FredHayek wrote: That graph is so full of fail. Do you know what the combined school budgets are throughout the nation? Do you really think all entitlements including Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid are less than 200 billion?
Your graph only looks at the part of the budget than is considered discretionary spending, all that big social spending is on auto-pilot.
Uh, "combined school budgets"?
All three levels of government – federal, state, and local - contribute to education funding. States typically provide a little less than half of all elementary and secondary education funding. Local governments generally contribute about 44 percent of the total, and the federal government contributes about 10 percent of all direct expenditures.
http://febp.newamerica.net/background-a ... ol-finance
So, combining all of the school budgets (which are 90% State/Local funded) would be an irrelevant number on a chart of Federal expenditures. Leaving the social contract numbers off the chart are a bit disingenuous... But trying to lump in the 90% of Education that the Feds DON'T pay for would be just as incorrect.
Lessee, here's a couple of things our tax dollars pay for:
Pentagon: We 'do not need' this tank; Politicians: Oh, yes, you do
The M1 Abrams: The Army tank that could not be stopped
The Pentagon, facing smaller budgets and looking towards a new global strategy, has decided it wants to save as much as $3 billion by freezing refurbishment of the M1 from 2014 to 2017, so it can redesign the hulking, clanking vehicle from top to bottom.
Its proposal would idle a large factory in Lima, Ohio, as well as halt work at dozens of subcontractors in Pennsylvania, Michigan and other states.
Opposing the Pentagon’s plans is Abrams manufacturer General Dynamics, a nationwide employer that has pumped millions of dollars into congressional elections over the last decade. The tank’s supporters on Capitol Hill say they are desperate to save jobs in their districts and concerned about undermining America’s military capability.
To help bring its corporate viewpoint to lawmakers, General Dynamics has spent at least $84 million over the past 11 years on lobbyists, according to Senate Office of Public Records lobbying data acquired from the Center for Responsive Politics. Just in the last year and a half, the firm — which draws nearly three-quarters of its revenues from public tax dollars in the form of federal contracts — has spent at least $13.5 million on more than 130 individual advocates, who pressed Congress to fund a variety of military and non-military programs at the firm.
.......
The Pentagon, facing smaller budgets and looking towards a new global strategy, has decided it wants to save as much as $3 billion by freezing refurbishment of the M1 from 2014 to 2017, so it can redesign the hulking, clanking vehicle from top to bottom.
Its proposal would idle a large factory in Lima, Ohio, as well as halt work at dozens of subcontractors in Pennsylvania, Michigan and other states.
Opposing the Pentagon’s plans is Abrams manufacturer General Dynamics, a nationwide employer that has pumped millions of dollars into congressional elections over the last decade. The tank’s supporters on Capitol Hill say they are desperate to save jobs in their districts and concerned about undermining America’s military capability.
The company’s efforts so far have had great success. In April, 111 House Republicans joined with 62 House Democrats in a letter to Secretary Panetta decrying the decision to freeze work on the tanks. Less than a quarter were from Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania — the rust belt states with small subcontractors that would be directly impacted by a halt to Abrams work.
http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/20 ... opped?lite
Boy, I though the "government didn't create ANY jobs"? But here's both Dems and Reps sucking at the trough. So, there's $3 Billion or so that we don't need.
Or, how about:
'Doomed from the beginning': $200M wasted on Iraqi police training, report says
U.S. auditors have concluded that more than $200 million was wasted on a program to train Iraqi police that Baghdad says is neither needed nor wanted.
The Police Development Program -- which was drawn up to be the single largest State Department program in the world -- was envisioned as a five-year, multibillion-dollar push to train security forces after the U.S. military left last December. But Iraqi political leaders, anxious to keep their distance from the Americans, were unenthusiastic.
A report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which was released Monday, found that the American Embassy in Baghdad never got a written commitment from Iraq to participate. Now, facing what the report called Baghdad's "disinterest" in the project, the embassy is gutting what was supposed to be the centerpiece of ongoing U.S. training efforts in Iraq.
According to the report, the embassy plans to turn over the $108 million Baghdad Police College Annex to Iraqis by the end of the year and will stop training at a $98 million site at the U.S. consulate in the southern city of Basra. Additionally, the number of advisers has been cut by nearly 90 percent - from 350 to 36.
"A major lesson learned from Iraq is that host country buy-in to proposed programs is essential to the long-term success of relief and reconstruction activities. The (Police Development Program) experience powerfully underscores that point," auditors wrote in a 41-page summary of their inspection. An advance copy was provided to The Associated Press.
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012 ... -says?lite
Hey, $3billion here, $200million there, what the he11. Military boys and their toys....
So, if they cut $500 billion from this black-hole of no-bid contracts, defense industry suppliers, and unneeded toys, I'm ALL FOR IT.
