaccompanied illegal alien children over the span of four months, according to documents released on December 3. The taxpayer funds ended up covering the likes of free laptops, big screen TVs, and pregnancy tests. In 2014 alone, the group was awarded well over $280 million in federal grant money and surpasses $460 million when factoring in 2013. This is just one group in a sprawling network of those sheltering illegal alien children.

The December 3 documents, obtained by Judicial Watch, show BCFS, formerly known as Baptist Children and Family Services, was paid $182,129,786 in order to provide “basic shelter care” for 2,400 “unaccompanied alien children” (UAC) during a four month span.The budget included charges of $104,215,608 for the 1,200 UAC’s at a Fort Sill, Oklahoma center and another $77,914,178 for the 1,200 UACs at the Lackland Air Force Base shelter located in San Antonio, Texas. From June 12 to October 18, these figures equate to $86,846.34 for every illegal alien child housed at Ft. Sill and $64,928 per illegal alien child from May 18 to September 18 at the Lackland Air Force Base location. On top of this, $2,648,800 was given as compensation to members of the BCFS “Incident Management Team” — or $88,293 per person.

Other expenses at the Ft. Sill facility included hotel accommodations running a tab of $6,765,000, food costs of $75 per day for 3 meals and 2 snacks for each illegal alien child provided by a local catering service totaling $18,198,000, and $1,120,400 worth of medical supplies. Additionally, board games, soccer balls, basketballs, jump ropes, bracelet making kits, yarn, puzzles, arts and crafts, decks of cards, and eye-hand coordination game sets were provided at the cost of $180,000. Educational items — including tempera paint, paint markers, paint brushes, easel brushes, art paper and multicultural crayons — were $180,000. The children were also provided laptops for $200,000 and cell phones costing $160,000.”

______________________________________

3. Don’t worry, your private health and other personal info is safe with them. 🙄

From TheWeeklyStandard  “Along with the primary goal of expanding the availability of health insurance, the Affordable Care Act aims to make the use of Electronic Health Records (EHR) universal. This plan actually began with the 2009 stimulus (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act), which included the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act. Doctors and other health providers have been offered incentives to convert patient information and health histories to a compatible and transferable electronic format, and as of June 2014, 75 percent of eligible doctors and 92 percent of eligible hospitals had received payments under the program.

This week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the release of the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan 2015-2020, which details the efforts of some 35 departments and agencies of the federal government and their roles in the plan to “advance the collection, sharing, and use of electronic health information to improve health care, individual and community health, and research.”

“Each step of the plan includes three-year and six-year goals, and the various goals, depending on their focus, require the involvement of department and agencies as disparate as the Department of Defense, the Federal Trade Commission, and NASA, in addition to the expected participation of entities such as HHS, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Indian Health Service. The report includes a comprehensive list of all departments and agencies involved:”

______________________________________

4. They have a deal. Well, it’s a deal for everyone but the taxpayers who have to foot the trillion dollar bill that comes with it.

From MSNNews  “Congressional leaders unveiled a massive $1.01 trillion spending bill Tuesday night that will keep most of the federal government funded through September.

The legislation is expected to pass in the coming days and will allow the new Republican-controlled Congress to clear the decks of lingering spending issues, while setting the stage for a prolonged fight with President Obama over immigration policy. 

At 1,603 pages, the legislation provides money to fight the rise of the Islamic State and $5.4 billion to fight the threat of Ebola. But there is no additional money for the Affordable Care Act and there are modest spending cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency and Internal Revenue Service, two perennial GOP targets. Still, Democrats won bigger budgets for enforcement at agencies created after the 2008 economic collapse.

House leaders said they will introduce a stopgap bill to give the House and Senate more time to pass the final bill and avoid a government shutdown Thursday night. Extending current funding for just a few days has happened before, but doing so again this year would provide an embarrassing climax to one of the most fruitless congressional sessions in history.”

______________________________________

by

News/Politics 8-6-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. We don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.

From CNSNews  “The federal government paid $2,007,358,200,000 in benefits and entitlements in fiscal year 2013 from government programs, according to data from the Bureau of the Fiscal Service’s Monthly Treasury Statement.

