Articles Comments

Barb’s Blog » Entries tagged with "budget"

Polluters, Ant Watchers, Slumlords, Oh My!

February 7th, 2010 | Add a Comment

From Fox News Federal agencies are spending stimulus money at the rate of $196 million an hour. And they will do so every hour for the next eight months until a September 30, 2010, deadline. “When you put that kind of money out the door that fast, there’s a possibility of $55 billion dollars of waste, fraud and abuse connected with it,” Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said Thursday before a Senate Finance Committee hearing examining the lack of oversight in the $878 billion dollar economic stimulus bill passed a year ago. The dollars and the amounts are starting not to mean anything anymore I think…Anyway, have a look and see if these are the kind of “jobs” America needs. Most, from my point of view, are questionable and that is putting it mildly. … Read entire article »

Filed under: News Items

Allowance for Climate Policy

February 3rd, 2010 | Add a Comment

Ah that sneaky Obama… From Informed Citizens The big news in last year’s budget release was the revelation that the Obama administration planned to use cap-and-trade to raise $646 billion dollars over ten years to finance its big spending programs. At the time I wrote here in the Fox Forum that estimate was a lowball of what actually constituted the biggest tax increase in U.S. history, something White House economist Jason Furman later admitted when he revealed the real revenue would likely be triple the official estimate. So the first thing I checked in this year’s budget was how much revenue was expected from the cap-and-trade energy tax, to which the president reiterated his commitment in his State of the Union address last week. The surprising answer is the budget actually has, … Read entire article »

Filed under: News Items

Buy a Better Grade

November 11th, 2009 | 1 Comment

We have all seen the pie charts how much education takes from our budget, be it on a federal level or state level. It’s usually very substantial and schools are always crying for more. (I wonder how much of those taxes the schools actually get to use, and how much ends up in bureaucratic pockets?)   I think a lot ends up in someone’s pockets because schools are always using students (and their tax-paying parents) to peddle the latest chocolates or other fund raising items for schools. Having said that, the U.S. Department of Education says: Education in America is primarily a State and local responsibility, and ED’s budget is only a small part of both total national education spending and the overall Federal budget, ED currently administers a budget of $62.6 billion … Read entire article »

Filed under: News Items

Never Saw Congress Mangle the Defense Budget as Badly as This Year

October 16th, 2009 | 1 Comment

From Washington Times Senators diverted $2.6 billion in funds in a defense spending bill to pet projects largely at the expense of accounts that pay for fuel, ammunition and training for U.S. troops. Among the 778 such projects, known as earmarks, packed into the bill: $25 million for a new World War II museum at the University of New Orleans and $20 million to launch an educational institute named after the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat. While earmarks are hardly new in Washington, “in 30 years on Capitol Hill, I never saw Congress mangle the defense budget as badly as this year,” said Winslow Wheeler, a former Senate staffer who worked on defense funding and oversight for both Republicans and Democrats. He is now a senior fellow at the Center for … Read entire article »

Filed under: News Items

Fact Check

September 14th, 2009 | 1 Comment

Obama practically scowled at what he said were myths regarding his health care plan during his speech recently.  However, the Associated Press decided to match what he said with the FACTS.  Now I know some people don’t like to know those pesky facts and truths, but here it goes anyway: OBAMA: “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits either now or in the future. Period.” THE FACTS: Though there’s no final plan yet, the White House and congressional Democrats already have shown they’re ready to skirt the no-new-deficits pledge. House Democrats offered a bill that the Congressional Budget Office said would add $220 billion to the deficit over 10 years. But Democrats and Obama administration officials claimed the bill actually was deficit-neutral. They said they simply didn’t have … Read entire article »

Filed under: News Items

Healthcare Elseware

August 18th, 2009 | Add a Comment

Canada Thousands of surgeries may be cut in Metro Vancouver due to government underfunding. Vancouver Coastal Health Authority document shows it is considering chopping more than 6,000 surgeries in an effort to make up for a dramatic budgetary shortfall that could reach $200 million. U.K. Woman gives birth on pavement ‘after being refused ambulance’ A young mother gave birth on a pavement outside a hospital after she was told to make her own way there. Mother-of-three Carmen Blake called her midwife to ask for an ambulance when she went into labour unexpectedly with her fourth child. But the 27-year-old claims she was refused an ambulance and told to walk the 100m from her house in Leicester to the city’s nearby Royal Infirmary. Over 45,000 NHS staff call in sick each day Over 45,000 NHS staff call in sick every … Read entire article »

Filed under: News Items

Government Gone Wild

January 28th, 2009 | 1 Comment

Government Gone Wild

President Barack Obama got the $825 (or $1.2 trillion over a decade) stimulus package through the House of Representatives with a  244 to 188 vote. Not a single Republican voted for the bill. Now you can buy into the notion that this is politics as usual, or you can read the bill and know it’s a VERY BAD BILL. When our children live in a collapsed economy, please remember these gloating faces. Now Nanny Pelosi didn’t get … Read entire article »

Filed under: News Items

Democrats Write $500 Billion Spending Bill, In Secret

September 23rd, 2008 | Add a Comment

The legislation is coming together in a remarkably secretive process in which decisions are concentrated in the hands of just a few lawmakers such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis. The unusual process means thousands of lawmakers’ pet projects of the very sort blasted by GOP presidential nominee John McCain on the campaign trail would escape scrutiny, including up to $5 billion worth of such “earmarks” in the defense budget alone. San Fransico Chronicle Article Here … Read entire article »

Filed under: General