Posted by jack
Citizens Against Government Waste released its annual “Prime Cuts” report this month, recommending programs that the government could eliminate for some $648 billion in savings next year.
The group has conservative roots, but its recommendations affect a wide variety of programs, from farm aid and defense spending to AmeriCorps and community-development grants.
Also this month, Rep. Steve Russell (R-Okla.) released the first edition of “Waste Watch,” following in the footsteps of former Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who published an annual “Waste Book” for years before retiring in January.
[Nonprofit contractor sent government $1.1 million bill for parties and retreats]
Below are six examples of alleged waste from this year’s budget-hawk analyses:
Dairy, peanut, and sugar subsidies
The “Prime Cuts” report calls for an end to subsidies that assist dairy, peanut and sugar farmers and help control prices for those products. It says the government could save $2.85 billion combined in one year by eliminating the programs.
Citizens Against Government Waste compared sugar subsidies to an “outdated, Soviet-style command-and-control program,” saying most of the assistance goes to the “wealthiest 1 percent of farmers.”
The Rural Utilities Service
The largest savings from the “Prime Cuts” report would come from terminating the Rural Utilities Service, which provides loans and grants for utilities such as telephone and internet service in underserved parts of the country. The estimated savings would be $9.6 billion during the first year.
Citizens Against Government Waste said many of the projects are wasteful, citing one that cost nearly $5,500 per resident to provide broadband access to a town of 122 residents in rural Arkansas.
Not enough Medicare audits
Not all the “Prime Cuts” recommendations come in the form of cuts. Some call for ramping up efforts to prevent fraud and improper payments.
The report recommends reinstating the Recovery Audit Contractor program, which helped recover nearly $10 billion in improper Medicare payments over eight years. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services halted the initiative last year amid a backlog of more than 350,000 appeals.
Citizens Against Government Waste estimated that the government could save $24 billion over five years by restarting the program.
Buildings that turn to mud
“Waste Watch” notes that the U.S. government paid an Afghan construction firm nearly $500,000 in 2012 to build an Afghan police training center that began to disintegrate in the rain four months after the project was finished. U.S., authorities found that the bricks were made mostly of sand, with little clay to prevent them from turning to mud when wet.
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction recommended recouping the funds, but the process has been delayed while U.S. authorities try to prove that the contractor violated construction standards. Meanwhile, the builder is eligible to receive more U.S. taxpayer dollars, according to Russell’s report.
Lavish parties for USAID contractors
“Waste Watch” also takes issue with a nonprofit contractor billing the U.S. Agency for International Development $1.1 million for staff parties and retreats at the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The Washington Post first revealed the spending in a report last month.
Several events took place at Pennsylvania’s Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in Pennsylvania, one of the most luxurious resorts on the East Coast. Guests there can enjoy amenities such as country carriage rides, guided turkey hunts and safari tours of a private animal collection.
According to the Post report, attendance at some of the events was compulsory, and the perks included free iPods, Nikon Coolpix cameras and extreme-driving classes.
USAID suspended the contractor from receiving further federal money, and at least three federal agencies are investigating the organization.
Millions over age 112 have Social Security numbers
A recent watchdog review found that at least 6.5 million active Social Security numbers belong to people who are at least 112 years old and likely deceased. Only 35 living individuals worldwide had reached that age as of October 2013.
[Millions over age 112 have Social Security numbers, and it’s not because we’re living longer]
An inspector general’s report last month said the questionable identification numbers put the government at risk of fraud and waste. Auditors proposed that the Social Security Administration take action to correct its death records, but the agency said doesn’t want to divert resources away from efforts to improve payment accuracy with benefits.
Russell called on the Social Security Administration to follow the recommendations, saying federal and state agencies rely on the information to “prevent serious criminal fraud and payments to the deceased.”
Related to treating low blood pressure …
School under fire for transgender kindergarten lesson —
http://eagnews.org/school-under-fire-for-kindergarten-lesson-on-transgenderism/
Read that and see how it is. The left simply cannot just let kids be kids. Not even in kindergarten! Get ’em while they’re young!
I remember getting a graham cracker and a pint of milk before the afternoon’s quiet time. Now this, “progress” from “progressives.”
Disgusting.
While I think the lesson shouldn’t have been done, I’m not sure I see how that lesson interferes with “kids being kids.” There doesn’t seem to be anything sexually explicit, or even suggestive, about the text; the Amazon description says this:
“From the time she was two years old, Jazz knew that she had a girl’s brain in a boy’s body. She loved pink and dressing up as a mermaid and didn’t feel like herself in boys’ clothing. This confused her family, until they took her to a doctor who said that Jazz was transgender and that she was born that way. Jazz’s story is based on her real-life experience and she tells it in a simple, clear way that will be appreciated by picture book readers, their parents, and teachers.””
Those seem like pretty accessible terms for kindergarteners. That said, I don’t think it was appropriate to teach this lesson to the kids without parental approval. Not because I think there’s anything wrong with transgender people, but because it is currently considered a very controversial issue and teachers should not be preaching their own political views like this, even for a cause I support.
