Video Game Controller Design – $1.5 million

A new video game controller being designed with taxpayer dollars might help players catch virtual fish, say researchers at the University of Utah. The new device, which has joysticks that move in response to actions in games, was designed with part of nearly $1.5 million awarded by the National Science Foundation.

Athletes’ Overseas Vacations - $5.5 Million

SportsUnited is touted by the Department of State as being the premier sports exchange program for what the department calls “sports diplomacy.” Through this initiative, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs sends American professional athletes and coaches all around the world to “conduct drills, lead team building sessions, and engage youth in a dialogue on the importance of education, health, and respect for diversity.” Taxpayers will spend $5.5 million on SportsUnited this year.

Since 2005, the United States has sent over 220 athletes to more than 50 countries. Taxpayers have sent Major League Soccer player Tony Sanneh to Ethiopia, NBA players like Dikembe Mutumbo and George Gervin to Sudan and India, and a former WNBA star to China. SportsUnited also brings athletes from other countries to the United States as part of their Sport Visitors program. The program has brought nearly 1,000 international visitors since 2003.

For example, the government paid for Tunisian swimmers’ trip to the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials this summer. Taxpayer dollars also paid for track and field athletes to travel from the Caribbean to Oregon and beach volleyball players from Russia to southern California.

In our current fiscal climate, investing scarce resources in overseas trips for high-paid, jet-setting professional athletes should not be a high priority for the federal government.

ObamaCare Abuse

Rahm Emanuel’s parting gift to national taxpayers upon leaving Washington two years ago was a $1 trillion bill for ObamaCare. Now the Chicago Mayor may add billions more to the tab by dumping his city’s retirees on the federally subsidized state health exchange.

The city is running a $370 million budget deficit, which will blow up in 2015 when a $1.2 billion balloon payment for pensions comes due. The bill for retiree health benefits is $194 million this year and will grow to $540 million by 2023. Actuaries have recommended that the city sock away $2 billion this year to finance future benefits and pay down a $23 billion unfunded liability. Meanwhile, Chicago’s pension funds, which are projected to run dry by the end of the decade, are scraping the bottoms of their barrels to pay for retiree health benefits.

Enter the Mayor’s commission. The four-member panel issued a report this month suggesting that dumping pre-Medicare retirees onto the state’s ObamaCare exchange in 2014 could be fab for retirees and city taxpayers. Nearly 60% of retirees and 94% of those who receive subsidies would pay less for their health care on the exchange. Chicago and its pension funds in turn would shed $23 billion in liabilities, assuming supplemental benefits for Medicare recipients are also cancelled.

On the other hand, the cost to national taxpayers would be enormous, especially if other local and state governments joined the party. Federal subsidies for Chicago retirees would amount to $44 million in 2014 and increase as more workers retire in their early to mid-50s and health costs grow. All told, state and local governments are on the hook for between $700 billion and $1.5 trillion for retiree health benefits, and like Chicago most will soon be unable to afford even their minimum annual payments.

The Chicago report illustrates once again how ObamaCare provides a convenient mechanism and incentive for employers to transfer health-care liabilities to national taxpayers—and how the costs will explode beyond Washington’s projections.

Cash For Clunkers

A clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year at 15 mpg uses 800 gallons of gas a year. A new vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year at 25 mpg uses 480 gallons of gas a year. So, the average Cash for Clunkers transaction reduced gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year.

The government claims 700,000 clunkers have been replaced so that is 224 million gallons saved per year. That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil. 5 million barrels is about 5 hours worth of US consumption. More importantly, 5 million Barrels of oil at $70 per barrel costs about $350 million dollars.

So, the government paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million. They spent $8.57 for every $1.00 they saved. I’m pretty sure they will do a much better job with our health care though.

Drugged Out Monkeys

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a division of the federal government’s National Institutes of Health (NIH), has spent $3,634,807 over the past decade funding research that involves getting monkeys to smoke and drink drugs such as PCP, methamphetamine (METH), heroin, and cocaine and then studying their behavior, including during different phases of the female monkeys’ menstrual cycles.

At a time when the country is going through economic hardships and Congress is arguing over raising the debt ceiling we as citizens must ask is this the best use of our tax dollars.  Would it not make more sense to use this money to help pay off our national debt or to lower taxes in order to help create jobs or allow Americans to keep more of their income.

