The pork Congress approves is just the tip of the spending iceberg

THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

BY LUKE ROSIAK | JANUARY 30, 2014

Not sure what to buy the millionaire golfer who has everything? For Sen. Rob Portman, Ohio Republican, the answer was a $30,000 gold medal for Jack Nicklaus, at taxpayer expense.

Or what's behind an obscure bill to funnel federal funds to chiropractors?

Perhaps that's answered by the seven contributions from the American Chiropractic Association to the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, in the months before the legislation was introduced. Three more contributions came afterwards.

Congress may be deadlocked and unproductive, but that doesn't mean lawmakers aren’t trying to spend tax dollars. In fact, the dysfunction is what keeps them from spending far more of it.

Most of the public's attention focuses on bills that are are about to become law and that enact significant changes.

CLICK HERE TO READ ARTICLE.  

 

 

 

Obama Says, "It's Redistribution, Stupid"

TPN—Marcia Wood, January 11, 2014

Redistribution - Stealing from the Taxpayer's 

The big question for Americans – how do we stop the bloody spending by Obama, Democrats and Republicans?  Here’s a brief preview of the past five years and a glimpse of the future. 

So much for our daily dose of lies from Obama, his administration and the Liberal News media – as a Nation we the people deserve some respect, honesty and solutions for major problems.  While we sit here suffering the headlines today tout that half of Congressional Lawmakers are millionaires, some actually acquired their money legitimately via investments or personal businesses. 

There are many, in Congress who use their position merely to pad their pockets, enjoy the Government perks and live high on the hog off of taxpayer’s money and draw a sizable lifetime retirement.  They’re not worth their salt and definitely are a detriment to Americans and America. I refer to them as “Leeches,” the ones who just go along for a free ride on taxpayer’s money.

Look at Obama, Pelosi, Reid and the Liberals – they’re the perfect “Stereotypes of Socialism” for a Government gone bad.  They don’t give a “d---“about their Country – in fact they don’t give a “damn” about the poverty stricken, African Americans who are struggling or the Hispanics.  

They all have one and only one goal in mind – they want to dominate, control and dictate via “Big Government.”  They manipulate the news, prepare the canned speeches for the Liberal News Media and give us a dose of the poison tonic called Socialism every day since 2009. 

Here are a few examples of their devious techniques and lies that have harmed our children, grandchildren, adult children and all Americans.

Excellent!  Read it all here.

The Heritage Foundation: The National Debt in One Picture

01/06/2014

Congress is beginning its new year with a budget deal that busts right through "caps" it was supposed to have on spending. At Heritage, we want to hold Congress accountable for its tax-and-spend ways, even as Members claim there's no room to cut.

A good place to start is understanding the mountain of debt Americans are already under. Check out and share our infographic that puts it in perspective.

CONTINUED WITH GRAPH!

Coburn’s 2013 ‘Wastebook’ Features Brothels, NASA and Senate ‘Lifestyle Training’

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., wants Congress to stop spending money on things he deems unnecessary — such as “looking for signs of intelligent life in Congress” by giving NASA $3 million to set up a workshop in Washington, D.C., explaining the legislative branch.

Coburn, the ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, released his annual “Wastebook” Tuesday, and if you like a little sass and a lot of cuts in government spending, this is the book for you. Of course, it does not outline a path to make structural changes on either the tax or spending side, but it does highlight approximately 100 projects that cost the government $30 billion, the purpose of which Coburn questions.

A sample of some of the items Coburn would like to eliminate....

READ MORE!   

http://blogs.rollcall.com/wgdb/coburn-wastebook-brothels-nasa-senate-lifestyle-training/

Taxpayers for Common Sense--What's the Big Secret?

May 22, 2012

The Defense Authorization Act is probably the most important policy bill for the nation’s annual spending, directing more than half of our annual discretionary budget—more than $600 billion dollars. It also sets guidance on issues ranging from detention to contracting policy. You would think that Congress would do its work such a bill in public for the taxpayers to see. Unfortunately, you would be wrong.

Tomorrow, the Senate Armed Services Committee will continue its tradition of marking up the Fiscal Year 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) behind closed doors. Spending the taxpayers’ dollars in the dark is undemocratic because it encourages lobbying by special interests and prevents citizens from taking action on provisions they disagree with. This doesn’t have to happen: the House of Representatives marked up its version of the bill in public, and Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) conducts her subcommittee’s markups in the light of day.

