While many Americans are tightening their belts this spring, Congress has gone on a mad spending spree! In addition to the so-called “stimulus” passed just over two weeks ago, the Senate is now considering the pork-laden 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act. This bill will cost taxpayers $410 billion and represents an eight percent increase from 2008 levels. Combined with the “stimulus” package, total expenditures for some agencies represent an 80 percent increase in spending for fiscal 2009.
Even worse, the mammoth bill is fattened with pork, including such outrageous items as $1.9 million for the Pleasure Beach water taxi in Connecticut, the “water taxi to nowhere”; $1.8 million to conduct research in Iowa on “swine odor and manure management”; and $380,000 for the construction of a recreation and fairground area in Kotzebue, Alaska.
Instead of recognizing the fiscal reality of a projected $1.75 trillion deficit, Congress is intent on saddling you, your children, and grandchildren with enormous debt – all in a self-serving attempt to cater to the special interests and “buy” votes back home!
Your help is needed today to call on Congress to reject this overstuffed spending package! The Senate is scheduled to vote on the Omnibus Appropriations Act later this week.
Related Reading:
Wall Street & the Financial Crisis - Anatomy of a Financial CollapseConcluding a two-year bipartisan investigation, Senator Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Senator Tom Coburn M.D., R-Okla., Chairman and Ranking Republican on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, released a 635-page final report on their inquiry into key causes of the financial crisis. The report catalogs conflicts of interest, heedless risk-taking and failures of federal oversight that helped push the country into the deepest recession since the Great Depression. The Levin-Coburn report expands on evidence gathered at four Subcommittee hearings in April 2010, examining four aspects of the crisis through detailed case studies: high-risk mortgage lending, using the case of Washington Mutual Bank, a $300 billion thrift that became the largest bank failure in U.S. history; regulatory inaction, focusing on the Office of Thrift Supervision’s failed oversight of Washington Mutual; inflated credit ratings that misled investors, examining the actions of the nation’s two largest credit rating agencies, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s; and the role played by investment banks, focusing primarily on Goldman Sachs, creating and selling structured finance products that foisted billions of dollars of losses on investors, while the bank itself profited from betting against the mortgage market.
Citation Details
Title: Sube el déficit de la cuenta en EU. (Estados Unidos)(TT: The US budget deficit increases) (TA: United States)
Author: León Opalín
Publication: Siempre! (Refereed)
Date: April 9, 1998
Publisher: Edicional Siempre
Volume: v44 Issue: n2338 Page: p44(2)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Japan's Fiscal Crisis: The Ministry of Finance and the Politics of Public Spending, 1975-2000In this controversial and authoritative account of Japan's public budgeting and politics, the author traces the origins and development of Japan's present fiscal crisis. In a detailed analysis of the institutions, structures, and processes of central government, the role of the Ministry of Finance is analysed and its relationship with other ministries in deciding how much to spend and on what is examined. Drawing on a rich archive of interview material and primary budget data, the author explains how and why Japan accumulated the world's largest public debt.
Photo Jigsaw Puzzle of Pbla2A-00011 from North Wind Picture ArchivesPhoto Puzzle, PBLA2A-00011. Robert Smalls, Civil War hero and Union naval officer, African-American US Congressman from South Caroilina. Hand-colored woodcut of a 19th-century illustration. Chosen by North Wind Picture Archives. 10x14 Photo Puzzle with 252 pieces. Packed in black cardboard box of dimensions 5 5/8 x 7 5/8 x 1 1/5. Puzzle image 5x7 affixed to box top. Puzzle pieces printed on RA4 paper at 300 dpi. This item is shipped from
