17 Trillion and Counting

[Runt]

http://www.usdebtclock.org/
We crossed the $17 Trillion line today. I heard on TV that we added $328 billion since just yesterday. Our incompetent leaders toss a billion here and a billion there and act like it doesn't matter. And with $17 trillion in debt, it almost doesn't matter. It is a staggering number. A friend says it is just too big to comprehend.
I told her to think of it this way:
A moderately successful worker will earn $2 million in a lifetime. That's my daughter's entire HS graduating class working 40 years at $50K just to make just a billion. How can we ask our kids to gather EVERYTHING they will ever earn, and all their friends will ever earn just to pay off a billion in debt? ... And we've added 300 more high schools since just yesterday.
I don't know what the answer is but we have to do something.

[rich76]

while I would never state that it is privy to this administration, it sure does look like anything goes. Here are some examples:
1.A reality TV show in India. The Department of Agriculture’s Market Access Program spends $200 million a year to help U.S. agricultural trade associations and cooperatives advertise their products in foreign markets. In 2011, it funded a reality TV show in India that advertised U.S. cotton.
Studying pig poop. The Environmental Protection Agency awarded a $141,450 grant under the Clean Air Act to fund a Chinese study on swine manure and a $1.2 million grant to the United Nations for clean fuel promotion.
Amtrak snacks. Federally subsidized Amtrak lost $84.5 million on its food and beverage services in 2011 and $833.8 million over the past 10 years. It has never broken even on these services.
Using military exercises to boost biofuels. The U.S. Navy bought 450,000 gallons of biofuels for $12 million—or almost $27 per gallon—to conduct exercises to showcase the fuel and bring it closer toward commercialization. It is the largest biofuel purchase ever made by the government.
Conferences for government employees. In 2008 and 2009 alone, the Department of Justice spent $121 million to host or participate in 1,832 conferences.
The most unproductive and unpopular Congress in modern history –
(Congress) $132 million .................................................. .............................................. 4
2. Professional sports loophole – (Taxes) $91 million .......................................... 7
3. OH SNAP! Junk food, luxury drinks, soap operas, and billions of dollars
in improper food stamp payments – (Department of Agriculture) $4.5
billion .................................................. .................................................. ............................... 10
4. Oklahoma keeps unused airport open to collect federal checks – (OK)
$450,000 .................................................. .................................................. ........................ 13
5. Moroccan pottery classes – (U.S. Agency for International Development)
$27 million .................................................. .................................................. .................... 15
6. Out-of-this-world Martian food tasting – (HI) $947,000 .............................. 17
7. When robot squirrels attack – (CA) $325,000 .................................................. . 20
8. USDA’s caviar dreams – (ID) $300,000 .................................................. ............... 22
9. Bailed out tourist boat sinking private business – (AK) $3.3 million ...... 24
10. Phantom, unused grant accounts draw fees – (Department of Health and
Human Services) $2 million .................................................. ..................................... 28



and from the Heritage foundation:

http://www.heritage.org/research/rep...e-numbers-2012

[Runt]

A million here and a million there and it starts to add up.

When I worked in the Pentagon, I helped the major warfighting commands find funds for "emergent" needs. We routinely found funding for projects in the 50 to 100 million dollar range. After 9-11 one of the commands asked for help in finding $1 million to test system integration to eliminate a national defense weakness. I remember telling him to look in the CINC's couch cushions for that kind of change. I wouldn't get out of the rack for anything less than 5 or 10 million. But, yes, we did find the money for the testing and corrected the weakness - just from a different pot of money.

I can understand how the leaders fall into the trap. When you work with such big numbers, you forget what they mean. But I always tried to think of it as the first tax dollar I ever wasted was the last tax dollar I contributed. If I saved on one end, I didn't have to pay on the other.

