Saturday, March 18, 2006

Government and Taxes

Greetings Folks

I have heard enough about the Feds and how they spend money like it was so much confetti that can be tossed about as if it were a party. The latest news is that the Congress just passed a bill that would allow the debt ceiling to be raised to 9 Trillion dollars. Yes that is right 9 TRILLION dollars. You and I can not even fathom how much money that is, not even Bill Gates can count that high with his fastest computer.

All the news that has come out of the Katrina debacle about how the Federal bureaucracy wasted BILLIONS of our tax dollars is just plain pathetic. We, the American people can no longer trust out government to collect and spend our money. Something must be done here to stop this idiocy. I don't care who is in the White House or in control of Congress this blatant lunacy must stop!

Here is a list of money thrown away or paid to contractors, that was not used or needed by FEMA.

3 million for beds that were never used.

10 million to renovate and furnish rooms that were used by 6 tenants then closed.

Semi's full of Ice (tons) that were driven round and round then disposed of due to lack of co-ordination.

Nearly 2 billion spent on trailers that were bought and paid for where nearly 11,000 homes are left unused by evacuees due to the governments own rules about placing mobile homes in a flood plain.

Millions of dollars in debit cards given out to thousands of evacuees that were not checked and had not restrictions on what they could be used for. Over 900,000 of the applications were found to be fraudulent after the fact. Some items bought by these cards include; jewelry, hand-guns, adult entertainment and gambling. Over 5,000 applicants received duplicate payments.

Hotel rooms for evacuees, paid for by the taxpayer for between $350 and $425 per night some beachfront and some in New York City.

FEMA is bad enough but what about this?

An 80 BILLION dollar Medicare prescription drug plan that has been described as confusing and difficult to figure out by seniors. In fact many polls showed that seniors did not really want this plan to begin with.

Add to the FEMA debacle and the Medicare waste the earmarks or pork projects that pass year after year. Earmarks being little pet projects thrown into a budget at the last moment. Mostly pet projects by greedy senators trying to buy votes in their districts. From bridges and roads in Alaska that go to nowhere to bike-paths in New York or bridges and roads in West Virginia named after Senator Byrd, BILLIONS have been spent on these pork barrel projects over the years that is nothing more than wasted money.

In my opinion you could get a class of sixth graders with a week of economics training to run the federal budget better than the US Congress. The reason? They would not be corrupted and greedy like these lifelong politicians are who cater to the special interests and the lobbyists on capital hill.

What can we do? Well we have to push our legislators to stop this insanity and if they don't we throw them out of office. If that does not work we take this government back anyway we can. Of course I am speaking of a peaceful way of doing things. We must use diplomacy and intelligence if that fails then we have to re-group and see what our options are.

Finally we are told to pray for our leaders so that they may have divine guidance to complete their tasks of stewardship. In the days of old the leaders of the church were greedy and corrupt, they failed to recognize the arrival of the messiah and had him crucified all while trying to protect their wealth and power. The people we have running our government seem to be much like those in Jerusalem when Jesus was killed. Please pray every day that the Lord will see fit to enlighten those who lead us and to send wise men and women who love the Lord, to use that will be elected to office so that we can get our country back on track working to glorify GOD not themselves.

May Christ be with us all...

No comments: