JohnRich 4 #1 December 20, 2011 News: U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) today released a new oversight report, “Wastebook 2011” that highlights over $6.5 billion in examples of some of the most egregious ways your taxpayer dollars were wasted. This report details 100 of the countless unnecessary, duplicative and low-priority projects spread throughout the federal government.Introduction: http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/6946d43b-bccf-4579-990e-15a763532b40.html Full report (pdf): http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=b69a6ebd-7ebe-41b7-bb03-c25a5e194365 Pick a favorite! $30 million for Pakistani mango farmers? $550,000 for a documentary about how rock music contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union? $765,828 to subsidize “pancakes for yuppies”? $18 million in foreign aid to China? $484,000 to build pizza restaurants? The list goes on and on... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skinnay 0 #2 December 20, 2011 QuoteNews: U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) today released a new oversight report, “Wastebook 2011” that highlights over $6.5 billion in examples of some of the most egregious ways your taxpayer dollars were wasted. This report details 100 of the countless unnecessary, duplicative and low-priority projects spread throughout the federal government.Introduction: http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/6946d43b-bccf-4579-990e-15a763532b40.html Full report (pdf): http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=b69a6ebd-7ebe-41b7-bb03-c25a5e194365 Pick a favorite! $30 million for Pakistani mango farmers? $550,000 for a documentary about how rock music contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union? $765,828 to subsidize “pancakes for yuppies”? $18 million in foreign aid to China? $484,000 to build pizza restaurants? The list goes on and on... And don't forget that war.. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BIGUN 1,422 #3 December 20, 2011 In 2011, the U.S. government spent nearly $18 million on foreign aid programs to its biggest sovereign lender. This included $2.5 million for social services and about $4.4 million for programs to improve China‘s environment. China can better afford to fund these programs than the United States at this point. While the U.S. public debt exceeds 100 percent of its Gross Domestic Product, China‘s debt-to-GDP ratio is only 26 percent. Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
quade 4 #4 December 20, 2011 Quote And don't forget that war.. That's the "beauty" of people issuing reports like these. While they deal with numbers far beyond the comprehension of the average citizen, they focus on the minutiae while ignoring the obvious. The person that makes the report appears as if he's a conscientious public servant, but in reality he's not looking at the big picture. $6.5 billion is a LOT of money. I could probably retire on it. However, it's a piss in the ocean compared to something like military procurements.quade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mnealtx 0 #5 December 21, 2011 QuoteHowever, it's a piss in the ocean compared to something like military procurements. Which is a piss in the ocean compared to welfare spending. Still and all, trying to control *truly* wasteful spending is a good thing overall.Mike I love you, Shannon and Jim. POPS 9708 , SCR 14706 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
quade 4 #6 December 21, 2011 QuoteQuoteHowever, it's a piss in the ocean compared to something like military procurements. Which is a piss in the ocean compared to welfare spending. Only if you're talking about corporate welfare on the scale of the bank bailouts. "Normal" welfare spending is a fraction the size of the defense budget; roughly 1/2. FY 2011 Defense = $964.8 billion FY 2011 Welfare = $495.6 billion Source: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/welfare_budget_2012_4.htmlquade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mnealtx 0 #7 December 21, 2011 QuoteQuoteQuoteHowever, it's a piss in the ocean compared to something like military procurements. Which is a piss in the ocean compared to welfare spending. Only if you're talking about corporate welfare on the scale of the bank bailouts. "Normal" welfare spending is a fraction the size of the defense budget; roughly 1/2. FY 2011 Defense = $964.8 billion FY 2011 Welfare = $495.6 billion Source: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/welfare_budget_2012_4.html I should have been more precise and said 'entitlements' rather than just welfare to prevent just this sort of response. 2012 budget: Social Security: 761 billion Medicare: 485 billion Medicaid: 269 billion Unemployment/welfare: 612 billion Total: 2.127 trillion Defense: 553 billion (26% of entitlements total) Source: Wikipedia, sourced from GPOMike I love you, Shannon and Jim. POPS 9708 , SCR 14706 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
