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I am glad you brought this up and this has been in the forum before but unfortunately never really was discussed in detail. If we had real leadership we would not be releasing illegals and using fear mongering tactics but instead looking at this report and taking some action. It is not like there has been no good plans to cut spending, Simpson/Bowles also had solid ideas.
Obama would be everyone's hero if he was able to cut hundreds of billions in waste, so why won't he? Would he rather bring about sequester-mageddon if he can't raise taxes on "the rich" again?
I'm one of many who would oppose this type of wasteful spending. And if enough of us write our representatives in the senate and congress they can end this waste. So don't tell me i need to sit down and accept whatever stupid crap our government does.
I'm not like you, I do not worship the politicians and bureaucrats as if they are masterminds who have all the answers, and everything they do is honest, above board and is never wasteful or corrupt.
First, it hasn't been determined if it is wasteful. You don't want to investigate if the spending is wasteful, you just want to declare it wasteful.
I have not told you to sit down and accept what the government does. Huh have you been reading my posts?
I am advocating an investigation into whether a program is wasteful based on the reason the program was created, if the reason is sound and if the program is fulfilling its mission. I want more government oversight and accountability to the citizens over these programs.
Worship? All the answers? Never wasteful or corrupt? Lol, you are in fantasyland. I wrote none of those things.
The summit has been overshadowed by disagreements over the U.S. Federal Reserve's quantitative easing (QE) policy under which it will print money to buy $600 billion of government bonds. The move could depress the dollar and cause a destabilising flow of money into emerging economies.
"I will say that the Fed's mandate, my mandate, is to grow our economy. And that's not just good for the United States, that's good for the world as a whole," Obama said during a trip to India. "The worst thing that could happen to the world economy, not just ours, is if we end up being stuck with no growth or very limited growth."
Obama did not have to say a word his actions tell the whole story, after all he choose to give Uncle Ben another term. If he was against he would have gave Barnanke the axe and picked Richard Fisher from the Dallas FR to replace him. Almost everything Barnanke does Fisher is against and if he would have been at the helm all the QE would have ended. Plus Obama is not stupid he knows that the money/credit has to end up some place and that place is the stock market. I mean with out Uncle Ben who is going to buy treasuries with 0% interest? and who would take the slop off of the banks books and buy their mortgage backed securities. Obama loves Uncle Benny he almost makes him look good.
The FED QE spending is not government spending. Ben Bernanke is a Republican and FED action used to be the preferred policy action of conservatives to stimulate the economy, like most things conservatives have abandoned those beliefs.
Whatever President Obama thinks of Ben Bernanke is irrelevant to a discussion about government spending, but oh well.
Pork barrel politics is the way of life for the U.S.Congress. Pork spending is intended to benefit one or more constituents of a politian in exchange for political donations, support and influence. Congress exchanges pork favors to get any thing accomplished.
The budget contains endless line items that are intended to achieve desired outcomes, allies. The U.S. has been buying friends forever. The U.S. has subsidized dictators and foreign civil wars. The U.S. maintains about 900 military bases throughout the world, including about 280 in Germany but we don't have the funding to protect our own borders. Then again, those who profit by employing illegals are voters, too.
Bill and budget pork is legendary stuff in the U.S. The big pork starts out relatively small and then begs for increased funds over time. Tip O'Neill (D) managed to wrangle $14.6 Billion over time, out of the fed to relocate 3.5 miles of interstate hwy. in Boston. No doubt that helped the local Boston economy and maybe reduced some traffic congestion.
Then there was the Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere to connect 50 people to an airport. Sarah Palin (R) and Ted Stevens (R) were huge advocates for the bridge. Sarah removed her support when it became a political embrassment and allocated $233 million to other stuff never approved.
Of all the pork spending listed by the OP, I followed the money as it relates to educating Indonesians, one of endless things the U.S. spend on to keep allies happy.. This pup seems to go back to 2007 and has continued ever since. Indonesia is a coincidence. Oh yeah, Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world and thus far remains on good terms with the U.S.
"So here is my take, if we just shut down most US military bases in Japan we could save $55 billion, more or less. If we shut down two thirds of the “small basesâ€, we could save two trillion dollars!"
Want to explain why we still have basis in Europe that exist for the SOLE PURPOSE of protecting western Europe from a Soviet Union that no longer exists?
There are about 280 +/- long standing bases in Germany. The U.S. relocates military employees, their families and stuff all over the world. Tens of thousands have spent their military careers on foriegn soil in admin positions.
So called U.S. defense spending is #2 after healthcare.
What gets lost in discussions about the federal budget is what the US actually spends the vast majority of the money.
Also conservatives have this horrible/dishonest habit of just naming a program and listing how much is spent on the program without explaining why it is wasteful. This is the wrong way to govern. Not withstanding that the programs they cite are teeny tiny and have nothing to do with where our government actually spends. The question should always be is this program useful.
No doubt a case can be made that just about anythig is useful. It's useful to have international allies. It's useful to horse trade to achieve a bigger goal. It's useful to employ people. Building a bridge larger than the Golden Gate to enable 50 people to access an airport in Alaska is insanity.
The DOD could mitigate its "sequestor cuts" if it just closed most of its overseas bases. We are never going to need a base to stage troops in the future. Wars will be fought from the air and the sea. These bases do nothing but stimulate the economy of the host countries.
Which is one way of buying friends and influencing allies.
Unreal, there are people here with masters who are either unemployed, underemployed or in debt for the degree but wants to make it easier for those in Indonesia get degrees? Disgusting and immoral.
26 million to train Chinese whores, waste or not?
Do you really need to be explained to why using American tax payer money to train whores in china is a waste?
Maybe they are underage whores for use for the Democratic party fund raisers maybe thats why you need to be explained why its a waste.
This spend was approved in 2008. Here's more information on it from Fox News. It appears to have more to do with HIV than anything else. Nonetheless, it appears a tad off.
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