For those of us who have worked in Washington, and in particular on Capitol Hill, it is hard to explain the specific ways in which the Federal Government grows so fast and how taxpayers’ money gets wasted so excessively. Sure, everyone “gets it” to some degree, but unless you’ve lived it, you don’t know how it actually happens.

Well, back on January 28 of this year, in the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, there was a case study in how it all works and how Senators show not only an inability, but a total lack of desire, to be accountable with your money.

In short, Senator Tom Coburn dared to question the powers-that-be about the quick passage of S.2924, the re-authorization of $85 Million per year for the Boys and Girls Club, a billl that would spend $425 million in taxpayer money over the next 5 years. He raised the legitimate question of the $2.2 million the organization has paid for lobbyists over the last 5 years, the over $653 million given to the organization by the Federal Government over the last 10 years even as the organization raised over $650 million from private sources last year alone, the $1 million salary for the CEO and a number of other concerns.

The Committee basically ignored his concerns without any real discussion, and only Senator Kyl joined him to vote against the re-authorization – with Ranking Republican Sessions actually co-sponsoring the bill. The video of the hearing is worth watching - to see just how much Senator Coburn was alone on an island while the Committee Ranking Republican simply sat on his hands (fast forward to 37:20 in the hearing), largely because the committee is filled with non-conservative staff who are unwilling to take a stand.

Yesterday, Senator Coburn rounded up the support of Senators Kyl, Cornyn and Grassley to send a letter to the Boys and Girls Club asking some specific questions about the nature of the BGCA’s spending, its revenue sources and very specific questions about compensation, and use of funds. That is a great first step. And, not suprisingly, the letter has generated quite a bit of news today by way of an AP story (see, e.g., here). And equally not suprisingly, the focus of the media is on the CEO pay.

But that’s only one small part of the much more troubling question… which is, why on earth are taxpayers subsidizing an entity - however much good it may do - that raised hundreds of millions of dollars last year alone?

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Governor Christie ventured deep into George Norcross country to speak about the tough realities of this year’s budgetary woes. It was another sign of raw political courage by the former prosecutor as he seeks to slay the treasure-hogging dragon of Trenton.

His appearance in Camden County, home of New Jersey’s most corrupt tax-levying political dictatorships (both county-wide and in many municipalities) and the site of our state’s own third world theme park known as Camden, probably caused many of the vile serpents of political corruption in the Norcross machine to run and hide under the nearest rock.

It was against the backdrop of this rampant fiscal debauchery and pay-to-play landscape that Governor Christie soberly announced that “seventy billion dollars worth of wealth has left New Jersey in the last four years,” thanks to the ridiculously high tax rates (income, property and sales) foisted upon the state by years of liberal utopian budgeting.

He also pointed out the sad reality that in the political Olympic sport of taxing the snot out of citizens, New Jersey is currently the national champion when taking all areas of taxation into consideration. Thank you Mr. Corzine.

Speaking of the Wizard of Wall Street, Governor Christie also brought up the fact that Mr. Corzine continues to, as Save Jersey Blogger Matt Rooney puts it “seriously wound the Garden State from beyond the political grave” in his last minute deal to ban Governor Christie from firing a single public employee until January 2011.

As Christie stated, “My lawyers have now told me that I am bound by that deal. If I could stop it, I would, except the previous governor tied my hands. I cannot lay off one state worker, I cannot furlough a state worker until January of 2011. That was a great election-year deal he made for us. It is an exquisite pair of handcuffs he put on his successor, but I guess he didn’t think he was going to have a successor.”

It is just this kind of frank talk and political courage that will keep Christie in the public’s good graces even as he makes many very tough and unpopular spending cuts. It is also precisely the contrast of this responsible adult leadership soaked in common sense with the childish schoolyard stunts like Mr. Corzine’s parting gifts that is finally waking the sleeping giant of the New Jersey electorate to look “queasily upon what they have done” all these years, as the Bard might say.

It’s bad folks. Just how bad has been nefariously hidden from the light of day by the magic and dark arts of Corzine and his fellow Wall Street wizards. The state has been robbing the pension plans of teachers and public workers, as well as the unemployment insurance trust fund for years to balance budgets, while subsidizing inept money losing industries like public transportation for years just to stay in the good graces of the unions.