airdvr 210 #8 December 21, 2011 What it really points to is your representatives getting their collective dicks sucked for pork projects. Behind every one of those small numbers is a whore of a congressperson.Please don't dent the planet. Destinations by Roxanne Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kelpdiver 2 #9 December 21, 2011 Quote I should have been more precise and said 'entitlements' rather than just welfare to prevent just this sort of response. 2012 budget: Social Security: 761 billion Medicare: 485 billion Medicaid: 269 billion Unemployment/welfare: 612 billion Total: 2.127 trillion Defense: 553 billion (26% of entitlements total) Source: Wikipedia, sourced from GPO Should have read your source better, too. Department of Defense $553.0 billion Overseas Contingency Operations $118.0 billion Department of Veterans Affairs $58.8 billion Can't ignore the line items for the "War on Terror" or the costs of taking take of the soldiers. The VA cost will persist for quite some time for medical and pension benefits. So your new military total is actually: 729.8. It could be argued that some of the 40some B DHS budget goes here, as well as a considerable portion of the interest payments in the budget. But for sake of argument, let's stick with defense = 730B On the entitlements side, you made a nearly trillion dollar rounding error by leaving out the revenue side. Not sure if this chart presumes a full 6.2% payroll tax for the 8 months in 2012, but it comes up at 925B in receipts. So far, we haven't collected any money from our fellow countries for defense, have we? Social Security: 761 billion Medicare: 485 billion Medicaid: 269 billion Unemployment/welfare: 612 billion Total: 2.127 trillion - 925B Social Security and other Payroll taxes --------------------- 1202 Billion. Now we repeat that math, and it's defense = 60.7% of entitlement spending. I'm sure Quade will want to further modify the numbers closer to the truth, so that value will float well past 70%, roughly 3 times your claim, using your own source. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mnealtx 0 #10 December 21, 2011 QuoteNow we repeat that math, and it's defense = 60.7% of entitlement spending. Defense is offset by general revenues just as entitlements are offset by payroll taxes, and is still less than entitlement spending.Mike I love you, Shannon and Jim. POPS 9708 , SCR 14706 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
champu 1 #11 December 21, 2011 Quote Quote And don't forget that war.. That's the "beauty" of people issuing reports like these. While they deal with numbers far beyond the comprehension of the average citizen, they focus on the minutiae while ignoring the obvious. The person that makes the report appears as if he's a conscientious public servant, but in reality he's not looking at the big picture. $6.5 billion is a LOT of money. I could probably retire on it. However, it's a piss in the ocean compared to something like military procurements. Did you actually mean military procurements or did you mean all defense and defense-related spending again? Because "military procurements" actually means something. When you said that it got my hopes up that the conversation might actually go somewhere interesting, but then out came the $964.8B number... ho hum. Why do you people (that's my transition into admonishing the whole thread and not just you quade) insist on trying to lump as much stuff, good and bad, into a defense bucket with the words "unjust wars" scrawled across it or an entitlements bucket labeled "free money for bums"? The more stuff you amalgamate into one target of disgust, the more difficult and ill-defined a problem it becomes to make substantial cuts to it. I think it's funny that you're (back to you now) so critical of the report for focusing on the minutiae when that's really the only way to tackle bloated budgets in a political environment. You can't take on the whole herd no matter what species of spending your talking about. You have to spook one gazelle into making a wrong turn away from the pack and pounce. Then you rinse and repeat. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
popsjumper 2 #12 December 21, 2011 Quote $6.5 billion is a LOT of money. I could probably retire on it. However, it's a piss in the ocean compared to something like military procurements. Agreed but surely you're not saying forget that stuff because it's only a piss in the ocean are you? I'd say pick off whatever you can wherever you can while you work on picking off the big stuff that going to give you the biggest run for your money. Is that too much multi-tasking to ask of our screwers er... representatives?My reality and yours are quite different. I think we're all Bozos on this bus. Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kallend 2,106 #13 December 21, 2011 Quote Quote $6.5 billion is a LOT of money. I could probably retire on it. However, it's a piss in the ocean compared to something like military procurements. Agreed but surely you're not saying forget that stuff because it's only a piss in the ocean are you? I'd say pick off whatever you can wherever you can while you work on picking off the big stuff that going to give you the biggest run for your money. Is that too much multi-tasking to ask of our screwers er... representatives? He's not actually picking anything off, just listing it. Omitting the big stuff from the list while listing the chicken feed is just playing politics.... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