Taxpayers for Common Sense joined dozens of other groups in asking committee members to open their debates to the public. Now, we’re asking you to do the same. Start by going to OpenNDAA.org to find your Senator’s phone number and some talking points. You’ll find a few other quick tips there as well.

Then call or email your Senator and tell them to:

1.Show Us the Bill: Release the draft Senate defense budget bill and proposed amendments to the public at least 24 hours before votes

2.Vote No to Close: Vote no to closing the debate and the votes to the public

Below are links to the page on the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate websites that allows you to search for your member of Congress using your zip code. From there it will link you directly to the page on your members' website where you can send your message (by clicking on the envelope).

U.S. House of Representatives
U.S. Senate

Time is short, so contact your Senator today and stop them from spending your money in the dark!

Sincerely,
Laura Peterson
Senior Policy Analyst, National Security
Taxpayers for Common Sense
651 Pennsylvania Ave SE
Washington, DC 20003

Message from Congressman Allen West

Congressman West addresses President Obama's attempt to position himself as a government reformer while grabbing more power! ~Lynn

Greetings to our constituents, fellow Floridians, and all Americans, it is time again to reflect on another week and look forward to the next.


In reviewing this week, I must begin with another in a series of political gimmicks emanating from President Obama masquerading as policy. The President is actually attempting to position himself as a “government reformer” by presenting an idea to consolidate a few offices and programs in the United States Department of Commerce.

Truly the President cannot believe the American people are that gullible! The absurdity of this posturing must be patently obvious to most -- well, except for those still intoxicated by the vaporous promises of “hope and change.”

Let us break down the President’s proposal, which will result in three billion dollars in savings over the next 10 years.

The day prior, the President sent a letter to Congress requesting another $1.2 trillion line of credit by raising the debt ceiling. I for one shall vote YES on the “Motion of Disapproval.” President Obama has accumulated more debt, just shy of $5 trillion, than all Presidents from President Washington to the conclusion of President Clinton’s eight years.

President Obama once called President George W. Bush “unpatriotic” for accumulating $4 trillion of debt in eight years. One has to wonder, what does President Obama call himself?

In the past three years, President Obama has supervised budget deficits of $1.42 trillion, $1.29 trillion, and $1.3 trillion. As a comparative analysis, President George W. Bush’s highest annual deficit was in 2008, his final year (Nancy Pelosi was Speaker of the House, Harry Reid was Senate Majority Leader) and it was $500 billion.


It seems ludicrous that President Obama would believe the American people would consider him a fiscally responsible government reformer. After all, the federal government spends $4.24 billion per DAY. President Obama crowing about a savings of $3 billion over 10 years is meaningless in the overall conversation on reducing spending.

Let us see this for what it is: another attempt for the President to attack Congress and try to convince the American public they just want to disagree with him on every point.

Mr. President, we do not just want to disagree with you, we wish you would follow the paradigm of President Bill Clinton. After the 1994 mid-term elections when the Republicans won the Majority in the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, President Clinton pivoted away from a far-left liberal agenda, and worked with a Republican House and Senate. President Clinton altered his objectives, resulting in government reform, budget surpluses, a balanced budget, and welfare reform.

Instead Mr. President, you have tripled down on failed economic policies while attempting to brand House Republicans as your declared enemy in your re-election campaign.

My recommendation to President Obama: If you are serious about streamlining government, start with the 2011 GAO report that listed between $200 and $300 billion in redundant and duplicative government programs. Click here for that report.

Our small business owners, with whom I speak often, want clarity and certainty in tax policies and a reduction in the regulatory nightmare your administration has created. Taking the Small Business Administrator and making it a cabinet level position means nothing for the countless closed storefronts down here in South Florida.

Along with the concerns about the lack of a clear fiscal policy emanating from the Obama administration, we saw Standard and Poor’s downgrade nine Euro-zone countries this week. We must start to ponder what collateral effect may occur to the American financial sector in the future.