Off topic.
Enjoy and amazing view of the Feather River Canyon most haven’t seen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNp5REEx9Dk
More nonsense from Chris who supports this sort of nonsense. Like no one saw that coming.
Let kids be kids and save them your political indoctrination techniques.
Pie Guevara: “More nonsense from Chris who supports this sort of nonsense.”
I just told you I do not support this lesson. Please learn to read.
“Like no one saw that coming.”
Whatever you saw, you clearly hallucinated.
“Let kids be kids”
I addressed this already. Repitition is not an argument.
“and save them your political indoctrination techniques.”
I can’t even agree with you without getting s— for it.
I was curious as to what title was held by “Hutton” and how the comment of tolerance was stated.
“In response to the controversy, the school district has since apologized for not including parents in the consideration for approving “I Am Jazz” for usage at Horace Mitchell Primary.
Allyn Hutton, superintendent of the school district Horace Mitchell is under, released a statement noting that “if a topic is considered sensitive, parents should be informed.”
“The whole culture at Mitchell School is about teaching tolerance and respect. The people presenting the lesson thought [‘I Am Jazz’] was one more piece of teaching that lesson. In retrospect, we understand that toleration is tolerating people of all opinions,” said Hutton.”
I do believe that the parent who contacted Hannity did so because she was dismissed by the principle who appeared to be doing some CYA in the article as written, just to protect the schools faux pas on this issue.
Parents do have the right to oversee what is being taught to their children, and on areas such as sexuality they need to informed first. Both the school and the teacher over reached their boundary’s on this .
The teachers job is not to overrule what a families beliefs are in their children’s exposure (especially in a class room) regarding areas of sexual content.
Both The principle and the school superintendent need to take a step back and develop better skills and training.
No matter how what the districts view of the term “tolerance” it is not a teachers job to overshadow parental guidance in sexual areas, common place or unique. Permission to read the book to the children should have been obtained well in advance.
The always elegantly duplicitous, Chris”
“I can’t even agree with you without getting s— for it.”
He claims “I think the lesson shouldn’t have been done” and then defends the lesson.
Chris boilerplate.
OPEN QUESTION
Is Chris the sort of person you would entrust to teach your children?
Pie Guevara: “He claims “I think the lesson shouldn’t have been done” and then defends the lesson.”
Are you literally incapable of complex thought? I defended the lesson from your statement “Let kids be kids,” because I don’t see how the lesson interferes with that. I also said the lesson DOES interfere with parental rights, so I still have a problem with it.
Do you understand that a defense against one accusation is not a defense against all accusations? Do you understand that it’s possible to defend something on some grounds while not defending it entirely? Are you 12 years old?
True! I am literally incapable of complex thought! Thought so complex it is convoluted 180 degrees in one sentence. OH, MY POOR, SIMPLETON 12 YEAR OLD BRAIN HURTS!
Quintessential left-speak and quintessential Chris. A man so complex not even he knows what he says.
Thanks Chris, for being you. You have confirmed precisely what I believed you think of your simpleton 12 year old students. You,sir, are no educator, you are a dangerous self absorbed ass.
Addendum to the above:
My bet is that Chris’ 12 year old victims are much brighter than he is.
I bet they know bulls**t when they hear it.
You made a strawman argument, chose to be willfully obtuse, and got called out on it. Own it for once.
Now all us 12-year-olds are not only simpletons, we are willfully obtuse! I hear a great wind. Is it a sucking wind or a blowing wind? Does it matter?
By the way —
I fully own all my fallacies. I embrace them. I use them with the full knowledge of my transgressions. I am not oblivious. As such, I am the anti-Chris.
By the way, Chris, what argument you lunatic? (And straw man???)
Chris always imagines he is in some sort of debate when all he ever does is blow or suck wind.
“By the way, Chris, what argument you lunatic? (And straw man???)”
You claimed I defended the lesson even though I explicitly said it shouldn’t have happened.
And that’s not even getting into your constant, disgusting personal attacks on my teaching abilities and practices, which also count as strawman arguments since you know nothing about this aspect of my life. I attack your arguments and attitude, because they suck, but I do not attack your ability to do your job. That is beyond low, but you will keep doing it as long as no else here ever calls you out on it. If I saw someone doing this to a conservative poster here I would not let such behavior stand unchallenged. It’s called having principles.
Hmmm, Chris, who has called Post Scripts and just about everyone who posts here (and disagrees with him) bigots, racists, and now 12-year-olds has a hissy fit!
He “explicitly” said the “lesson” should not have happened and then defended the lesson.
I put it to anyone and everyone else — except Chris — a simpleton 12-year-old (Chris’ words) could see through that twisted and deranged duplicity.
Chris, if he really is the teacher he claims to be, sees his charges as simpletons and uses that as an epithet to scorn others.
Smooth move. Yep, like no one saw that coming, you bigoted and racist 12-year-old morons who frequent PS.