Monday, November 05, 2007

Gov't Report Says $11.8B Wasted on Useless Earmarks..





Hey, here's a big surprise. A government audit shows that about $11.8 Billion (which is less than a Bazillion) of money in the latest Defense Budget is being wasted on non-defense earmarks. If you want specifics, i'd go to Citizens Against Government Waste. But it should surprise no one - it's what DC does.....




How is it happening? Well, all of the earmarks come in at the Appropriations Committee, of which one of the members is our own Jim Clyburn. They simply tack it on, it gets passed with no complaint, and you pay for it. By the way, $11.8 Billion is about $40 for every person in the US - and this is only in the Defense Budget.........




Flush it, flush, flush it down the hole.........



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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

look at the cost of the war per person it is a lot higher. now i am in favor of kicking their ass but my man bush has spent more money than anyone and the gop as a rule is spending money more than the democrats and trying to say they are conservative something is wrong

Anonymous said...

moye, is that really the cost of teh war or the earmarks riding with war spending bills? Overcharges of thousands to ship a bolt that are caught and run into hundreds of thousands to prosecute seem to only make a mockery of accountability.

Mike, how exactly is the bridge to nowhere on the upper Santee Cooper vital to homeland security and homeland defense?

Anonymous said...

My name is Nisha Thompson and I am the outreach coordinator for the Sunlight Foundation and I have been following your blog for sometime. I know you sometimes write about federal spending so I wanted to let you know about a new tool that lets users follow the earmark money--right to each recipient's doorstep.

Mashing up Google Earth and with the companies, universities and nonprofit recipients of earmarks in the House Defense Appropriations bill (available from Sunlight and Taxpayers for Common Sense on EarmarkWatch.org), users can get a bird's eye view of where members are shipping our defense dollars, and zoom in close on recipients.

Here’s a press release giving more detail. http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/navigate_house_defense_earmarks_on_google_earth
Here’s a blog post about it. http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/a_picture_is_worth_a_thousand_words
And here's where you can download Google Earth, Earmark Edition: http://sunlightlabs.com/earmarks/house_defense_earmarks_08.kml

Thanks for your time. Please let me know if you have any questions,

Nisha Thompson

Organizer and Outreach Coordinator
Sunlight Foundation
1818 N Street NW
Washington DC 20036

Thoroughbred 401k said...

Thanks Nisha.

Rhino, the Bomb dropping area is near there, so maybe they need the bridge to evacuate all 800 people from Lone Star and Rimini if they accidentally have another Mars Bluff-type incident. Granted, it is a stretch. If Jim says we need it, then we need it. BAAAAA!!!!