Never forget that as a community organizer, President Obama aided the 2008 financial meltdown with his efforts supporting what became the “sub-prime” mortgage crisis. Now, President Obama is not prepared for what could be another fiscal crisis coming our way. We must strengthen our economy.


Mr. President, take a page from President Clinton, and let’s work together for the best for America, rather than a personal ideological agenda which is anathema to our fundamental principles.

Lastly, after seeing and hearing much rancor in reference to the recent Marine incident I published a short statement, read here. Today, I want to share a quote, which I believe should put this issue to rest, from President Theodore Roosevelt, on April 23, 1910, from a speech entitled, “Citizenship in a Republic.”

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Steadfast and Loyal,
Allen West

The Bill: H.R. 3638, Act for the 99%

Annualized Cost: $81.7 billion ($408.6 billion over five years)


Number of Cosponsors: 19 Congressmen

The goal of the 264-page Act for the 99% is to help American workers keep their jobs or find new jobs if they are currently unemployed. The bill would increase domestic spending on a number of new jobs programs while making cuts in defense spending. Sponsored by Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), H.R. 3638 also increases tax rates for some taxpayers, extends tax credits for certain individuals, and eliminates tax incentives for certain corporations.

The provisions of the Act for the 99% are outlined below.

Defense

• Budget Cuts: Department of Defense spending would be reduced to and frozen at 2008 levels.
• European Deployments: Troop levels in Europe would be capped at 30,000, down from the 80,000 active duty personnel currently stationed there.
• Afghanistan Withdrawal: Spending would be limited to providing a safe and orderly withdrawal of all troops and Department of Defense personnel from Afghanistan.
• Weapons Program Cut: Procurement of the Marines’ V-22 Osprey tilt rotor aircraft would be stopped immediately.

Direct Job Creation

• Public Works: The Public Land Corps and Civilian Conservation Corps would be charged with hiring new workers to improve and construct new public works on government lands.
• Public Safety: Grants would be awarded to local governments to hire, rehire, and retain firefighters and police officers.
• Local Jobs: A new Community Corps would work to improve local infrastructure and rehabilitate abandoned or foreclosed homes. Communities would also be given federal funds to address local employment problems, including educating individuals whose skill sets are linked to industries that are in decline and expanding apprenticeship programs. The Department of Labor would receive targeted funding to sponsor special on-the-job training for people living in high poverty and unemployment areas.
• National Infrastructure: Spending would be increased in the form of traditional transportation grants and a new infrastructure bank.
• Unemployment Compensation: The bill extends unemployment benefits for an additional year to Americans unable to find jobs.

Education

• Teaching Jobs: A Teachers Corps would be established to ensure the jobs of currently serving instructors and education-related personnel. It would also hire new teachers as needed.
• School Maintenance: Federal funds would be allocated to repair, improve, and modernize school facilities.
• Student Jobs: Work-study programs would receive new funding for students.

Entitlements

• Social Security: The bill would raise the cap on wages and incomes subject to Social Security taxes from $110,000 to $250,000.
• Medicare: The program would be given new authority to negotiate for lower pharmaceutical drug prices.
• Medicaid: The 2009 "stimulus" bill changed the formula -- known as the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage, or, FMAP -- that determines the federal share of a state's Medicaid expenditures to increase the portion paid by the federal government. H.R. 3638 would extend those changes for an additional year.
• Health Care Sector: More broadly, the bill would create a Health Care Corps to protect and increase the number of general health care and long-term care professionals. The bill would also institute a public health care option, which would allow taxpayer-subsidized health care plans to directly compete with private-sector insurers.

Taxation

In order to pay for the bill’s provisions and to possibly reduce the deficit, H.R. 3638 would modify the Tax Code in the following ways (revenue measures are not counted under BillTally methodology):

• Impose a higher tax rate on Americans making more than $1 million.
• Create a new transaction tax on stock market security transactions.
• Require corporations to pay a surtax on dividends not distributed to shareholders.
• Impose stricter regulations on employers who hire independent contractors. The sponsors argue that many employers misclassify workers as "independent contractors" so that they can avoid payroll and unemployment insurance taxes.
• Reauthorize the Making Work Pay tax credit for low and middle class workers.
• Cancel certain tax credits awarded to oil companies.
• Reinstate the Superfund excise tax and corporate environmental income tax to pay for environmental cleanup projects.
• Apply a duty to goods imported from countries accused of manipulating the value of their currencies.

NTUF estimates the Act for the 99% would result in $408.6 billion in new spending over the next five years -- a net of $456.3 billion in proposed spending and $47.7 billion in savings. Sources for scoring the bill include the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Sustainable Defense Task Force, and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Of the 19 cosponsors, all are Democratic members of the House and 16 are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

To learn more or discuss this bill visit WashingtonWatch.com.

The Hill: House approves $1T omnibus spending bill in easy 296-121 vote

The House easily approved a $1 trillion omnibus Friday, sending the bill to a Senate for a likely weekend vote.


Senate passage would send the bill to the White House and avert a government shutdown, but won't end Congress's business for the year. Lawmakers are expected to return to Washington next week to complete work on an extension of a payroll tax cut.

After a brief and mostly cordial debate, the House easily approved the omnibus, funding most areas of the federal government through the 2012 fiscal year.

CONTINUED:http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/199983-house-approves-omnibus-spending-bill

The Bill: H.R. 2368, Put America to Work Act

July 20, 2011

Most Expensive Bill of the Week--Annualized Cost: $70 billion ($350 billion over five years)

To help struggling Americans, Congressman Keith Ellison (MN-5) introduced H.R. 2368. The Put America to Work Act would make grants to state and local governments, and to Indian tribes as well, to create employment opportunities for residents who are either unemployed or underemployed. Grants would only be made available for distressed areas, such as those affected by mass foreclosures or natural disasters.

Tax dollars would be allocated for "fast-track jobs," which include repairing public buildings and spaces, restoring vacant properties, expanding food programs, and increasing staff for early childhood education programs, such as Head Start. Employment grants would also be used to increase energy efficiency in buildings, to provide human services, and to contribute to programs for disadvantaged youth. Individuals would be required to be employed for at least 12 months and work no less than 30 hours per week.

The text of the bill would authorize $350 billion for fiscal years 2012 and 2013. The funds would remain available until expended. NTUF assumes the funds would be spent over five years. Tribal governments would receive no more than five percent of total funds and state governments would be limited to 30 percent of funds.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:h.r.02368:

Five Things We Should Worry about in 2011

Big Government

Five Things We Should Worry about in 2011

By Dan Mitchell On January 3, 2011

The mid-term elections were a rejection of President Obama’s big-government agenda, but those results don’t necessarily mean better policy. We should not forget, after all, that Democrats rammed through Obamacare even after losing the special election to replace Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts (much to my dismay, my prediction from last January was correct.

Similarly, GOP control of the House of Representatives does not automatically mean less government and more freedom. Heck, it doesn’t even guarantee that things won’t continue to move in the wrong direction. Here are five possible bad policies for 2011, most of which the Obama White House can implement by using executive power.

1. A back-door bailout of the states from the Federal Reserve – The new GOP Congress presumably wouldn’t be foolish enough to bail out profligate states such as California and Illinois, but that does not mean the battle is won. Ben Bernanke already has demonstrated that he is willing to curry favor with the White House by debasing the value of the dollar, so what’s to stop him from engineering a back-door bailout by having the Federal Reserve buy state bonds? The European Central Bank already is using this tactic to bail out Europe’s welfare states, so a precedent already exists for this type of misguided policy. To make matters worse, there’s nothing Congress can do – barring legislation that Obama presumably would veto – to stop the Fed from this awful policy.

2. A front-door bailout of Europe by the United States – Welfare states in Europe are teetering on the edge of insolvency. Decades of big government have crippled economic growth and generated mountains of debt. Ireland and Greece already have been bailed out, and Portugal and Spain are probably next on the list, to be followed by countries such as Italy and Belgium. So why should American taxpayers worry about European bailouts? The unfortunate answer is that American taxpayers will pick up a big chunk of the tab if the International Monetary Fund is involved. Indeed, this horse already has escaped the barn. The United States provides the largest amount of subsidies to the International Monetary Fund, and the IMF took part in the bailouts of Greece and Ireland. The Senate did vote against having American taxpayers take part in the bailout of Greece, but that turned out to be a symbolic exercise. Sadly, that’s probably what we can expect if and when there are bailouts of the bigger European welfare states.

