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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Hundreds of tons of salt excavated from the Department of Energy's underground nuclear waste dump in southeastern New Mexico are destined for cattle feed in Texas. The DOE's Carlsbad field office has reached an agreement with Magnum Minerals LLC of Hereford, Texas, which will buy up to 300,000 tons of salt from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, known as WIPP. Magnum Minerals has contracted for $600,000 worth of salt, most of which will go into cattle feed, company president Tim Gearn said. Cattle feed is required to have certain minerals, including salt. It's the first such sale...

Imagine the outrage if any Republican President went on vacation during a recession and spent $4,000 a night on accommodations......

An analysis performed by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Virginia found that funds from the “stimulus legislation” bore no correlation to economic need. That is, sections of the country with the highest unemployment weren’t favored over sections that are relatively better off. The analysis indicated that a better predictor of where federal money would be spent was whether the location had a Democrat representing it in Congress. Congressional districts that elected a Democrat received twice as much stimulus money as districts electing a Republican. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel defended the discrepancy as “good politics.”...

Those hoping to ride the state's high-speed train next decade will have to dig much deeper into their wallets than officials originally thought, a harsh reality that will chase away millions of passengers, according to an updated business plan released Monday. The average ticket on the bullet train from San Francisco to Los Angeles is now estimated to cost about $105, or 83 percent of comparable airfare. Last year, the state said prices would be set at 50 percent of comparable airfare and predicted a ticket from San Francisco to Los Angeles would cost $55. As a result of the...

People who use bottled water as a fashion or life-style statement, or who think bottled water is better or safer than tap water, should take a look at this.

President Barack Obama judged last summer’s subsidies to new car buyers “one of this nation’s most successful programs, ever. At a cost of only $30 billion, we were able to induce 700,000 people to buy new cars—both stimulating the economy and helping to reduce air pollution. It’s an unprecedented accomplishment, one unmatched by any previous administration.” Gene Sperling, senior counsel to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, contended that “the decision to go ahead with the program in the face of the relentless opposition from free market fanatics has to rank as the most courageous decision by a US President since Lincoln’s...

Health Care Shocker: Special Democratic Voting Counties Would Get Protected Medicare Benefits http://www.breitbart.tv/healthcare-shocker-special-democratic-voting-counties-would-get-protected-medicare-benefits/

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A deadline looms for businesses to glean usable parts from hundreds of automobiles. Last summer's Cash for Clunkers program has clogged auto salvage yards with a glut of trade-ins that are too damaged to drive but too good to be sent directly to scrap. The less glamorous side of the auto industry is having trouble digesting the byproducts of the buying frenzy that put nearly 700,000 new automobiles on the nation's roads -- and took the same number off. The future of millions of usable auto parts is in limbo as a critical deadline looms this winter under the federal...

President Barack Obama asserted that he “will consider any and every proposal that’s put to me” in search of a way to get Americans back to work. One idea that the President attributed to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner would entail the Federal Reserve creating a trillion dollars of new money. This money would be placed inside an abandoned coal mine. The mine would be dynamited. The government would then accept bids from private contractors and select one to dig up the money. “I think it’s ingenious,” the President said. “The cost to the government to implement this plan is negligible....

As Congress and the Secret Service probe how Tareq and Michaele Salahi gained entrance to President Obama's state dinner last week without being on the guest list, I've learned that the Obama White House has 28 holiday parties planned over the few weeks with more than 50,000 people expected. And social office staffers--who were not posted near the entrance to check off guests coming into the state dinner--now will be more visible at the upcoming events.

How would you spend $787 billion in government money? Probably not like this. Unfortunately, the details of the stimulus package had many states' hands tied - their funds had to be allotted to certain types of projects, or they wouldn't get any of it. On those terms, these states did what any of us would do: they took the money and ran with it. Yes, any form of stimulus spending helps by creating jobs and injecting money into the economy... but some of these are pretty ridiculous. Senator Tom Coburn outlined the worst offenders in his report, "100 Stimulus Projects:...

The anemic results of the first government “stimulus” bill are said to be inspiring talk of another one. “There are nearly 16 million unemployed Americans,” complained House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif). “And this is after we approved a spending bill of over $700 billion. Every economist I’ve talked to says the problem is that the first stimulus package was too small.” Pelosi cited the estimated cost per job created to bolster her case for an expanded stimulus package. “With a cost of nearly $500,000 per new job created, it should be obvious that $700 billion won’t get us very far...

This week ABC 7's Chuck Goudie aired a report made in conjunction with the Better Government Association that explored the efficacy of the Illinois Township and what they discovered is just more waste and ripoffs of the Illinois taxpayer. Townships were originally created for two main purposes: raising taxes to take care of roads in unincorporated areas and to provide temporary aid to the poor. Unfortunately the I-Team and the BGA have discovered that this extra layer of government is collecting large amounts of taxes, spending only a fraction on the two purposes for which they were created, and banking...

