The Waste Land
GOP Sen. Tom Coburn releases a new pork report this morning on “The Worst Waste of the Year.”
“As we look back on federal spending for 2008, American taxpayers will laugh, and then cry at how their elected officials spent their hard-earned dollars. Not even these tough economic times have dulled Congress’ ability to find new and creative ways to waste taxpayer dollars,” Dr. Coburn said.
Examples of waste in 2008 include:
• $188,000 for Lobster Institute in Maine, home of the “LobsterCam”
• $1 million for bike paths on Louisiana levees while levees await basic repairs
• $2.4 million for a retractable shade canopy at a park in West Virginia
• $24.6 million for the National Park Service’s 100th year birthday in 2016 – 8 years early
• $3.2 million on a blimp the Pentagon does not want
• $367,000 wasted by a Texas school board on items like an inflatable alligator and under-the-sea waterslide, among other things
• $5 million for a bridge to a zoo parking lot in St. Louis
• $9,000 for a non-functioning airplane-shaped gas station in Tennessee
• $300,000 for specialty potatoes for high-end restaurants“The waste highlighted in this report is only a fraction of the more than $385 billion the federal government throws away every year through waste, fraud and duplication.
Of course, this all looks like a pittance compared to Crap Sandwich and every other bailout effort over the past year now totaling more than $7 trillion.
America, the profligate, from sea to shining sea.
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- Congress: America’s Biggest Pork Farm « Jane Q. Republican
- Friday Round-up: 12-12-08 « Grand Rants
- Grand Rants
- There's My Two Cents
- ButAsForMe! » The Waste Land
- Moderate Blogger » The Waste Land
- Teach like it’s 1979? « Designated Conservative
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So, what are we as voters going to do about this?
Does the Government still spend something like $9,000.00 for a hammer?
if so, it would be the perfect tool to konk Ried and Pelosi over the head with and Dodd, etc. etc….etc…
It doesn’t matter. The election is over, and by the time the next one rolls around, who’ll remember?
Unfortunately, this is all chump-change, to use the words of the One…
…when compared to the near Billion spent on the campaign.
That is known as “mis-allocation of resources” in financial terms.
Have no fear! “the(dopey)one” has a scalpel.
@ #3 saddly thats very true. People think the war is pricey they have no idea how much money passes goverment hands daily, and have even less of how much is wasted on having 20 hands doing the same job. For instance the US has 17 policing orginizations.
Did I hear right that there is pork in this bill that includes giving federal judges a pay raise?
The only way this will end is if there were a nationwide tax revolt. If half the country decided, “The hell with this. I’m not paying my taxes!”, what would the Feds do, arrest half the population? Unfortunately, our country is populated by too many sheep who would never even think of taking part in such a protest.
What happened to integrity?
What happened to values?
What happened to honesty?
What happened to states rights?
Don’t these people understand our history?
Isn’t there anyone out there who understand how important the rule of law is?
WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO MY CONSTITUTION?
GEEESSS!
No
DC…District of Corruption
$2.4 million for a retractable shade canopy at a park in West Virginia
Anyone know which park this was?
I don’t know if $5 million is expensive for a bridge nowadays, but it was needed – thousands (many children) cross the busy road between the parking lot and the south entrace to the St. Louis Zoo every week, and there have been fatal accidents. So I don’t fault a bridge being built, but the price tag sounds excessive.
umm… what the heck is a “specialty potatoe”? a rutabaga? a beet? a french fry?
Exactly!
no, I bet it’s Byrd something something Park though.
to put this in perspective… the 7 trillion is MORE than all the wars fought since the Civil War, and that’s no where close to 7 trillion. Stick that in your liberal pipes and smoke it.
WTF?! If ‘high-end’ restaurants want friggin’ special potatoes, can’t they buy them themselves… and pass the cost along to their ‘high-end’ customers? What is the government doing subsidizing restaurants for their produce?!
They need to put the congressional porkers’ names to these lists.
Pork is as pork does… No matter the financial times PORK WILL BE PORK… These are mere POCKET CHANGE for our gang in DC… Just heard “DIRTY HARRY REID” tacked on a RAISE for federal judges on the AUTO BAILOUT… And don’t forget the BOYS and GIRLS in DC will get a 5 grand raise on your tab, the 1st of the year… And they are raising HELL about EXECUTIVE BONUSES!!! Go figure???
Yet another compelling reason to move Election Day to April 16th.
This is exactly the logic that makes for problems.
Whether or not the bridge was needed – why should the people who don’t use the zoo, have to pay for the bridge?
Is going to a zoo a right as defined in our constitution?
What national interest is served by this bridge – is it a federal responsibility?
I’m pretty sure there are people in Maine for whom lobster is in fact a big deal and the institute is helpful. But again, is it a interest of nationwide importance?
If not, the federal government has no compelling reason to be involved other than they want to gain power and the citizens want to give them that power.
Well I live in WV and I don’t remember hearing about it :/
No rational person could find the
“right to zoo” in our constitution.
Trouble is, I’m not sure the majority of the American electorate understands that and consequently, we get national bridge to zoo.
Robert Byrd the West Virginia Pork Meister Park–they all are.
OMG. What the heck is the shade made out of, gold?
Since when did the elected officials really care about what the public thinks about anything? We’re just the stupid, smelly masses.
at one point the saying was “a million here and a million there and pretty soon it adds up” then we substituted billions for millions, and now we are about to substitute trillions instead of billions. at present we owe over 10 trillion dollars, or $100,000 for every american, man woman and child. how much more debt do we really want to leave our kids, or should we just go bankrupt like russia, or nationalize the debt like africa.
I can not get my calculator to even state trillions.
There are a couple of options the voters will do.
1. Continue to vote for them and keep them in office because they bring home the bacon.
2. Vote the Republicans out of office, because they don’t have Conservative values, by voting for a Democrat.
What we need is a legal tax revolt. What happens if suddenly 50 million people file extensions to pay their taxes…say for a couple months.
One wonders. Ya s’pose the retractable shades on a big motor home (camper, whatever you want to call it) costs 2.4 mil?
We need to find a way to get accountability from Congress. We have a right to know (down to the last penny) where OUR money goes. I mean a complete list of everything and who sponsored it. A congress person’s job is NOT to bring home the bacon. Call or write your Rep and push for a ballot measure locally so we know what these crooks are up to. Use Byrd as an example of misuse of the people’s funds.