On top of that, the serious financial burdens levied by our government have created such a hostile business environment that New Jersey is “disproportionately affected” by the economic malaise permeating the nation under Obama-Biden’s socialist dirge.

Political leaders from both parties have too long ignored the financial woes in our state, choosing to punt the problems down the line to some future generation to deal with. Thankfully, Governor Christie tells us that the day to deal with it is today.
While serpents and scoundrels from Trenton call Christie’s attempts to seriously deal with the problems “immoral” New Jersey residents seem to understand that tough choices need to be made to stave off financial armageddon. Christie believes the people are ready to hear the truth.

As Governor Christie closed his remarks in enemy territory, he in essence closed with the classic “if I die, I die” approach to governing. A politician dedicated to solving problems and not preserving his own personal career and gravy train. In New Jersey. In Camden County. It was a sighting akin to the Loch Ness Monster or Big Foot.

It’s a wondrous thing to hear a politician say these things. In a political age where the president and his pals in congress see poll after poll, town hall meeting after town hall meeting, and election after election repudiating their vast socialist agenda as not a rebuke of their schemes, but rather a sign of our inability to understand what’s good for us, it is refreshing to see a politician not only listen, but give the American people the respect they are due.

This article originally appeared on my Examiner.com page. You can view it on that site, by clicking here.

I’m sure you all have seen the ads from Census 2010. It’s well known that every 10 years, we have the census. Soon the forms will be coming to be filled out.  I checked my mailbox and thought it came in today. Nope.

Instead, I got a $0.44 first class mail telling me the census form will be in approximately one week from today. Thanks a lot. This is a major waste of my tax money. Anybody that is familiar with the costs of political campaigns knows how much mailings cost. This one is no different except that it is at our expense. There are about 110,000,000 households in the US. This .44 mailing adds up. About $48 million in postage alone. That doesn’t include about 110,000,000 envelopes, sheets of paper, laser printer depreciation, toners, and labor for that gigantic mailing.

I’ll give it one credit. It was quick. It was addressed from Phoenix yesterday, and I got it today here in Green Oak Township, Michigan.

Other than that, this was a gigantic waste. They should have saved the $50 million plus and just sent the actual census form instead of the one week warning.

This is just one more example why people don’t trust Washington DC with their money. $50 million here, $50 million there. Pretty soon, it’s up to 13 trillion.

Jon Russell: “When the wealthy get soaked, we all take a bath.”

 

According to stories published in the past few days, Washington Senate Majority Leader, Lisa Brown, is in favor of a proposal for a State Income Tax “that would hit the wealthy and give everyone a sales-tax break.” This is the second year in a row that Brown has raised this proposal but, this year, there’s actual legislation – Senate Bill 6250 – to go along with it. Although reports are that this “measure’s future is uncertain”, since the legislature has less than a week left in the schedule for their current session and they’re still trying to come up with a solution for a $2.7 Billion budget shortfall, we would all be wise to keep our eyes on these guys … especially the ones who are pitching that a tax on high earners would “bring more fairness” and in return for getting more “fairness” from those evil-hearted “wealthy”, they say they will “give everyone a sales-tax break” in the amount of … are you ready?! … one penny!

When I heard this news, my immediate reaction was, “I can’t think of a better argument for continuing to replace these bozos with people who have a real-world perspective on dealing with life’s priorities. Thankfully, we have a Candidate for State Representative in my area who exemplifies the sort of replacement we need to be sending to Olympia to restore trustworthy representation. His name is Jon Russell. Almost immediately after I heard the news of Brown’s State Income Tax Proposal, State Representative Candidate Russell published a statement on this matter that I felt “hit the nail right on the head.” With that in mind, I’m offering the full-text of his statement, as follows:

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It should come as no surprise that the state legislature is trying to pass an income tax referendum to tax the wealthy in our state. It is the old political game of class warfare, pitting the majority against a minority. The legislature is trying to close a 2.6 billion dollar deficit in the state budget, but instead of cuts in spending they are raising taxes left and right. Did you know that while Clark County’s unemployment is over 14% & Olympia’s (Thurston County) is only 7.8 %? This shows that while the rest of us suffer the effects of an abysmal job market, government employees are exempt from the rules of the real-world. I say the Washington State income tax should come as no surprise because it flies in the face of simple economics. Most of those in the legislature and in the administration have never worked in the private sector; they do not understand the sweat and tears that go into owning and growing a business; they do not understand the heart ache of employers who must lay off employees for the sake of the survival of that business. The wealthy create jobs by investing their money in companies that hire the rest of us. More taxes means less money to invest and that means even higher unemployment right around the corner.