Reports that some federal stimulus payments apparently may have been stolen or squandered failed to dent President Barack Obama’s confidence that his program is working. Questions arose when a number of supposed recipients of the federal money turned out to be fictitious. The President urged people to “stop nitpicking every detail of my program. I am trying to deal with the worst national crisis since 1933. A few crumbs falling through the cracks is no big deal.” Some of the “crumbs,” for example, seem to have fallen into a nonexistent “crack” the Administration’s web site (Recovery.gov) labeled “Arizona Congressional District...

The Chicago Park District is wasting millions more of the taxpayer's money by hiring a New York landscaping firm to redesign portions of Grant Park and Northerly Island just as it recently announced plans for employee lay offs to try and balance its $400 million budget. Chicago residents will recall that in the dead of night in the Summer of 2003 Mayor Daley sent bulldozers onto Northerly Island to destroy the Meigs Field airport runways so that he could reclaim the property as another one of his vaunted park space projects. In 2003, Daley made the silly excuse that Meigs...

(Excerpt): WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The federal government made $98 billion in improper payments in fiscal 2009, and President Barack Obama will issue an executive order in coming days to combat the problem, his budget director announced Tuesday. .... In total, Orszag listed 99 agencies and programs that received $1.98 trillion dollars in 2009, with $98 billion of the money -- or 5%-- in improper payments.

More stimulus stupidity from our wizards at the Obama administration. This stuff would be laughable if it weren't true. According to the government's $84 million website, Recovery.gov, IF you can believe their numbers, the federal government gave just under $2.3 billion (Reminder: This is with borrowed money that the government doesn't have) to the 4th congressional district in Washington state that supposedly created 1,487.10 jobs.

WASHINGTON – More than $98 billion in taxpayer dollars spent by government agencies was wasted, much of it on questionable claims for tax credits and Medicare benefits, representing an increase of $26 billion from the previous year. In all, about 5 percent of spending in federal programs in fiscal year 2009 was improper, according to new details of a government financial report that were released Tuesday. Saying the overall error rate was similar in 2008, officials attributed the $26 billion jump to some changes in how to define improper spending as well as an increase in overall spending due to...

Here's a stimulus success story: In Arizona's 9th Congressional District, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending. At least that's what the website set up by the Obama Administration to track the $787 billion stimulus says. There's one problem, though: There is no 9th Congressional District in Arizona; the state has only eight Congressional Districts. There's no 86th Congressional District in Arizona either, but the government's recovery.gov Web site says $34 million in stimulus money has been spent there.

According to Bloomberg.com the U.S. has committed $11.6 trillion to bailouts, stimulus packages, and other government programs that have mostly benefited the rich and politically connected. No one really knows for sure how much of that money has been wasted, lost, or stolen. Imagine what positive things could be done if that money were put in a charitable foundation where two laws apply: 1. the principal can never be touched 2. The foundation must use 5% of its earnings annually on philanthropic activities. Any earnings above the 5% can be used for administrative cost and/or to build the principal. Some...

Recent disclosure that the so-called “cash for clunkers” government program that paid new car buyers up to $4500 each for the trade-in of qualifying vehicles actually cost taxpayers an average of over $24,000 per trade-in due to government “red tape,” prompted a scathing response on the whitehouse.gov web site. “Quibbling over the cost to taxpayers is both untimely and unseemly,” wrote an anonymous White House staffer. “The important objective is to pump money into the economy. It wouldn’t have mattered if we simply threw currency from the windows of a moving car. In this case, the government employees who processed...

The current Mayor Daley behaves as if Chicago was located in Death Valley where every drop of water must be conserved and accounted for. I am not sure if Coleridge‘s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is the incumbent mayor’s favorite poem, but sometimes I think that it ought to be. “Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink…” Under the present, enlightened regime, public buildings are being refitted, at great material expense and union labor costs, with automatic plumbing fixtures that will scrupulously dole out water each time a visitor goes to rinse his or her hands. Toilets...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) said while the Democratic Leadership is concocting a second dose of federal spending to stimulate the economy, it won’t be called a “stimulus package.” “There’s been too much bad publicity for the first stimulus package,” Pelosi said. “People are mocking us because unemployment is now higher than what we said it would be if we didn’t pass the first stimulus package. People say we just made things worse. This is undermining faith in the government.” Pelosi downplayed criticisms that the first stimulus package served mainly to bailout blundering financial institutions, instigate corruption, and promote waste....

Government watchdogs are blasting taxpayer-funded grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities that send college professors on free vacations and pay for programs on topics like the "cultural significance of the circus poster" -- just a few items on an eye-popping list of questionable NEH projects.

