Tag: taxes

Here’s the Absurd Things Congress Wasted Your Tax Dollars On

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) released its 2022 “Congressional Pig Book” on Wednesday, documenting all the porky waste of taxpayer dollars that result from earmarks from members of the House and Senate. In its report this year, CAGW “exposes 5,138 earmarks, an increase of 1,702.8 percent from the 285 in FY 2021, at a cost of $18.9 billion, an increase of 18.9 percent from the $15.9 billion in earmarks in FY 2021.”

Among the wasteful spending — most of which replicate existing infrastructure or would be unnecessary if institutions used their assets rather than forcing taxpayers to fund their projects — are some doozies. Such as $7 million worth of taxpayer dollars earmarked for the Army Corps of Engineers to work on “fish passage and fish screens” or the more than $31 million earmarked for presidential libraries by Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) who appropriated $20 million for the Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library and Roy Blunt (R-MO) who earmarked $11.5 million for the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum. As the CAGW report notes:

The Grant library opened in November 2017 at a cost of $10 million, and was paid for by Mississippi taxpayers. The FY 2022 earmark, costing double the original amount and paid for by federal taxpayers, will support the relocation and construction of a new library. This makes about as much sense as hosting the victorious Union general’s library in the deep South.

Out in Colorado, Democrat Senator Michael Bennett earmarked a staggering $30 million for construction on a “fitness center” at an Air Force base in Colorado Springs, despite the city have more than two dozen gyms and there already being a facility on another nearby Air Force base. Somehow, Congress managed to spend more than $26.5 million on just 14 earmarks “funding bike paths” in Rhode Island, Nebraska, and California while another $20+ million was earmarked for museum exhibits in New York, Illinois, and California. 

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White House Approves 16th Weapons Transfer to Ukraine, Total Security Aid Now Over $8 Billion

The White House announced a $270 million weapons package Kiev on Friday. The latest transfer will send four additional High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS and drones to Ukraine.

The additional four HIMARS brings the total number the US has committed to sending to Ukraine to 16. Commander of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley said the other 12 HIMARS have reached Ukraine and have not been destroyed by Russia. The US has provided Ukraine with rockets that can be fired 50 miles by the rocket systems.

John Kirby, communications director for the National Security Council, announced the package on Friday. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told reporters on Wednesday the US would be sending the additional HIMARS.

The package also includes 36,000 rounds of artillery ammunition for howitzers and 560 Phoenix Ghost tactical drones. The latest transfer is the 17th approved by the White House since Russia invaded Ukraine in February. The Biden administration has now committed over $8 billion in weapons to Kiev’s fight.

Russia has been critical of arms assistance to Ukraine from the US and its allies. The HIMARS have drawn particular ire from the Kremlin because of the platform’s long range. Ukrainian officials have recently suggested the HIMARS could be used in an offensive to retake the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.

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Fauci’s Projected $414,667 Retirement Deal ‘Largest Ever’ in U.S. History

This week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, announced his retirement effective January 2025.

By then, he will have turned 85 years old and served in the federal government for 59 years.

Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com crunched Fauci’s cash pension payout as of his anticipated retirement date.

Today, Fauci earns a federal salary of $480,654 per year. However, by 2024, Fauci will likely be making $530,000 in salary — an increase of nearly $200,000 since 2014.

Therefore, we estimate that Fauci’s first-year pension payout will exceed $414,000 — more than the salary of the president of the United States ($400,000).

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Senate Democrats introduce bill to federally decriminalize and tax marijuana after Biden said no one should go to jail for using cannabis

Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday introduced a bill that would federally decriminalize marijuana and allows states to set up their own regulations on the cannabis industry. 

The bill came at long last to cannabis advocates and days after Biden proclaimed at a July 16 press briefing: ‘I don’t think anyone should be in prison for the use of marijuana. We’re working on the crime bill now.’ 

Biden was asked if he would be ‘honoring his campaign pledge’ to release all of those locked up for pot convictions from prison. The president has repeatedly says he does not support full legalization. 

Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Schumer first proposed a pot bill over a year ago but did not release text until Thursday. The legislation, called the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act, has a slim chance of passing the Senate, but portions of the bill could find their way into other packages that have a shot at passing before the end of the year. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee has set up a hearing titled: ‘Decriminalizing Cannabis at the Federal Level: Necessary Steps to Address Past Harms’ for next week. 

The legislation includes priorities sought by Democrats and Republicans: it expunges federal cannabis-related records and sets up funding for law enforcement to fight illegal cannabis production. 

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POLICE DEPARTMENTS ARE SPENDING MILLIONS ON ‘COPAGANDA’

In May of this year, I testified at a hearing in San Francisco where city leaders questioned the police department’s funding and use of public relations professionals. That funding was heavier than you might expect.