Oregon voters recently passed an income tax on the so-called wealthy in their State and businesses are already scrambling to move out of state. It’s not that the increase was extraordinarily high, but rather the vote set a dangerous precedent that a simple majority of voters can use the ballot box to take money from one group and give it to another. And, you can bet that, if they can do it once, they will easily do it again.

While some people in our state may believe that taxing the income of the rich would be a good thing, it’s important to keep in mind that once you allow the income tax to exist on the wealthy, eventually the politicians will run out of money and they will lower the income level to include taxing the rest of us. I believe the solution for the State’s budget deficit lies in cutting State spending and living according to a balanced budget. We should also look at eliminating the Business and Operation tax on our small businesses. This would put more money into the economy, empowering small businesses to create jobs and hire more employees. Controlling state spending and freeing up money to invest in small businesses will go beyond meeting our State’s current economic challenges to initiate a boom for employment in Washington State.

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New Jersey Transit is currently dealing with a number of major financial problems.  They just had about thirty million dollars cut from their state subsidy by Gov. Chris “Awesome Like A Rock Star” Christie, and there’s talk of more cuts in next year’s budget.

(Personally I hope Christie gets them started on the road to privatization sooner rather than later, but that’s just me)

And what exactly is going on, according to this press release, on March 20 at 2 PM in the NJ Transit Concourse of New York City Pennsylvania Station?

Big party!  Big celebration!  It’s the one year anniversary of the launch of the only express train from New York City to Atlantic City, ACES.  From the release:

The celebration will feature music, giveaways and a cake from Charm City Cakes (featured company of the Food Network’s ACE of Cakes) as a way to say thank you to ACES’ riders.

Now I’m pretty sure this had to be planned well in advance - if you’ve ever watched Ace of Cakes, you know they’re usually very busy and spend a great deal of time on multiple projects with ridiculous amounts of planning.  I’m personally a fan of theirs, having been won over by last season’s finale involving the 100th Episode cake they did for ABC’s hit series, “Lost”.  Their cakes are masterpieces of design and delicacy, and I’ve got to say, I’m fairly certain they don’t usually include a price tag.  In fact, I’d be hard-pressed to find an episode where they mention prices.  Any casual viewer of the show can tell, though, it’s got to be a dang high price tag with the sorts of things they’re willing to do.  These are pieces of art, art that is obviously too rich for most people.

My question is, then: who paid for this?  Who thought that doing something like this would be a good idea in a recession and when the threat of service cuts and fare increases is looming closer every day?  Only NJ Transit could have such hubris as to assume the taxpayer would eat the cost of this.

Granted, the ACES train is not strictly funded by NJ Transit - the funding comes from three major casinos in Atlantic City and NJ Transit, along with the use of Amtrak’s reservation system (NJ Transit does not have a reservation system, nor did they think it prudent to build one for such cases - probably the only good idea they’ve had in the past several years).  The fact is, though, people will look at this and say, NJ Transit is using our money for THIS?  Throwing a party, buying showpiece cakes?  Really?

I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding here - my rage isn’t towards Charm City Cakes at all, I don’t begrudge them making money off of what they do.  They’re very good at it and deserve the ability to charge whatever they want for the beautiful work they do.  I know I certainly couldn’t ever do what they do, and I happily and strongly encourage the free market to continue providing them with the ability to make as much money as they can doing the wonderful things they do week in and week out.

I’m exceedingly upset with the appearance of hubris or the lack of foresight on the part of NJ Transit in allowing this to continue with the controversy over fares and a tendency to spend without limits that has characterized the organization for years and has placed them squarely in the situation they are in right now.

Hope it tastes good, guys.

While I had been thinking about something like this for several weeks, the document that follows was very much inspired by Nessa’s diary of a few days ago.  I’m not declaring it to be the official RedState Resolves (I’m fairly certain that Erick Erickson and the rest of the Mods would have something to say about that!).  This is intended as my statement of Grievances and Resolves, one that I am hopeful conservatives, libertarians and even moderates can identify with.  It is, I hope, something that we can build upon as we instruct our elected and appointed representatives on why we as Americans are so upset with them, with the bureaucracy and the out-of-control spending.

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It was once held to be self evident that every person was endowed with inalienable Rights, ones not granted by Government but which existed as a natural part of our Being.  These rights include life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, property, and to live one’s life as one sees fit without interference from others.  We understood these Rights to be inviolable unless they Infringed upon the Rights of another.

Today, our Nation has forgotten these principles.  The Congress and President have evacuated their responsibilities to protect the People from the State, chosen Power over principle and degraded the Sovereignty of the Citizen.  We therefore recognize the following grievances with the Federal Government of the United States:

It has made compliance with the Law virtually impossible by enacting legislation and regulations too extensive and confusing to comprehend.

It has enacted Policies and Programs that discourage productive behavior and damage the economic stature of the Nation.

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The Tea Party movement, rank and file Republicans, Libertarians, conservatives and even, shockingly, Democrats are united behind one rallying cry: fiscal responsibility. Of course, it’s easy to pay lip service to such a nebulous concept. What Joe from Mississippi calls fiscal responsibility isn’t necessarily going to match how Bob from Vermont defines the term. And we really don’t even want to know what Cindy from California thinks about the whole thing! (Relax Californians, I know there’s a great many of you with sound financial sense. Sadly, you never seem to elect a majority of like-minded people to state or federal office.) The real test of a party, politician, or voter’s dedication to reducing the national debt and moving toward a balanced budget is: how much pain are you willing to suffer? Are YOU willing to give up YOUR pet project?

There are items in the Federal budget- and just as many in the oft overlooked state budgets- that any reasonable person can agree do not belong. The so-called “bridge to nowhere”, funding for a Coca Cola museum, and the proposed purchase of a National Historic Park in the US Virgin Islands, are just a few examples of well publicized “pork”. There are literally hundreds of such projects in the federal budget every year and more are added into individual spending bills before they are passed by Congress.

The pain in balancing the budget, and reducing spending, comes not from elimination of such easy to spot luxuries, but in the elimination of all those pet projects and earmarks that can realistically be justified by someone, somewhere. There are things we do absolutely need in our Federal budget. There are many more things that we would very much like to have funded. Congress and the President are all too willing to play the over-indulgent parent and give in to voter’s repeated pleading for cookies. The Cato Institute’s Liberty blog recently reported on our supposedly conservative representatives and Tea Party activists who asked for stimulus funds.

Given that those responsible for managing our money are doing such a bad job of actually being responsible, the voters have to take charge and put our collective foot down. We have to be the adults in this situation and stop asking for that tantalizing piece of the pie.

We have to fund our military so that they can continue to fight the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, patrol the world’s oceans, and secure the airways. We have to fund and support the services that aid our military families, veterans and disabled veterans. We have to provide money for border security, air marshals, federal law enforcement and immigration enforcement. We have to provide funds to maintain and protect interstate trade routes: railroads, waterways and roads.

We do NOT have to fund the following items from the President’s proposed 2011 Budget:

Build on the historic $8 billion Recovery Act down payment for high-speed rail with another $1 billion, creating jobs and sparking transportation innovation across the country. When we aren’t facing double digit unemployment and a debt to GDP ratio of 90%, then we can talk about spending billions of dollars on shiny new trains. Put this in household economic terms: You cannot go out and buy a brand new car when your old car works perfectly well and you already have $43,00 in credit card debt.

$5.1 billion for the Department of Energ’s Office of Science, including $1.8 billion for basic energy sciences to discover novel ways to produce, store, and use energy. You aren’t going to go out and buy a windmill for you backyard to see if you can generate wind energy while your house is being foreclosed on- are you?

$73 million – a $14 million increase – to build agency capacity to review and permit renewable energy projects on federal lands. The Interior Department has set a goal to permit at least 9,000 megawatts of new solar, wind, and geothermal electricity generation capacity on Interior-managed lands by the end of 2011. I hate to belabor an allegory, but really: your house is facing foreclosure and you have all this land available. A cattle baron comes to you and offers to rent your land if you’ll let him raise cows on it. Would you spend money hiring people to review the plan, or, worse, say “No, no, let me pay YOU to see if my land works out for you!”?