Tax dollars fund shrimp on treadmills, Jell-O wrestling in Antarctica

The Senate’s top waste watcher, in a new report Thursday, said taxpayer money has gone to funding jello wrestling in the Antarctic, to testing the exercise ability of shrimp on a treadmill and to a laundry-folding robot - all funded by the National Science Foundation.

Senator Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, said he identified more than $3 billion in mismanagement at NSF, ranging from questionable studies to exorbitant operating costs, and in some cases the agency duplicates the operations of other agencies. Click here for full article.

Food Stamp Abuse

Through the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), a USDA agency, the Hunger Champion awards are handed out annually to local government agencies for increasing participation in food stamps or Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP). Yes, a taxpayer funded agency is purposefully encouraging individuals to depend on food stamps and then being awarded for doing so. There is no doubt that helping those in need is a priority, but it is the abuse and fraud accompanying their work that is taking away taxpayers’ hard earned money.

The Ashe County Department of Social Services (DSS) was one of four “Gold” award winners and included a multitude of other local government organizations winning lower level awards. Adding to this monstrosity of waste is the fact these “Gold” award winners are sent to the annual conference for State SNAP directors. No matter what part of the country the event or winners are located; taxpayers foot the bill for these trips. These winners are sent to explain their tactics for garnering more SNAP participants and then given a slap on the back for their "great work".

The Haircut

One day a florist went to a barber for a haircut. After the cut, he asked about his bill, and the barber replied, 'I cannot accept money from you; I'm doing community service this week.' The florist was pleased and left the shop. When the barber went to open his shop the next morning, there was a 'thank you' card and a dozen roses waiting for him at his door.

Later, a cop comes in for a haircut, and when he tries to pay his bill, the barber again replied, 'I cannot accept money from you; I'm doing community service this week.' The cop was happy and left the shop.  The next morning when the barber went to open up, there was a 'thank you' card and a dozen donuts waiting for him at his door.

Then a Congressman came in for a haircut, and when he went to pay his bill, the barber again replied, 'I cannot accept money from you. I'm doing community service this week.' The Congressman was very happy and left the shop. The next morning, when the barber went to open up, there were a dozen Congressmen lined up waiting for a free haircut.

 

And that, my friends, illustrates the fundamental difference between the citizens of our country and the politicians who run it.

DOE pays workers...to play cards?

Earlier this month, a hybrid battery plant in Holland Michigan began furloughing workers.  Yes, even before the plant had produced a single battery since ground was broken in 2010. The plant received $150M in taxpayer money to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles but, due to lack of demand, it doesn’t look like we are getting our money’s worth.

Last week, it was reported that, for the last several months, workers have had “so little work to do that they spend hours playing cards and board games, reading magazines or watching movies” on the company dime...make that the taxpayer dime.  A former employee stated that "There would be up to 40 of us that would just sit in there during the day.” Many employees have also gotten active in the community and begun to spend their days volunteering. An honorable way to spend the day, but why are taxpayers paying them to do it?

The goal was to have 300 employees creating 15 million battery cells per year, most of which would be destined for a Chevrolet Volt. Instead, the skeleton crew working at the plant has no work to do at all. In fact, workers say that the materials needed to make the battery cells have all been shipped to another plant in Korea.

Hurricane Sandy Relief Bill: All Pork - Little Relief

$150 million for Alaskan fisheries, $2 million to the Smithsonian to repair roofs and $8 million to Homeland Security and the Justice Department to buy cars. And that's just the start. No, this is not Stimulus Part 2, this is the Hurricane Sandy Relief Bill.

The bill, whose total price tag is $60.4 billion, also contains:

• $58.8 million for forest restoration on private land.
• $197 million “to… protect coastal ecosystems and habitat impacted by Hurricane Sandy.”
• $10.78 billion for public transportation, most of which is allocated to future construction and improvements, not disaster relief.
• $17 billion for wasteful Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), a program that has become notorious for its use as a backdoor earmark program.

Thousands of people were affected by Hurricane Sandy, many perished, homes were destroyed, communities annihilated and lives forever changed. But rather than focusing on providing desperately needed assistance to storm victims, politicians seek to capitalize on their tragedy by paying off cronies back home under the guise of emergency aid.