Michelle and Barack Obama sat one table over from J. Lo and Marc Anthony, and all four of them were rocking in their seats as Sheila E. shook the house — well, really the tent. The latest installment of the White House music series was too big for the East Room, so a high-wattage assortment of Latin musicians sent pulsating, can't-help-but-bob-along rhythms tumbling out of a giant tent on the mansion's South Lawn. As it happens, music of all sorts — rock, jazz, country, classical — has been busting out of the White House all year long. Presidents have long...

Senate Finance Committee members have been notified that the committee's health reform bill was filed today. S. 1796 weighs in at 1,502 pages, according to a Senate Republican leadership source. It's still not up yet on the Finance Committee website or Thomas.gov. We'll post a link as soon as we get one.

The Congressional Pig Book is Citizens Against Government Waste's annual compilation of the pork-barrel projects in the federal budget. The 2009 Pig Book identified 10,160 projects at a cost of $19.6 billion in the 12 Appropriations Acts for fiscal 2009...Search all 10,160 projects by keyword, member, state, party or appropriations bill.

Some critics call the $250 million dollar city project "outrageous" and a bad investment. It's the giant unfinished CTA "superstation" in the Block 37 development across from Daley Plaza. . **SNIP** . When the project was abandoned last year for an indefinite period, an estimated $250 million had been spent on it. Of that, an estimated $100 million came from cost overruns. Another $50 million was for mothball costs.

The Democrats are at it again. Just one day we find out that America's Deficit is at a record $1.4 trillion dollars the President's party is looking at fixing a problem the only way they know how, throw some money at it. With unemployment inching its way toward 10% the democratic party leadership is working on the next porkulus package. This time instead of doing it as one big package they will pass it in pieces without calling it a stimulus package, as to avoid a fight, a stealthy porkulus package.

DETROIT — Scuffles erupted as several thousand Detroit residents jockeyed, pushed and shoved Wednesday to get free money being offered to only 3,500 of the city's recently or soon to be homeless.

S.F. Schools Head Uses District Credit As Own Jill Tucker, Chronicle Staff Writer Sunday, October 4, 2009 As San Francisco schools have cut budgets to the bone, the city's school board president used her district-issued credit card to charge thousands of dollars for personal items and thousands more at city restaurants and cafes, according to a Chronicle analysis of financial records. Board President Kim-Shree Maufas charged $4,300 on the district's Diners Club card for a wide range of personal purchases. They included more than $2,000 for a cultural exchange trip to China, $196 for tickets to the Florida Epcot theme...

Only One Problem: Washington D.C. Doesn’t Have Any Forests!

Employee misconduct investigations, often involving workers accessing pornography from their government computers, grew sixfold last year inside the taxpayer-funded foundation that doles out billions of dollars of scientific research grants, according to budget documents and other records obtained by The Washington Times. The problems at the National Science Foundation (NSF) were so pervasive they swamped the agency's inspector general and forced the internal watchdog to cut back on its primary mission of investigating grant fraud and recovering misspent tax dollars. (snip) For instance, one senior executive spent at least 331 days looking at pornography on his government computer and chatting...

Chicago State University is at risk of losing its accreditation because of "remarkably poor" graduation and retention rates, as well as tumultuous leadership and finances, according to the region's accrediting agency. The university also has a meeting with Higher Learning Commission representatives on Thursday, the day incoming President Wayne Watson is scheduled to begin. Watson was expected to start Aug. 1 but a snafu over his state pension delayed his service two months, creating a void of leadership just after the university learned its accreditation was in jeopardy. Students and faculty have protested Watson's selection as president, and almost the...

The Washington Post reported today that an audit turned up waste in several Green Projects that are run by the Energy Department. While this is unsurprising, this is the same agency that is being tasked with determining where billions of dollars of the Stimulus Bill are going to be spent. Even more troubling is that the initiatives that are being determined as wasteful are the exact types of projects that the funding from the stimulus bill are dedicated towards. As Robert O'Harrow Jr. wrote: "The initiatives are hallmarks of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act approved by Congress...

9/14/2009 Remarks by the President on Financial Rescue and Reform at Federal Hall

Camp David's woodsy confines lure him to 10th visit WASHINGTON - -- Why hasn't President Barack Obama kept his pledge to make Chicago's South Side his "Kennebunkport"? Two words: Camp David. The ultra-private, presidential mountain retreat -- a half-hour from the White House by helicopter -- has quickly found fans within the First Family. Their stay for Labor Day weekend was Obama's 10th visit.... ...With Obama's return Sunday, he has logged all or part of 26 days at Camp David, White House officials say.

The government announced today that unemployment hit 9.7 % a 26-year high. Although the White House will tell us that the rate of job loss is shrinking signaling the start of a economic comeback, that belies an understand of how companies lay people off. Usually the first layoffs are lower level employees, they make less money so companies have to lay off many of them to have a bottom line effect. As more layoffs are needed a company will start to get rid of the bigger salaries or else no one will be left to do the work. So even...