popsjumper 2 #14 December 21, 2011 Quote He's not actually picking anything off, just listing it. Omitting the big stuff from the list while listing the chicken feed is just playing politics. True dat. You say that like one would expect anything different from a politician. Too bad HE can't pick anything off. It'd take more than him to do it, big item OR small item. It's still nice that somebody is letting us know about these things. One of my gripes...bozos playing "Pin the Pork on the Proposal". Line item veto is not used nearly enough.My reality and yours are quite different. I think we're all Bozos on this bus. Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kallend 2,106 #15 December 21, 2011 Quote Quote He's not actually picking anything off, just listing it. Omitting the big stuff from the list while listing the chicken feed is just playing politics. True dat. You say that like one would expect anything different from a politician. Too bad HE can't pick anything off. It'd take more than him to do it, big item OR small item. It's still nice that somebody is letting us know about these things. One of my gripes...bozos playing "Pin the Pork on the Proposal". Line item veto is not used nearly enough. I also noticed that JohnRich carefully omitted the Alaskan "Bridge to nowhere" pork from the items he quoted from Coburn's list. Maybe that's because the "Bridge to nowhere" was GOP inspired. Now, how about a list of expensive military projects that the Pentagon didn't want but were forced on it by GOP politicians?... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kallend 2,106 #16 December 21, 2011 QuoteQuote I should have been more precise and said 'entitlements' rather than just welfare to prevent just this sort of response. 2012 budget: Social Security: 761 billion Medicare: 485 billion Medicaid: 269 billion Unemployment/welfare: 612 billion Total: 2.127 trillion Defense: 553 billion (26% of entitlements total) Source: Wikipedia, sourced from GPO Should have read your source better, too. Department of Defense $553.0 billion Overseas Contingency Operations $118.0 billion Department of Veterans Affairs $58.8 billion Can't ignore the line items for the "War on Terror" or the costs of taking take of the soldiers. The VA cost will persist for quite some time for medical and pension benefits. So your new military total is actually: 729.8. How about including the large portion of the DOE budget that goes for weapons, and the "black" budget too?... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BoogeyMan 0 #17 December 21, 2011 QuoteWhat it really points to is your representatives getting their collective dicks sucked for pork projects. Behind every one of those small numbers is a whore of a congressperson. Why would you demean whores by mentioning them in the same sentence with Kongress-persons? ( I use a K because that's as close as I can get to a swastiKa.) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kelpdiver 2 #18 December 21, 2011 Quote How about including the large portion of the DOE budget that goes for weapons, and the "black" budget too? There's a lot of potential items to insert. I do wonder if it's stretching it to include foreign aid as military spending. But I have no doubt that glossing over the two I added is fraud. Same with including SS expenses but not intake. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
popsjumper 2 #19 December 21, 2011 Quote Now, how about a list of expensive military projects that the Pentagon didn't want but were forced on it by GOP politicians? I'm flabbergasted that there even might BE such a thing!!!! My reality and yours are quite different. I think we're all Bozos on this bus. Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
popsjumper 2 #20 December 21, 2011 I noticed that the thread title included the word "wasteful" and yet many things are not wasteful but necessary. Yes, it probably is just a matter of opinion as to what's wasteful and what's necessary.My reality and yours are quite different. I think we're all Bozos on this bus. Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
champu 1 #21 December 22, 2011 QuoteNow, how about a list of expensive military projects that the Pentagon didn't want but were forced on it by GOP politicians? How do you feel about expensive military projects that the pentagon doesn't want but were forced on it by non-GOP politicians? Why make the qualification? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DougH 270 #22 December 22, 2011 QuoteQuoteNow, how about a list of expensive military projects that the Pentagon didn't want but were forced on it by GOP politicians? How do you feel about expensive military projects that the pentagon doesn't want but were forced on it by non-GOP politicians? Why make the qualification? Because we pledge allegiance to partisanship. Couldn't be that we have a Federal government problem it only the [ insert party here] causing this waste."The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall" =P Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kallend 2,106 #23 December 22, 2011 QuoteQuoteNow, how about a list of expensive military projects that the Pentagon didn't want but were forced on it by GOP politicians? How do you feel about expensive military projects that the pentagon doesn't want but were forced on it by non-GOP politicians? Ought to be eliminated too.Quote Why make the qualification? Because Sen. Coburn (R) has (R) after his name. Just pointing out hypocrisy. Probably too subtle for this forum, though.... The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mnealtx 0 #24 December 22, 2011 QuoteQuoteQuoteNow, how about a list of expensive military projects that the Pentagon didn't want but were forced on it by GOP politicians? How do you feel about expensive military projects that the pentagon doesn't want but were forced on it by non-GOP politicians? Ought to be eliminated too.Quote Why make the qualification? Because Sen. Coburn (R) has (R) after his name. Just pointing out hypocrisy. Probably too subtle for this forum, though. Don't flatter yourself. Your attempts are nowhere near subtle.Mike I love you, Shannon and Jim. POPS 9708 , SCR 14706 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SkyDekker 1,465 #25 December 22, 2011 QuoteDon't flatter yourself. Your attempts are nowhere near subtle. So people who didn't get it are just too stupid. Nice PA there. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