According to police department documents provided to the County Board of Supervisors, budget items included a nine-person full-time team managed by a director of strategic communications who alone costs the city $289,423; an undisclosed number of cops paid part-time to do PR work on social media; a Community Engagement Unit tracking public opinion; officers who intervene with the families of victims of police violence and who are dispatched to the scenes of police violence to control initial media reaction; and a full-time videographer making PR videos about cops.

San Francisco is not unique. The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department has 42 employees doing PR work in what it calls, in Orwellian fashion, its “Information Bureau.” The Los Angeles Police Department has another 25 employees devoted to formal PR work.

Why do police invest so much in manipulating our perceptions of what they do? I call this phenomenon “copaganda”: creating a gap between what police actually do and what people think they do.

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Biden Asks Congress for Tens of Billions to Back Federal Anti-Crime Plan

The Biden administration on Thursday said it is asking Congress for $37 billion in funding to deal with surging crime while calling for a ban on “assault weapons” and “high-capacity magazines.”

“We need to fund police who walk the beat, know the neighborhood, are accountable to those they are sworn to serve, and build community trust and safety,” said the White House in a statement, coming two years after top Democrats embraced the polarizing “defund the police” rhetoric amid nationwide Black Lives Matter riots.

The statement added that the United States needs to “invest in mental health and substance use treatment services, crisis responders, and social workers to reduce the burden on police officers and prevent violent crime” while also expanding community interventions.

Turning to firearms themselves, the administration called to “ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines,” which was not clearly defined in the White House statement. Pro-gun groups have said that the terms “assault weapon” and “high-capacity magazine” are nebulous and don’t have a clear definition and prefer terms such as “modern sporting rifle” instead.

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Congress Grants Pentagon $58 Billion More Than Requested: DOD Report

US lawmakers granted the Department of Defense (DOD) more money than the Pentagon requested for in the fiscal 2022 defense budget, a recent Pentagon report shows.

In total, Congress sanctioned $58.55 billion in additional funds, according to the report. This includes $25.70 billion for operations and maintenance, $17.67 billion for procurement, $9.89 billion for research, development, test, and evaluation, $4.32 billion for military construction, and $947 million for military personnel.

The DOD initially had a base budget appropriation of $742.3 billion for fiscal 2022. As such, the extra $58.55 billion represents an almost 8 percent increase from the base budget. The Pentagon did not put in a request for any of the programs funded with the extra $58.55 billion.

These programs are not even in the so-called unfunded priorities lists—made up of items not included in the budget but considered critical—that departments and officers send to Congress annually.

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State spends half a BILLION dollars pushing ‘diversity’ and ‘equity’

The Democratic-controlled state of California spent millions on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the past several years, according to a report released Tuesday.

The report by The Center for Organizational Research and Education (CORE), a consumer protection nonprofit, examined about 400 public records requests to local and state governments as well as K-12 school districts and higher education institutions. California spent roughly $497 million on DEI activities between mostly 2020 and 2022 and years prior, according to CORE.

“DEI spending is out of control,” Will Coggin, a researcher for CORE, said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The people of California are footing the bill for diversity consultants, equity authors, and inclusion officials to rake in millions. With hundreds of millions already spent and potentially billions more to come, it’s a feeding frenzy funded by taxpayers.”

For instance, California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife spent close to $50,000 for “racial equity” workshops and trainings for employees between 2019 and 2021, according to the report. The state’s Department of Conservation spent around $180,000 on DEI initiatives for the fiscal years 2020 and 2021, the report says.

President Joe Biden issued an executive order in June 2021 requiring federal agencies implement DEI training and race-conscious hiring practices. DEI is often linked to Critical Race Theory, which holds that America is systemically racist and that people must view social interactions in terms of race.

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FOIA Documents: Nearly 2 Dozen Secret Wars Waged With Your Tax Dollars

As a note to remember:  These “wars” took place under President Donald Trump.

RT has the story.

The US has reportedly used a secretive authority called ‘127e’ to launch at least two dozen proxy wars since 2017, according to an article published on Friday by The Intercept. The outlet claims to have obtained never-before-seen documents and spoken to top officials with intimate knowledge of these programs.

The Intercept received the documents through the Freedom of Information Act, claiming these papers are the first ever official confirmation that at least 14 so-called ‘127e programs’ were active in the greater Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions as recently as 2020. In total, the Pentagon reportedly launched 23 separate 127e programs across the globe between 2017 and 2020, which cost US taxpayers $310 million.

The Intercept explains that 127e is one of several virtually unknown authorities granted to the Department of Defense by Congress over the last two decades. It authorizes US commandos to conduct “counterterrorism operations” in cooperation with foreign and irregular partner forces around the world with minimal outside oversight.

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