Why not a shutdown

We're being threatened with a "Government Shutdown." Hmmm...imagine if that were really to happen and the American citizenry could pick and choose how it could be reassembled. What would you want to leave out of the new one? Maybe the following will give you some thoughts . . .

•  “We only have one goal, and that is to have all of Detroit working together for one Detroit, with the Obama administration as a key partner.”  That's from Director of the National Economic Council, Gene Sperling. He and Detroit's key partner, Barack Obama, gave $320 Million of our money to the city of Detroit Friday.

•  The Army sent checks totaling $16 Million to AWOLs and deserters over the past two years. Said it was a "glitch" and they're working to correct it. Who could be so dumb as to allow a 16 million dollar glitch?

•   In 2010, the Internal Revenue Service spent $4.1 million on a lavish party for 2,609 of its employees in California. Expenses included $50,000 for line dancing and "Star Trek" parody videos, and $64,000 in conference perks like rubber duckies for employees ... plus free meals, cocktails and hotel-suite upgrades.

•  In 2012, the Department of Agriculture spent $300,000 on activities pro­moting caviar produced in the land-locked state of Idaho.

•  The Federal Communications Commission spent $2.2 BILLION in 2012 to provide cell phones to low-income Americans, up from $819 million in 2008. This despite a review that found that 41 percent of the over 6 million recipients were either ineligible or failed to prove their eligibility for the program!

 

•  The Department of Energy's Savannah River facility spent $7.7 million on severance pack­ages for 526 temporarily hired contract workers instead of issuing layoff notices. That's over $14,600 per "temporary" employee. Pretty nice "gratuity."

•  Taxpayers spent $700 million in stimulus funds on the Department of Energy's Smart Grid Demonstration Program. An audit found that $12.3 million in reimbursements lacked required supporting documentation.

 

•  The U.S. Secret Service spent $23 million to purchase a new fleet of luxury parade limousines. They didn't bother asking for competitive bids ... paid full price to the dealers.

•  The White House is currently spending $376 mil­lion on a four-year renovation of the Executive Mansion, which includes a second Oval Office for the president to use during the dusty renovation.

•  The General Services Administration's inadequate oversight of 33 courthouse-construction proj­ects from 2000 to 2010 cost taxpayers $835 million in extra building expenses.

 

•  The National Endowment for the Arts gave a $100,000 grant to fund development of a video game about a female superhero sent to save planet Earth from climate changes (darn, I missed it!)

•  The Transportation Security Administration has let 5,700 pieces of unused security equipment worth $184 million sit idle in a Dallas warehouse, costing taxpayers $3.5 million annually to lease and manage.

 

•  This year the U.S. government will pay $65 per year EACH  in service fees to keep 13,712 of its empty bank accounts on the books, costing taxpayers $891,280 (gee, that's almost as much as the Postmaster General earns in a year...).

 

•  Medicare was found to have OVERPAID hospitals and clin­ics for one kidney dialysis drug to the tune of $800 million per year, a continuing error that they won't get around to correcting until new rates are established in 2014.

 

•  In 2012 the Treasury's Inspector Gen­eral for Tax Administration admitted to $757 mil­lion in fraudulent income-tax refunds to prisoners in 2010.

 

•  Due to poor oversight, over 1,000 Pennsylvania prisoners were able to collect weekly unem­ployment benefits over a four-month period, costing taxpayers $7 million.

 

•  A fis­cal 2011 Performance and Accountability Report from the Social Security Administration (SSA) found it overpaid $2.11 BILLION in Social Security benefits.

 

•  The same report found that the SSA OVERPAID old-age, survivor and disability insurance benefits by $934 million in fiscal 2010 alone.

 

•  Also in 2010, 117,000 individuals received $850 million in cash benefits by double-dipping into Social Security's disability insurance pro­gram AND the federal unemployment insurance program.

 

•  The U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded a $149,992 grant to researchers at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey to study college students' on-campus dining selections.

 

•  The Office of Naval Research conducted a $450,000 study to determine whether babies would pay attention to unin­telligent robots.

 

•  In a study costing $681,387, the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research confirmed that men bearing firearms appear taller, stronger and manlier than those who don't carry firearms (wonder where I could rent a bazooka?).

 

•  The same U.S. Air Force office also conducted a $300,000 study that concluded that the first bird on Earth probably had black feathers.

 

Now come on, fess up. Couldn't we get by without all of these government guys for a few days? So far they've managed to run up an unpaid bill of $16.8 TRILLION (and look at the great job they've done!). Of course, it won't happen ... at least for long. Where else could a bunch of dimwits have so much fun mismanaging OUR money?