[rich76]

1.The Food Stamp Program paid out $1.9 billion in overpayments in 2009, according to GAO.An April 2012 undercover investigation by a Memphis CBS affiliate recently found food stamps being used rampantly to illegally buy non-food items including condoms.
A March 2012 investigation by a Baltimore ABC affiliate found food stamps being used in local stores to buy beer, cigarettes, and being exchanged for cash in stores.In 2011, a Los Angeles CBS station found recipients selling their food stamps on craigslist for pennies on the dollar.
In Michigan, a woman who won $700,000 in the state lottery in September 2011 was still receiving full food stamp benefits in March 2012.
According to the USDA Inspector General, two Detroit-area brothers convicted of more than $679,000 in food stamp fraud in 2002 were caught illegally buying food stamps at their store again in 2009 after they were re-admitted to the food stamp program.

A 2-year joint criminal investigation led by USDA OIG disclosed that the owner, manager, and employees of two SNAP-authorized retailers in Cincinnati exchanged SNAP benefits for firearms, cash, stolen tobacco products, narcotics, and drug paraphernalia.

According to the a USDA audit, from September 2007 to September 2009, the owner of a Brooklyn food store and her son exchanged SNAP benefits for cash in a series of trafficking transactions that amounted to $1.4 million.

The USDA OIG found in 2011 that the Food and Nutrition Service did not require states to use the management reports provided by their EBT processors. Thus, neither New Jersey nor Florida (the two states audited) was using these reports to identify potentially fraudulent activities by SNAP recipients. The audit identified over 2,600 questionable transactions using these reports, totaling over $181,700 for a 1-month period

[rich76]

Heat and Eat”:

A new abuse of the system has popped up in the last few years, whereby states provide a minimal LIHEAP benefit, such as $1, in order to expand food stamp eligibility and increase benefits. Under Food Stamp regulations, receipt of a LIHEAP benefit, regardless of the amount, enables Food Stamp recipients to maximize their Standard Utility Allowance (SUA). Using the highest allowable SUA in the Food Stamp benefit calculation may make otherwise ineligible applicants for Food Stamps eligible and may significantly increase Food Stamp benefits for many households. Some states are even sending LIHEAP check to households whose utilities are part of their rent just to get them on food stamps.

In New York 115,000 households got a benefit increase of an average of $118 a month because of $1 LIHEAP checks.
In Vermont 4,000 residents who live in public or subsidized housing with heat included in rent, received a $5 annual LIHEAP benefit payment that leveraged increases in their food stamp benefits from $10 to more than $60 a month.

Maine residents living in subsidized housing with heat included in their rent are eligible for a one-time LIHEAP benefit not to exceed $5, which allows eligibility for Food Stamps.

Washington sent $1 checks to every SNAP recipient in the state. Those token payments triggered an additional $43 million in SNAP benefits.

[rich76]

1. The Obama administration has encouraged States to take advantage of categorical eligibility. In a September 2009 memo they write: “We encourage you to continue promoting expanded categorical eligibility as a way to increase SNAP participation and reduce State workloads.” In most states, that means households who receive cash and non-cash benefits under Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) are automatically eligible for SNAP. If a household is merely given a brochure funded by TANF, they will be automatically eligible for SNAP.
Another memo from the Obama administration explains: “With broad-based categorical eligibility, state agencies can effectively raise the income limit and raise or eliminate the asset test.”
In Ohio, a woman with a $300,000 home, a Mercedes, and $80,000 in savings qualified for SNAP because, under categorical eligibility, these resources are not taken into account

[rich76]

1.Pitt County, North Carolina, a recipient of a Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) grant funded by health care law, used these federal taxpayer funds to place signage to promote recreational destinations including public parks, bike lanes, and more.
The City of Nashville, Tennessee, which received a $7.5 million Communities Putting Prevention to Work grant, provided free pet spaying and neutering.

The City of Boston received $1 million for urban gardening as an obesity prevention program.The New York Department of Health used a $3 million taxpayer-funded grant to lobby for a soda tax initiative.

[rich76]

1.The GSA spent $823,000 on a lavish Las Vegas-area conference, including $75,000 for a “Team-Building” exercise, a $31,200 “Networking” reception, and mind reader.

This year, GAO identified 32 new areas of duplication and 19 additional areas of waste and inefficiency. The report cites duplication in almost a thousand individual programs, costing taxpayers over $300 billion per year.