3. Republicans getting duped by Obama and supporting a VAT – The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Obama Administration is contemplating a reduction in the corporate income tax. This sounds like a great idea, particularly since America’s punitive corporate tax rate is undermining competitiveness and hindering job creation. But what happens if Obama demands that Congress approve a value-added tax to “pay for” the lower corporate tax rate? This would be a terrible deal, sort of like a football team trading a great young quarterback for a 35-year old lineman. The VAT would give statists a money machine that they need to turn the United States into a French-style welfare state. This type of national sales tax would only be acceptable if the personal and corporate income taxes were abolished – and the Constitution was amended to make sure the federal government never again could tax what we earn and produce. But that’s not the deal Obama would offer. My fingers are crossed that Obama doesn’t offer to swap a lower corporate income tax for a VAT, particularly since we already know that some Republicans are susceptible to the VAT.

4. Regulatory imposition of global warming policy – This actually is an issue we needed to start worrying about before this year. The Obama Administration already is in the process of trying to use regulatory edicts to impose Kyoto-style restrictions on energy use, and 2011 may be a pivotal year for this issue. This issue is troubling because of the potential impact on economic growth, but it also represents an assault on the rule of law since the White House and the Environmental Protection Agency are engaging in regulatory overreach because they did not have enough support to get so-called climate change legislation through Congress. The new GOP majority presumably will try to use the “power of the purse” to limit the EPA’s power grab, and the outcome of that fight could have dramatic implications for job creation and competitiveness.

5. U.N. control of the Internet – The Federal Communications Commission just engaged in an unprecedented power grab as part of its “Net Neutrality” initiative, so we already have bad news for both Internet consumers and America’s telecommunications industry. But it may get worse. The bureaucrats at the United Nations, conspiring with autocratic governments, have created an Internet Governance Forum in hopes of grabbing power over the online world. This has caused considerable angst, leading Vint Cerf, one of inventors of the Internet (sorry, Al Gore) to warn: “We don’t believe governments should be allowed to grant themselves a monopoly on Internet governance. The current bottoms-up, open approach works — protecting users from vested interests and enabling rapid innovation. Let’s fight to keep it that way.” International bureaucracies are very skilled at incrementally increasing their authority, so this won’t be a one-year fight. Stopping this power grab will require persistent oversight and a willingness to reject compromises that inevitably give bureaucracies more power and simply set the stage for further demands.

Copyright © 2009 Big Government. All rights reserved.

The 100 Worst Cases of Government Waste in 2010

The 100 Worst Cases of Government Waste in 2010


by Ben Johnson

Although the United States is $13 trillion in debt, mandatory spending alone exceeds tax revenues, and the Congressional Budget Office is warning of a coming U.S. “fiscal crisis,” Congress felt no need to trim spending. The just-adjourned 111th Congress headed by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi added more to the national debt than the first 100 U.S. Congresses combined. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, has published his collection of the 100 most wasteful projects his colleagues deemed worthy of your hard-earned tax dollars this year. Among the most offensive, ridiculous, and startling examples of pork in the Year of our Lord 2010, he found:


