Category Archives: Government Waste

More Offensive Taxation


Posted by josh

So, the Obama administration is going to charge a tax on Christmas trees. The purpose? To improve the marketing image of… Christmas trees.

I don’t think I need to say anything else about it. It’s the height of stupidity and government abuse of power.

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/11/08/obama-couldnt-wait-his-new-christmas-tree-tax/

President Obama’s Agriculture Department today announced that it will impose a new 15-cent charge on all fresh Christmas trees—the Christmas Tree Tax—to support a new Federal program to improve the image and marketing of Christmas trees.

In the Federal Register of November 8, 2011, Acting Administrator of Agricultural Marketing David R. Shipman announced that the Secretary of Agriculture will appoint a Christmas Tree Promotion Board.  The purpose of the Board is to run a “program of promotion, research, evaluation, and information designed to strengthen the Christmas tree industry’s position in the marketplace; maintain and expend existing markets for Christmas trees; and to carry out programs, plans, and projects designed to provide maximum benefits to the Christmas tree industry” (7 CFR 1214.46(n)).  And the program of “information” is to include efforts to “enhance the image of Christmas trees and the Christmas tree industry in the United States” (7 CFR 1214.10).


Big Brother


Posted by josh

It’s the stuff of scary science fiction. An unchecked government will always abuse its power. My administration will devote itself to rolling back the policies of intrusion and invasion and return the government to a proper posture towards the citizens we represent.

This spying program will be rolled back immediately.

http://www.infowars.com/new-street-lights-to-have-homeland-security-applications/

The transformation of street lights into surveillance tools for Homeland Security purposes will only serve to heighten concerns that the United States is fast on the way to becoming a high-tech police state, with TSA agents being empowered to oversee that control grid, most recently with the announcement that TSA screeners would be manning highway checkpoints, a further indication that security measures we currently see in airports are rapidly spilling out onto the streets.


Junk Science – More Dangerous than Junk Food


Posted by josh

I pledge that not one dime of taxpayer money will go to fund ludicrous, nanny-state type studies like this one. Absurd!

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.a78af65cc128f522f558eaa64f38258c.3d1&show_article=1.

Researchers in the United States said on Tuesday they had found a “shocking” association — if only a statistical one — between violence by teenagers and the amount of soda they drank.


Your Money, Finland’s Workers


Posted by josh

This is indefensible. We’re chasing so hard after the myth of renewable, clean energy, that we’re willing to give half a billion dollars of your money to a company making cars in Finland.

Your Money. Finland. Worse, check out the rationale: “With the approval of the Obama administration, an electric car company that received a $529 million federal government loan guarantee is assembling its first line of cars in Finland, saying it could not find a facility in the United States capable of doing the work.”

Your government is giving your money to a company that says you aren’t capable of doing the work.

American innovation and creativity is second to none. My administration would never even consider giving your money to a company that did not intend to use your money to employ and enrich you.

This is an outrage!

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/car-company-us-loan-builds-cars-finland/story?id=14770875

Vice President Joseph Biden heralded the Energy Department’s $529 million loan to the start-up electric car company called Fisker as a bright new path to thousands of American manufacturing jobs. But two years after the loan was announced, the job of assembling the flashy electric Fisker Karma sports car has been outsourced to Finland.


Drill, Baby, Drill!


Posted by josh

We’re seeing more and more examples that demonstrate with stunning clarity just how huge a scam electric cars are. Will we one day have the technology to provide electric cars that perform as well as our current fleet? Probably. But we don’t yet.

It is grossly irresponsible to sink taxpayer money into a science fiction myth. My administration will not offer another dime where private venture capitalists will not. We won’t put you in a position to take all the risk and reap none of the rewards.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/warrenmeyer/2011/10/20/update-fisker-karma-electric-car-gets-worse-mileage-than-an-suv/

The Fisker Karma electric car, developed mainly with your tax money so that a bunch of rich VC’s wouldn’t have to risk any real money, has rolled out with an nominal EPA MPGe of 52.

Not bad?  Unfortunately, it’s a sham.  This figure is calculated using the grossly flawed EPA process that substantially underestimates the amount of fossil fuels required to power the electric car, as I showed in great depth in an earlier Forbes.com article.  In short, the EPA methodology leaves out, among other things, the conversion efficiency in generating the electricity from fossil fuels in the first place.

[...]

As I calculated in my earlier Forbes article, one needs to multiply the EPA MPGe by .365 to get a number that truly compares fossil fuel use of an electric car with a traditional gasoline engine car on an apples to apples basis.  In the case of the Fisker Karma, we get a true MPGe of 19.  This makes it worse than even the city rating of a Ford Explorer SUV.


Union Busting


Posted by josh

Obviously, we will not interfere with a state’s right to conduct its own business, but we will operate within legal boundaries, through legislation and negotiation, to scale back the influence of unions. We cannot afford to ask the American people to continue to fund bloated benefits packages for public servants. We cannot have government held hostage by the demands of its workforce. We will pay government workers fair wages and offer competitive benefits. We must reward excellence and punish incompetence. But the days of excess are over.

Additionally, while we cannot tell a state government how to structure its workforce, we will pay close attention to how states manage their finances when deciding how to allocate federal aid to the states. States with a history of excess and waste are more likely to waste federal money – YOUR money – and that will factor in to our decision making process at the federal level.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44872639/ns/us_news-life/

The Chicago Tribune and WGN-TV, which obtained information about union pension benefits during a joint investigation, said at least eight union officials in Chicago were eligible for what were described as inflated city pensions on top of union pensions for the same period of employment.


No More Bailouts


Posted by josh

Once you elect me president, you can sleep easy at night knowing you’re not going to wake up to the news that I spent billions of your money bailing out failing companies. It will not happen. No company is too big to fail.

http://www.mlive.com/lansing-news/index.ssf/2011/10/new_book_says_general_motors_w.html

General Motors and Chrysler both filed for bankruptcy and were “bailed out” with an infusion of government loans.


Close to Home


Posted by josh

This story hits close to home. I bet they wish they could rethink paying for those stupid painted cows now!

http://nationaljournal.com/economy/harrisburg-pa-votes-to-file-for-bankruptcy-20111012

Pennsylvania’s capital city voted to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection on Tuesday as it faced a state takeover, according to media reports.

The City Council voted 4-3 to seek bankruptcy protection for Harrisburg, which has a debt burden five times its general-fund budget “because of an overhaul and expansion of a trash-to-energy incinerator that doesn’t generate enough revenue,” Bloomberg Businessweek reported.