In barely an hour’s research I found dozens more examples of spending that makes no economic sense. If you stop and think abou the politically active organizations you are a part of I’m sure you can think of projects they have asked to be funded recently, or in the future, which we just can not afford. Think about this: the national debt translates into roughly $40,000 for each person in this country. That is not each tax payer or each worker- that’s every single person from the newborn infants to those lucky few who have supassed 110 years in age. Take your household budget and add $40,000 in the debt column for each person in your house. Can you reasonably say that you will EVER be able to pay off that amount of debt?

We cannot afford new tax cuts. We cannot afford to cripple the economy with higher taxes either. We cannot afford to forgive un-paid student loans after 20 years. We cannot afford to pay for weapons systems the Pentagon says they don’t need but the owners of the local defense contractor assure us will bring jobs to our town. We cannot afford speedy new trains, shiny new windmills, billions to “help” big banks provide credit, or thousands to preserve newly added historical sites. We cannot afford to buy that big new library in our town, add that airstrip to the local field, or spend billions on“incentives” for cable companies to provide broadband internet to rural communities.

Yes we would very much like new books for the library, to preserve the birthplace of the local town founder, to hire a new park ranger, to better monitor wolf populations in Yellowstone, to put a man back on the moon. My three year old son would very much like a new train set, too, but the mortgage payment comes first.

Scarlett Says: put your foot down. Stop holding out your right hand for stimulus money while shaking your left in anger. Buckle in, hunker down, and be ready for the lean years. Cotton’l go sky high in a few years- but you won’t see a dollar if you lose Tara.

**Budget line items taken from http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/

 National per person debt estimate taken from http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

From <a href=”http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/31/obama-offers-budget-deficits-far-number-crunchers/”>Fox News</a> and the <a href=”http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35173466/ns/politics-white_house/”>Associated Press</a>:
<blockquote>WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama’s proposed budget predicts the national deficit will crest at a record-breaking $1.6 trillion in the current fiscal year, then start to recede in 2011 to just below $1.3 trillion.

Still, the administration’s new budget proposal to be released Monday says deficits over the next decade will average 4.5 percent of the size of the economy, a level that economists say is dangerously high if not addressed.</blockquote>

$1.6 trillion dollars is equivalent to everyone in the United States borrowing a little more than $5000. That’s $5000 that we don’t have, and that is coming from China and other buyers of American Treasury Bonds.

I find this a little problematic. Someone is going to have to pay this money back, because the interest will keep rising and rising, yet in our current political climate, I wonder if it will be possible.

The interest (hundreds of billions of dollars) is going to ruin us, because unlike every other emergency this country faces, it won’t be solved by a single act of Congress, or an emergency bi-partisan meeting. We can only fix this with long-term discipline from both sides. How likely do you think that is?

How can we guarantee that the party in power will get control of this spending? Does the political will even exist?

The President, not too surprisingly, said a lot last night in the State of the Union - and by that, I mean he used a lot of words. But what did the President actually propose?

In short - it was the same thing we’ve been hearing from him since his campaign - the government creates jobs, the government needs to control healthcare, and the government needs to spend a lot on education. But it was notable in its inconsistency - proposing a (partial, and small) spending freeze while proposing massive government “investment” in numerous programs - and its disconnect from the free markets.

Here is a quick summary:

Raise Taxes:

• “I have proposed a fee on the biggest banks.”
• “finally slash the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas”
• “But at a time of record deficits, we will not continue tax cuts for oil companies, investment fund managers, and those making over $250,000 a year.”

Tax Cuts With Strings – Targeted, Not broad-based cuts:

• “new small business tax credit”
• “eliminate all capital gains taxes on small business investment”
• “provide a tax incentive for all businesses, large and small, to invest in new plants and equipment”
• “give rebates to Americans who make their homes more energy efficient”
• “give those tax breaks to companies that create jobs in the United States of America”
• “That’s why we’re nearly doubling the child care tax credit”
• “expanding the tax credit for those who start a nest egg”
• “give families a $10,000 tax credit for four years of college and increase Pell Grants”
• “we will extend our middle-class tax cuts”

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