■Nearly $5,000 of stimulus money to hire goats to graze the weeds at Idaho’s Heyburn State Park;
■$6 billion for ethanol subsidies, which raise food costs;
■$177,000 for Ohio teachers to travel to China to learn about the Chinese “education” system;
■$137,530 for a Dartmouth professor to develop “Layoff,” a video game that encourages its players to fire as many people as quickly as possible;
■$700,000 for New Hampshire researchers to examine “greenhouse gas emission from organic dairies,” which are cause by “cow burps, among other things”;
■$442,340 to study male prostitutes in Vietnam;
■$823,000 to teach South African men how to wash their genitals after sex. (We reported this one earlier this year);
■$55,000 to celebrate HIV Vaccine Awareness Day. Of course, there is no anti-AIDS vaccine, but the “observance is a day to recognize and thank” the professionals “who are working together to find” a cure;
■$571 million — more than half-a-billion dollars — diverted from building roads and infrastructure to plant flowers on the roadsides;
■$2.9 million to study how players of the online game World of Warcraft collaborate;
■$5,000 for the Murfreesboro, Tennessee public library to host video game nights, featuring Rock Band, Wii Bowling, and Mario Kart;
■$609,160 to develop a video game based on the life of a wolf;
■$615,000 for the University of California-Santa Cruz to digitize Grateful Dead memorabilia;
■$10,000 for the Woodstock Film Festival, attended by such elites as Kevin Bacon, Tim Robbins, and Uma Thurman;
■$150,000 for signs alerting drivers of crossing salamanders in Monkton, Vermont;
■Nearly $1 million to post snippets of poetry at zoos;
■$175 million for unused buildings, including an octagonal monkey house in Dayton, Ohio;
■$239,100 to study how singles use online dating sites while they are lookin’ for love;
■$31,350 for a comic book mouse who teaches children the history of printing;
■$112 million in fraudulent tax refunds for prisoners;
■$1.5 million for a museum in Shelby, North Carolina, to honor bluegrass banjo picker Earl Scruggs;
■$60,000 to renovate a pizzeria in Waterloo, Iowa; and
■$212,735 to study the state of “civility” in U.S. politics in Pullman, Washington. Liberals rediscover the virtues of “civility” every time a conservative criticizes a Democratic president.

These synopses hardly give their projects their proper due. Read about them, and 77 others, in the senator’s report. Download Sen. Coburn’s entire Wastebook 2010: A Guide to Some of the Most Wasteful Government Spending of 2010 here.
http://coburn.senate.gov/public//index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=774a6cca-18fa-4619-987b-a15eb44e7f18

Washington Examiner Editorial

Lame-duck Dems jam spending bill with 6,600 earmarks

By: Examiner Editorial 12/15/10 8:05 PM

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his allies are using the lame duck to push $1.2 trillion in spending. Gallup released a historic poll yesterday: The Democrat-controlled 111th Congress, now in its final, lame-duck session, is the most unpopular in the history of the pollster's surveys.

Given this week's events, it's not hard to see why. House Democrats' massive resistance to a popular, bipartisan package to prevent gargantuan income tax increases on all taxpayers in January shows they learned nothing from the 2010 election in which voters handed control of the lower chamber back to Republicans. The lame ducks keep acting as if they are still the top drakes in town, oblivious to the fact they were plucked and roasted by the voters on Nov. 2.

But if liberal intransigence in the House on taxes evinces a Congress that is "not getting it," leading Senate Democrats are going their colleagues one better by introducing a $1.2 trillion omnibus spending bill that represents an act of stupefying political arrogance. This omnibus bill exemplifies a Democratic Congress that has been so preoccupied this year with its exceedingly unpopular legislative agenda that it failed to do its basic job: funding government. The Democrats who led the Senate and House refused to even pass a budget, as required by law and the Constitution, but now that they are losing power, they want one more spending spectacular before their terms end.

The 2,000-page omnibus bill contains 6,600 earmarks worth $8.3 billion, including funds for such national priorities as termite research and for a charity tied to the late House Democratic porkmeister John Murtha. The omnibus also funds Obamacare. It increases spending from last year's levels in a number of departments, immediately after an election in which runaway government spending was such a huge issue. Even worse, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his colleagues pushing this bill presented it as a political gun to the head for Senate Republicans who know the government will shut down if something isn't done by Saturday.

Senate Republicans and similarly responsible Democrats should reject the omnibus, as well as any other last-minute spending package introduced by the discredited leaders of the 111th Congress. With the tax-cut compromise headed toward final passage, the only appropriate spending measure for the lame-duck Senate to consider is one that funds the government at current levels until the new Congress is sworn in to start cleaning up the mess. Then they should go home.

If they don't, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., should, as he promised, demand a reading on the Senate floor of the full text of the omnibus and the proposed New START treaty, in order to slow-walk the irresponsible 111th Congress and prevent it from doing any more damage to the nation.


http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/2010/12/examiner-editorial-lame-duck-dems-jam-spending-bill-6600-earmarks?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4d0a045b6872ab87%2C0#ixzz18HF1xGJU

Could we soon see economic riots similar to what we have seen in Greece and France?

Indiana Unemployment Offices Add Armed Guards
http://www.resistnet.com/forum/topic/show?id=2600775%3ATopic%3A2897017&xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_topic