A USDA OIG audit determined 30,310 single family housing loan guarantees—with a projected total value of $4.16 billion—were issued to ineligible borrowers.

A USDA OIG audit found that $280 million of “stimulus” funding for the Forest Service was sent to geographic areas that agency officials had classified as not significantly impacted by the recession, contrary to the stimulus’ requirements.

College students (who generally do not have full time employment but have access to meal plans) across the country are being encouraged by universities to apply for SNAP benefits. Portland State University in Oregon, for instance, has a website showing students how to sign up for food stamps called, Nutrition, it’s a SNAP!

More than $300,000 in SNAP benefits was redeemed at tobacco retailers in Oklahoma City between July 2009 and March 2011, according to data provided by the Oklahoma Department of Human Services and reported by The Tulsa World.

In California, state officials―failed to notice for years that welfare recipients could use the state-issued cards to withdraw taxpayer cash at tribal casinos and state-licensed poker rooms, according to The Los Angeles Times. Casino withdraws averaged $227,392 a month.

Last week, the Los Angeles Times reported: “Doctors, nurses and social workers from across the country, 107 in all, were charged in what federal officials in Washington called a ‘nationwide takedown’ of medical professionals accused of fraudulently billing Medicare out of nearly half a billion dollars. The amount of bogus Medicare claims totaled about $450 billion.
In a September 2011 report, the Inspector General (IG) for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management found that improper post-death benefit payments for federal employees averages $100-$150 million annually, totaling over $601 million in the last five years. In one example the IG found, an annuitant‘s son cashed his dead father‘s checks for 37 years. The son‘s scheme, which cost taxpayers more than $500,000, was discovered in 2008, when he himself died.
Los Angeles redirected $1 million in taxpayer money from the CDBG program intended to help the city‘s homeless to a wealthy international architecture firm designing a NFL football stadium. The company, Gensler, employs approximately 2,800 people and its revenues exceeded $460 million last year.
An April 2011 report by the IRS found as much as $1 billion or more in tax credits for energy efficient residential improvements are being claimed by individuals with no record of owning a home. Based upon a 2011 review of a statistically valid sample by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), 30 percent of the individuals who claimed the Energy Efficiency Home Improvement Tax Credit had no record of owning a home.
A $28.5 million contract awarded by the Department of Commerce to One Economy Corp. included $936,818 spent to create a web-based television series, “Diary of a Single Mom,” which “chronicles the lives and challenges of three single mothers and their families trying to get ahead despite obstacles that all single mothers face, such as childcare, healthcare, education, and finances.”
An International House of Pancakes (IHOP) franchise was built with federal financial assistance to the Anacostia Economic Development Corporation. According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), “$500,000 of the $765,000 grant was used as an equity injection in DC Pancakes LLC for a 19% ownership interest.” The new IHOP is located not in an underserved community but in a popular Washington D.C. neighborhood, Columbia Heights.
In 2011, a $2 million federal grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration was made to help pay for a “multimillion-dollar wine exhibition and culinary center” in Washington State.
In January 2011, fifty employees from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs attended an eleven-day conference at a resort in Scottsdale, Arizona. The final cost exceeded $221,000. The purpose of the conference was to “discuss revisions in how disability ratings are assigned for veterans seeking compensation and health care.” To put that number in perspective, that is enough money to pay the annual disability compensation of six disabled combat veterans.
In its final report to Congress, the Commission on Wartime Contracting estimated that ”[a]t least $31 billion, and possibly as much as $60 billion, has been lost to contract waste and fraud during military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan – at the mid-range of the estimate, this amounts to $12 million every day for the past 10 years. This would amount to wartime contracting waste and fraud costing the taxpayer nearly $4.4 billion in 2011.
The United States Coast Guard spent more than $24,000 on a float for the 2011 New Orleans Mardi Gras celebration.
On August 15, 2011, University of Virginia professor Christine Mahoney was awarded $300,000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study how European Union leaders frame their legislative debates to gain advantage.
Kriemhild Dairy Farms was awarded over $55,000 to purchase and install a new butter packing machine, allowing it to begin offering 8-ounce packages of their “Meadow Butter” made from the milk of their grass-fed cows. The grant was awarded through the Rural Business Enterprise Grant (RBEG) program, which was given $34,930,000 in funding for FY 2011.
Over $300,000 in U.S. taxpayer money paid for an initiative called Summer Institutes for European Student Leaders. This funding allows high school and college students from Denmark, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom to come to the U.S. at U.S. taxpayer expense to learn about civic activism and environmental leadership at American colleges.
Researchers at Columbia University received over $600,000 to study how heterosexuals use the internet to meet one another, and how that activity influences their sexual behavior.
Louisiana received a $5.2 million federal transportation grant to construct the Steamboat Overlook Interpretive Center. The facility will contain interpretive exhibits depicting the history and culture of the steamboat era. At a time when Louisiana has 3,800 deficient bridges, it is unclear why taxpayers are spending millions on a Steamboat Interpretive Center.