One day after the Herald reported some surprised Bay State inmates - including murderers and rapists - were cashing in $250 stimulus checks, federal officials revealed the same behind-bars bonus was mailed to nearly 4,000 cons nationwide. A federal watchdog is now probing how the cons were cut the checks. The same cash also may have been sent to fugitive felons, people kicked out of the country and even individuals now deceased. It’s all part of the massive American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 - and what is becoming an accounting nightmare for red-faced feds. “President Obama’s $787 billion...

REMEMBER “peak oil”? It’s the theory that geological scarcity will at some point make it impossible for global petroleum production to avoid falling, heralding the end of the oil age and, potentially, economic catastrophe. Well, just when we thought that the collapse in oil prices since last summer had put an end to such talk, along comes Fatih Birol, the top economist at the International Energy Agency, to insist that we’ll reach the peak moment in 10 years, a decade sooner than most previous predictions (although a few ardent pessimists believe the moment of no return has already come and...

Emil Jones is probably the most famous former sewer worker since the late Art Carney portrayed Ed Norton on “The Honeymooners” television program. According to his peers, Jones is, arguably, half as smart as Ralph Kramden‘s boon companion. Jones reciprocated Watson‘s worshipful toadying. While in public office, Jones served as a reliable conduit for the funding of public colleges and universities serving predominantly black student populations, such as Chicago State University and the City Colleges. Not surprisingly, in recent years, both institutions have been loudly criticized for operating as patronage hiring halls that specialize in wasting tax dollars. During his...

When 10 members of Congress wanted to study climate change, they did more than just dip their toes into the subject,” The Wall Street Journal reports. “They went diving and snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef. They also rode a cable car through the Australian rain forest, visited a penguin rookery and flew to the South Pole. “The 11-day trip — with six spouses traveling along as well — took place over New Year’s 2008,” the paper says. Cost: About half-a-million dollars. Some went scuba diving at the Great Barrier Reef; Sanchez preferred to snorkel, the Journal said. Global warming?...

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford should be impeached for allegedly not seeking the lowest airfares while conducting state business, a lawmaker says. Republican state Sen. David Thomas has accused Sanford of abusing his position of authority during two trips taken to London and China, charging $13,700 to the state could have been avoided if he had sought the most economical airfares as required by state law, CNN reported Tuesday. Sanford, 49, is already under fire for disappearing for nearly a week in June. The married governor eventually admitted he was visiting a mistress in Argentina. "The two flights by Gov....

We all know there's plenty of waste in American health care, but does $1.2 trillion -- more than half of annual spending -- really go down the drain? Looks that way. A new report from consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers identifies how the $1.2 trillion in annual waste breaks down. CNNMoney.com identifies six areas totaling nearly $500 billion that stand out as issues to be dealt with in the health care reform debate: Too many tests -- $210 billion a year wasted Inefficient claim processing -- $210 billion Using the ER as a clinic -- $14 billion Medical errors -- $17 billion Discharged...

Over the past five years, taxpayers have paid about $8 million to 117 administrators who either returned to the faculty or left the university. In 24 cases, the payouts were for $100,000 or more. A News & Observer review found that these agreements, along with other transitional payments, offered sizable sums of money with few or no strings attached, in at least three cases violated UNC system policies and in some cases rewarded administrators with as much as a year's salary for a job poorly done.

Economists can argue back and forth in the media about the effect of big government programs such as the stimulus package and Obamacare but few things have illustrated government waste as effectively as this disturbing YouTube video in which a well running Volvo engine was destroyed as part of the Cash for Clunkers program. This video is currently going viral on the Web and has sparked outraged comments from many people whom I suspect have previously remained somewhat uninterested in the often elusive topic of economics. However, the wasteful destruction of this car seems to have awakened an economic sense...

The latest tally of stimulus spending can be found here. Go to the link and on the upper right will be a listing: *American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Report* The link will be an excel sheet that can be sorted once saved on your computer. Updated as of 7/31/2009

HOUSE....FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 314.( 239 Dems, 59 Rep vote yes). Click to find your Congressman. Source, House of Representatives.) News article( Seattle Times )story listing Senators and their votes on this pig of a program.

It's been in the headlines everywhere. The Cash for Clunkers program has been wildly successful. So much so that in 4 days the American people blew through a billion dollars. Just like that. Talk about your stimulus. But hey, when we are talking about giving free money to people that can already probably afford a new vehicle, the smoke and mirrors of this "success" seem to drift away and crack rather quickly. Immediately the House seized upon this "crisis" to demonstrate to the American public that they really care and almost immediately approved another 2 billion dollars for the program....