The treasury statement summarizes the financial activities of the federal government, including data on government receipts, outlays, and surplus and deficit totals.  The September 2013 monthly treasury statement calculates these metrics for the entire fiscal year of 2013, which began on October 1, 2012 and ended on September 30, 2013.

According to the statement, the federal government’s total outlays, otherwise known as spending, for means-tested and non-means tested government programs — not including administrative expenses —  totaled $2,007,611,200,000 in fiscal year 2013.”

“According to the treasury statement, the federal government totaled $3,454,253,000,000 in outlays for fiscal year 2013. This number encompasses all government spending, including things like defense, highway and transportation costs, public education, immigration services and government worker salaries, to name a few.”

________________________________________________

2. Meanwhile, the new website for govt. transparency isn’t being very transparent and is not accounting for hundreds of billions of dollars spent.

From USAToday  “A government website intended to make federal spending more transparent was missing at least $619 billion from 302 federal programs, a government audit has found.

And the data that does exist is wildly inaccurate, according to the Government Accountability Office, which looked at 2012 spending data. Only 2% to 7% of spending data on USASpending.gov is “fully consistent with agencies’ records,” according to the report.”

“For more than 22% of federal awards, the spending website literally doesn’t know where the money went. The “place of performance” of federal contracts was most likely to be wrong.”

________________________________________________

3. A 2 star general has been killed in Afghanistan by an Afghan soldier.

From TheNYTimes  “For the first time since Vietnam, a United States Army general was killed in an overseas conflict on Tuesday when an Afghan soldier opened fire on senior American officers at a military training academy.

The slain officer, Maj. Gen. Harold J. Greene, was the highest-ranking member of the NATO-led coalition killed in the Afghanistan war, and his death punctuated the problems vexing the Americans as they try to wind down the 13-year-old conflict, contending with a political crisis that has threatened to splinter the Afghan government and leave it unable to fend off the Taliban.

The general was among a group of senior American and Afghan officers making a routine visit to Afghanistan’s premier military academy on the outskirts of Kabul when an Afghan soldier sprayed the officers with bullets from the window of a nearby building, hitting at least 15 before he was killed.”

________________________________________________

4. Why am I not shocked?

From ThePoughkeepsieJournal  “The Rev. Al Sharpton, along with his nonprofit National Action Network and two for-profit firms, have $4.7 million in outstanding debt and liens, according to federal and state tax records, the New York Post reported on Sunday.

Among the debts include $806,875 that Sharpton owes the state, along with $2.6 million in federal liens against him for unpaid personal income taxes, the Post stated.

Recent filings showed the National Action Network owed $813,576 to the federal government at the end of 2012, and his company Rev-Al Communications owes $447,826 to the state, while the Bo-Spanky Consulting firm has $18.21 in outstanding debt, according to the Post.

Sharpton told the Post he’s paying down the debts according to negotiated agreements.

“It’s significantly less. It’s nowhere near the millions of dollars. We have totally lived up to our agreement with them,” Sharpton the Post. “It’s being paid down.”

Good, then after he pays this, maybe he’ll get around to paying the judgment against him from the Tawana Brawley case that he’s ignored for years.

________________________________________________

5. Why is A-Rod’s name not on the list? After all, he sought out, purchased, used, and benefitted from it most? He shouldn’t avoid prosecution just because he’s snitching now.

From FoxSports  “The former clinic owner accused of selling performance-enhancing drugs to Alex Rodriguez has agreed to plead guilty in what prosecutors called a wide-ranging conspiracy to distribute steroids to both major league ballplayers and high school athletes.

The charges filed Tuesday against former Biogenesis of America owner Anthony Bosch and six others marked one of the biggest salvos yet in a case that has dragged on for nearly two years. The case has sparked lawsuits, mudslinging and suspensions against numerous major leaguers, including Rodriguez.

Also charged was Yuri Sucart, 52, a cousin of Rodriguez who the New York Yankees third baseman has said provided him with steroids from 2000-03, when Rodriguez played for the Texas Rangers.

Sucart and the others are accused of acting as recruiters, setting up meetings between the athletes and Bosch, who introduced himself as “Dr. T,” authorities said. Professional athletes paid up to $12,000 a month for the drugs provided by Biogenesis, while high schoolers paid up to $600 a month. All the clients were promised that the substances would not be found through drug testing, prosecutors said.”