[Runt]

Rich, you are killing me. I read these kinds of reports all the time and shake my head over every one. But when you stack them up they start to really add up. I despise the "add on" benefits. One seemingly innocuous benefit triggers a landslide of additional gifts from the government.
My favorite is that any family that qualifies for SNAP (Supplemental being the key word) automatically receives free/reduced school lunches. Hey! I thought we were already paying for a supplement to the family food budget. They also qualify for Obama phones, free internet, subsidized childcare and the list goes on and on.
As I said before, all these seemingly small expenditures of our tax dollars start to add up. The Heritage Foundation report was good reading. I can understand a deficit of a few billion or even a few hundred billion (but those should be rare and extreme cases). But when we start piling trillion dollar deficits year after year we can never recover.
It is past the time to trim the budget. We need to slash spending. If we can do that, I can even accept some tax increases. But if we cut the waste, eliminate the fraud and kill the pork in the budget we probably won't need to raise taxes to reduce the debt to something we can live with. Sadly, with the current administration, Senate and House those things will likely never happen.

[rich76]

I had to stop Runt........I was depressing myself. There are more. This administration is presently receiving the highest amount of $$$$ ever, and they want more. It is a simply a disgrace.

[Runt]

In the end we have to face the fact that we are nearing the point where more people vote for a living than work for a living. I was not overly fond of Romney but he was correct with the 47% comment.
Most voters will not vote for a candidate that proposes cuts to benefits that particular voter receives or to programs that support that voters job/lifestyle. That is a key reason we see the current administration increasing the breadth of benefit coverage. If they can get more voters taking just a little bit, the tipping point moves just a little closer.

[rich76]

Let us not forget the govt workers and their spouses...they'll not bite the hand that feeds them.........and the govt workers numbers are growing daily. I believe we are already at the point of "more voters than workers".

[StockTrader]

:le sigh:

[SayOw]

All the pork is done for one reason and one reason only...reelection...

And since the dems and repubs are hand-in-hand in this marriage, they are more than happy to sign off on your pork as long as you return the favor and I'll see you on the links after our lunch with the lobbyists.

And then every election season this very people come back to your town and tell you what they have been fighting for you in washington and why you need to vote them back....

Rebuplicans = Democrats = Politicians = Business As Usual In America

[-mmm-]

Originally Posted by SayOw

All the pork is done for one reason and one reason only...reelection...

And since the dems and repubs are hand-in-hand in this marriage, they are more than happy to sign off on your pork as long as you return the favor and I'll see you on the links after our lunch with the lobbyists.

And then every election season this very people come back to your town and tell you what they have been fighting for you in washington and why you need to vote them back....

Rebuplicans = Democrats = Politicians = Business As Usual In America

To the part I bolded: with so many states that use the practice of gerrymandering they dont even have to do that anymore. A politician just has to look to the threats from the extremes of the party their district represents (note I dont say citizens): tea party in Republican districts, far left in Democrat districts. Part of the reason nothing gets down anymore and we have things like the shutdown as theres relatively hardly any moderates in Congress