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WASHINGTON (AP) -- A military built for fighting wars is looking more and more like a health care entitlement program. Costs of the program that provides health coverage to some 10 million active duty personnel, retirees, reservists and their families have jumped from $19 billion in 2001 to $53 billion in the Pentagon's latest budget request. Desperate to cut spending in Washington's time of fiscal austerity, President Barack Obama has proposed increasing the fees for working-age retirees in the decades-old health program, known as TRICARE. After years of resisting proposed increases for the military men and women who sacrificed for...

Global Economy? 23 Facts Which Prove That Globalism Is Pushing The Standard Of Living Of The Middle Class Down To Third World Levels From now on, whenever you hear the term "the global economy" you should immediately equate it with the destruction of the U.S. middle class. Over the past several decades, the American economy has been slowly but surely merged into the emerging one world economic system. Unfortunately for the middle class, much of the rest of the world does not have the same minimum wage laws and worker protections that we do. Therefore, the massive global corporations that...

Federal subsidies for Amtrak, mohair farming, public broadcasting, small airlines serving rural airports and many others were targeted in the heady days of the 1995 GOP takeover of Congress. But like cut bamboo, they grew back healthier than ever. With budget deficits over $1 trillion, conservative Republicans are trying again, determined to weed out dozens of programs ranging from regional development commissions to replenishing sand lost to beach erosion that they see choking a free-enterprise economy. The ardor of tea party-backed GOP freshmen to make the government smaller shouldn’t be underestimated, but most of the programs they want to eliminate...

The annual reports of Arizona Department of Health Services, Division of Behavioral Services are show on their website. With all the money that is spent on mental health in Arizona, citizens should be outraged that the police neglected to refer Loughner to mental health services on even one occasion when his problems were so obvious, documented and indicative of violence. CPSA alone has a $300 million dollar budget and it's only 1 of 4 agencies; it's the agency that covers Pima County. I have not found the budget of Division of Behavior Services itself.

Obama, Congress Cut $ for 176 Abstinence Programs Despite New Study Washington, DC -- More than 176 abstinence education programs will lose funding for their outreaches to youth and young adults on September 30 because Congress and the Obama Administration canceled all grants going to abstinence-centered programming in their FY2010 budget. http://LifeNews.com/nat6659.html

What are the worst government programs? To qualify for an award the nominee must be government run, backed or financed, and fail a "Yellow Book" test, meaning that if a private company found in the Yellow Pages can do the work, the government should get out. The nominees are, in reverse order: Veterans Hospitals, Post Office, General Motors, Public Schools and Freddie Mae/Fannie Mac To see why, please click the article.

One analyst nominates Veterans Hospitals, the Post Office, General Motors, Public Schools and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Check out the article to learn why...

BAGHDAD — Service members have been fighting wars on two fronts for nearly nine years, and they continue to get support from thankful Americans back home. Many programs are designed not only to bring joy to those receiving letters and packages of support, but also for those who have taken the time to sponsor Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines deployed around the world. "I love our military men and women. They are the best of the best,” said Janelle Carter, a bookkeeper, healthcare sales representative and volunteer chaplain from Sacramento, Calif. “I hope my little humble boxes just let them...

Here is but the latest act of submission to Islam by your State Department. A State Department cable has just been sent out with this announcement: The Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP) has assembled a range of innovative and traditional tools to support Posts' outreach activities during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Here, in contrast, is the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,...

WASHINGTON — Whether it's over health care, climate change or most other big Washington battles this year, Congress keeps debating the same underlying issue: Is the federal government getting too big and intrusive? The subject bitterly divides Republicans from Democrats, and the public's mood seems ambivalent. Polls show public majorities think the government's rapidly growing cost is worrisome. Most want better health care and curbs on global warming — but they're wary of giving government too much power to do either.

Washington, D.C. (BNO NEWS) – President Barack Obama will announce on Saturday that Jeffrey Zients will join his administration as the Chief Performance Officer while Aneesh Chopra takes on the job as his Chief Technology Officer. The announcement, which will be made during Saturday's weekly radio address, was embargoed by the White House until 6 a.m. EDT on Saturday but was broken when Federal Computer Week ran a story more than 6 hours early. Jeffrey Zients, who has 20 years of business experience as a CEO, management consultant and entrepreneur will also serve as Obama's Deputy Director for Management of...

Other states in America have jobs, homes that are affordable, opportunities for climbing the economic ladder and friendly down to Earth people who are good and righteous individuals. Then there are Liberal Democrat states colored in blue which reflects how blue things are there like in Maine. Maine has the distinction of being the worst place to set up a business and has like Michigan the worst job market in the country. It is the 3rd poorest state in the nation, it has the largest state government rivaled only by California, (pending the cuts to their budget of course) and...

A rising chorus of GOP leaders are protesting that the blockbuster Democratic stimulus package would provide up to a whopping $5.2 billion for ACORN, the left-leaning nonprofit group under federal investigation for massive voter fraud. Most of the money is secreted away under an item in the now $836 billion package titled “Neighborhood Stabilization Programs.” Ordinarily, neighborhood stabilization funds are distributed to local governments. But revised language in the stimulus bill would make the funds available directly to non-profit entities such as ACORN, the low-income housing organization whose pro-Democrat voter-registration activities have been blasted by Republicans. ACORN is cited by...

As the Legislature’s lame-duck session sputters to a close this week without much action expected, California budget watchers remain in limbo, hoping federal assistance will help alleviate the state’s financial burden. The state is preparing a new round of mid-year budget cuts to close an $11 billion shortfall. But even as budget stakeholders play defense, some are quietly talking about new proposals that could re-channel pots of existing money into new programs, such as an expansion of health care coverage for uninsured children. Part of the lethargy of the lame-duck session, according to Capitol leadership sources, is the remaining uncertainty...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 5, 2008 – Newman’s Own awarded a combined $75,000 in grants to 15 nonprofit organizations for their innovative volunteer efforts to improve military quality of life during the company’s ninth annual awards ceremony, held at the Pentagon here today. Marine Gen. James E. Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, helped present the awards alongside executives from contest sponsors Newman’s Own, Fisher House and the Military Times Media Group. “The clever ideas, the way the ideas were brought forth, the things that were meaningful to people who had family and knew they would be meaningful...

WASHINGTON - President Bush's 2009 budget will virtually freeze most domestic programs and seek nearly $200 billion in savings from federal health care programs, a senior administration official said Thursday. The Bush budget also will likely exceed $3 trillion, this official said. Bush on Monday will likely present his proposed budget for the new fiscal year to Congress, where it's unlikely to gain much traction in the midst of a presidential campaign.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Before Bob Jansen can teach English to the adult immigrants in his lowest-level class, he has to show about a quarter of them how to hold a pencil. Adult education teachers like Jansen are finding themselves starting from scratch as uneducated immigrants and refugees from conflict regions of Africa and rural areas of Mexico and Central America flock to the United States. An estimated 400,000 legal and 350,000 illegal immigrants are unable to read or write even in their native language, according to a July 2007 report from the Migration Policy Institute, an independent Washington think...

As another World AIDS Day dawns this morning, prepare for the usual media blitz of stories designed to promote more spending on failed approaches to HIV/AIDS, and more bashing of the Bush Administration despite increases in spending by the billions each year.  Here are some of the questions that the media probably won’t ask the professional HIV/AIDS lobby, which grows ever fatter while the human tragedy rises: • What have American taxpayers gotten for the $20 billion per year (and rising) government spending on HIV/AIDS? • What has happened to the more than half a billion condoms that the...

But what about farmers and ranchers who plant grain where unfavorable weather is the norm rather than an exception? Not much rain falls on Oklahoma, the Dakotas or the Texas panhandle. That's just the way it is. Between 1985 and 2005, more than 12,000 purportedly drought-stricken agricultural producers in those states claimed federal disaster payments at least every other year. This group collected $1.4 billion in all, about 60 percent of total federal farm disaster relief aid during those two decades, according to a database compiled by the Environmental Working Group. You'd think that Congress would have concluded that there...

There may be no better sign of the changing debate over the nation's farm subsidies: A Midwestern governor running for president calls for cuts in a system that has steered hundreds of millions of dollars a year to his state. "I didn't get much of a reaction from farmers," said Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack (D), "because deep down most of them know the system needs to be changed." Politicians such as Vilsack have joined a host of interest groups from across the political spectrum that are pressing for changes in government assistance to agriculture. They want the money moved from...