________________________________________________

 

by

News/Politics 8-5-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Wow. Who didn’t see this coming? 🙄

From NationalReview  “The Department of Justice has begun ushering unaccompanied alien children to the front of the line for immigration court proceedings — but the children still fail to appear in court.

In one day at a Los Angeles immigration court last week, Judge Ashley Tabaddor heard the cases of nearly 40 illegal immigrant minors, but none of the children appeared in court, according to the Los Angeles Times. In each case, the illegal immigrant minor was thought to have settled elsewhere, and the judge reportedly decided not to deport the children in absentia. Instead, Tabaddor — who declined to speak with National Review Online, citing Justice Department policy — reportedly issued change-of-venue orders in each case.

Only after the Department of Health and Human Services notifies ICE that the unaccompanied juvenile has been placed with a sponsor, or 60 days elapse, will ICE attorneys file immigration-court proceedings for unaccompanied alien children, an ICE spokeswoman tells National Review Online. “We want these youths, these children, to have access to due process, but we’re also encountering issues where when we were filing the cases immediately, most of the children were being relocated or placed in locations outside of the jurisdiction where they were originally sheltered,” says Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for ICE. “So it was resulting in a significant number of venue changes.”

“Judge Tue Phan, a former immigration judge in San Francisco who retired in 2012 and is running for Congress as a Republican, says the venue changes allow the unaccompanied alien children the opportunity to avoid detection. “If you transfer a case to New York, and it’s China, people from China, then they disappear forever,” Phan says. “Then you will see a notice to appear, the children will not appear. There will be a motion to reopen [a] few years down the road.” Phan says the motion to reopen will be granted because the children will claim to lack control over their fate and seek to attach themselves to an “uncle,” who will often not be related by blood. This process contributes to the large immigration-court backlog, he says.”

You had to know when Obama said most would be returned to their country of origin that he was lying.

______________________________________________

2. I’m sure the press will love this. Only approved propaganda will get top ratings.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “The FBI is hiring a contractor to grade news stories about the agency as “positive” “neutral” or “negative,” but the agency won’t say why officials need the information or what they plan to do with it.

FBI officials wouldn’t even reveal how they will go about assigning the grades, which were laid out in a recent contract solicitation. The contract tells potential bidders to “use their judgment” in scoring news coverage as part of a new “daily news briefing” service the agency is seeking as part of a contract that could last up to five years.

In a statement of work, the agency says its public affairs office needs a contractor to help monitor “breaking news, editorials, long-form journalism projects and the larger public conversation about law enforcement.”

But the lack of clear public methods and goals raises “troubling questions,” said Dan Kennedy, a journalism professor at Northeastern University.”

Yet another reason they dispensed with those pesky propaganda rules, huh?

______________________________________________

3. Gee, I wonder what rating this story would get from Yet another unprecedented achievement by the Obama admin.

From HotAir  “Since day one, the Obama administration has enjoyed patting itself on the back for sundry “unprecedented” actions and ambitions — even as they often fail to follow through on said unprecedented-ness, and even though that word more often applies to them within a pejorative context.  Behold, another unprecedented ‘achievement:’

The total federal debt of the U.S. government has now increased more than $7 trillion during the slightly more than five and a half years Barack Obama has been president. That is more than the debt increased under all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Bill Clinton combined, and it is more debt than was accumulated in the first 227 years of this nation’s existence–from 1776 through 2003. The total federal debt first passed the $7-trillion mark on Jan. 15, 2004, after President George W. Bush had been in office almost three years.

By the numbers:

When President Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009, the total federal debt was $10,626,877,048,913.08. As of the close of business on July 30, 2014, it had risen to $17,618,599,653,160.19–up $6,991,722,604,247.11 from Obama’s first inauguration day. By the close of business on July 31, 2014, it had risen to $17,687,136,723,410.59—up $7,060,259,674,497.51 since Obama first inauguration day. As of June, there were 115,097,000 households in the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The $17,687,136,723,410.59 in debt the federal government had accumulated as of the end of July equaled $153,671.57 per household. The $7,060,259,674,497.51 in new debt that the federal government has taken on during Obama’s presidency equals $61,341.82 per household.

______________________________________________