by Bob Sparrow
At a time when there is as much divide in the country that most of us ‘seniors’ have ever experienced, I will try to use the tried and true method of uniting disparate groups by giving them a common enemy. To mis-quote War of 1812 Naval Commander, Oliver Hazard Perry, “We have met the enemy and it is us!”
We here at From a Bird’s Eye View, rarely, if ever, wade into political battlefields, as we understand that there is no winning there, but indeed this blog is about our government. Both sides. Admittedly this missive was borne out a closer look at the recent staggering $1 trillion ‘infrastructure bill’ – and while it’s easy to take shots at Biden, this is a shot at our entire government, past and present.
Warning: If your day has been going along just fine so far, you may want to skip reading this blog as it may be upsetting to those who might think that our government is a well-oiled machine.
Following are just some of the places where your hard-earned tax money has gone . . .
- Congressional investigators were able to receive $55,000 in federal student loan funding for a fictional college they created to test the Department of Education
- $200,000 is going for a tattoo removal program in Mission Hills, CA
- Congress recently gave Alaska Airlines $500,000 to paint a Chinook salmon on a Boeing 737
- The Pentagon recently spend $998,798 shipping two 19-cent washers from South Carolina to Texas and $293,451 sending an 89-cent washer from South Carolina to Florida
- The National Institutes of Health spends $1.3 million per month to rent a lab facility that it cannot use
- We spend $2.6 million training Chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly on the job. Yep!!
- The Security & Exchange Commission is spending $3.9 million rearranging desks and offices at its Washington DC headquarters
- Lawmakers diverted $13 million from Hurricane Katrina relief spending to build a museum celebrating the Army Corps of Engineers – the agency partially responsible for the failed levees that flooded New Orleans
- Congress appropriated $20 million for “commemoration of success” celebrations related to Iraq and Afghanistan
- The Defense Department wasted $100 million in unused flight tickets and never bothered to collect refunds even though the tickets were refundable
- More than $13 billion in Iraq aid has been classified as wasted or stolen, another $7.8 billion cannot be accounted for
- Washington spends $25 billion annually maintaining unused or vacant federal properties
- Health care fraud is estimated to cost taxpayers more than $60 billion annually
A GAO audit classified nearly half of all purchases on government credit card as improper, fraudulent or embezzled
Unfortunately, these are small drops in a very big bucket – I don’t blame Democrats and I don’t blame Republicans or anyone in between – I blame the politicians who WE HAVE ELECTED!
If these billions of reasons don’t justify term limits, then we’ll be stuck with the politicians that we voted for, who are making lots of money for themselves while they are irresponsibly wasting ours!
As the American journalist and satirist PJ O’Rourke once said, “Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.”
Have a nice day!