A Conservative View

CONGRESSIONAL ACTION TO CREATE JOBS

It’s the seedy underbelly of Washington, D.C. The hallways of Congress are often dark alleys of wasteful spending and pork-laden deal-making. Down these lanes, shadowy special interests and empire-building bureaucracies lie in wait to relieve innocent taxpayers of their hard-earned money. They spend billions on wasteful programs, pet projects, and the accumulation of personal power. They threaten to bankrupt our country as our national debt soars out of control.

Take the following test to see if you can detect five of the dirty spending secrets Washington doesn’t want you to know . . .

Ready for the first secret? »

How much money did Washington recently spend to train Chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly on the job? (Choose one.)

$100,000

$327,000

$2.6 Million

Incredibly, Washington is spending $2.6 million training Chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly on the job. This is the kind of wasteful spending that President Obama and Congress have stubbornly refused to cut. Instead, they planned to raise taxes on families and entrepreneurs by trillions of dollars! Only action by citizens like you will break the Washington liberals of this kind of frivolous splurging.

Each day, how many U.S. Postal Service workers are given specific orders to do . . . nothing at all? (Choose one.)

400 workers—every day!

625 of them.

1,125 workers per day

Because of overstaffing, the U.S. Postal Service selects an average of 1,125 employees daily to sit in empty “standby rooms.” They are not allowed to work, read, play cards, watch television, or do anything. The annual cost is $50 million! This is just one of many dirty spending secrets . . .. yet liberal politicians say they can’t find much to cut from the federal budget.

How much money does Washington spend annually maintaining unused or vacant federal properties? (Choose one.)

$100 Million. Of your money. Every year.

Guess again, it’s $200 Million . . . for land that sits totally idle.

$25 Billion—yes, Billion.

It’s the answer with the “B”—$25 BILLION every year and growing. These are not national parks, but property sitting idle with no immediate positive benefit to the public. Yet we are pouring $25 billion into maintaining them through federal employees and contractors. Despite such largesse, politicians keep telling us they can’t find enough waste to justify spending cuts and want to raise your taxes instead.

TRUE or FALSE: A government study found that one-fifth of all federal programs—costing $123 billion per year—do absolutely no good for the people they serve.

True or false?

It’s true! Government auditors spent five years—between 2004–2009—examining all federal programs and found that 22 percent of them—costing taxpayers a total of $123 billion annually—fail to show any positive impact on the populations they serve. Things have hardly improved since then! It’s another case of Washington taxing you not because it needs so much money . . . but so Washington liberals can expand their power and privilege.

The 2009 federal “stimulus” plan, which cost $787 billion and failed to stimulate the economy, has spent your money on projects including (choose one):

Mascot costumes

Electric golf carts

A university study of how much alcohol college freshmen women require before agreeing to sex

None of the above

All of the above.

It’s all of the above—and much more. The stimulus plan has mainly stimulated the size and reach of Washington, not the American economy. But the stimulus’s failure has led many Washington liberals to call for—wait for it—additional stimulus! And of course, they can’t seem to find many programs to cut, so to pay for the added stimulus, they are calling for still more taxes.

Congress recently gave Alaska Airlines half a million dollars to paint a picture of which of the following on a Boeing 737?

A caribou

Sarah Palin

A Chinook salmon

Does this seem fishy to you? The answer is the Chinook salmon—and we sure hope the paint job was good! Congress must start cutting this kind of wasteful spending. Our nation is on the brink of a financial disaster, and we cannot afford pet projects that spend taxpayer money this way.

How much money do federal employees cost taxpayers each year upgrading their flights to business class?

$146 million

$14 million

$1.7 million

Evidently the foot room is better! Federal employees cost taxpayers $146 million each year when they upgrade to business class flights. The Government Accountability Office found that more than half of these upgrades were not properly authorized. The rest of us have to fly coach and live on a budget—it’s time our government does the same.

The United States government has spent $3 billion doing what to America’s beaches?  (Choose one.)

 Adding sand

Picking up litter

Providing sunscreen to tourists

The government has spent $3 billion to re-sand our nation’s beaches. Advocates claim this prevents erosion and keeps the beaches attractive to tourists. But the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the sand does nothing to prevent erosion—and this sand gets swept out to sea just as easily as existing sand! Regardless . . . taxpayers have shoveled out $3 billion for these projects.

Which of the following have members of Congress expensed to the American people? (Choose one.)

Personalized calendars (for the constituents, of course)

A Liz Claiborne cellphone pouch (super cute!)

2008 luxury Lexus hybrid sedan

Trick question: it is all of the above. Members of Congress have spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars supplying their offices and staff with these items—not to mention the popcorn machines, plasma televisions, DVD equipment, ionic air fresheners, camcorders, and signature machines.

Do you find it interesting that they can’t find items to cut?

Thanks Alan