government waste

CONGRESSIONAL BLUBBER: A Testament Of A Black Hole

Posted on by Helena

Do Congressional Members get Brownie Points for the number of Bills they write?    It takes roughly 200 days to pass a bill in Congress.  Yet, despite Congress on sabbatical until January sometime, Democrats keep writing more Bills knowing that a Trump Presidency will never pass them.  What’s the point?  Unless they get a hidden spiff?

There are currently 19,047 Bills put before Congress that have yet to be passed or tossed.  The average passage rate is roughly 7%.   There are 26 Bills currently in limbo before a vacant Congress.  All 26 were written yesterday.  Some of the Bills are literally insane:  1)  A bill to change the designation of a park’s name by replacing ‘historical’ with ‘battlefield’.   2) A bill to reauthorize the Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to support Holocaust education programs, and for other purposes.  3)  To reduce commuting burdens on Transportation Security Administration employees, and for other purposes.  4)  A bill to ensure that the National Advisory Council on Indian Education includes at least 1 member who is the president of a Tribal College or University.

This is what Congress does to establish credibility.   December 2024 – Congress was in session for 12 days.   November, Congress was in session 8 days.  Congress in session as of January 3rd – which is noted as a New Congress based on November elections. 

ACCORDING TO THE GSA:

The average base starting salary for House Representatives is $174,000.  They are allowed earned income outside of Congress at 15% of their salary. In addition, they are provided with a standard office allowance of $134,400.  There is in place a clerk-hire component (revised for 2023 to $1,928,200 average for all Members) for permanent employees;   Temporary employees hired are paid from another pool of funds. 

Example:  in 2020, each Member’s MRA was increased by $62,250;  in 2021, each Member’s MRA was increased by $65,000.  Congressional Members are capped at hiring no more than 18 staff members at $212,000 each.  The average Senate MRA allowance is $4,349,700, based on the size of the state.  Office space for each senator is between 5,000 sq feet to 8200 sq feet and an allowance of $40,000 for furniture.  In addition, they have the ability to lease one mobile office.

Despite Federal workers not using their allocated office facilities, the Federal Government pays $6.2 billion for ‘leased property’ that houses no one.  Unfortunately, no one within the federal government or outside knows how much real property the government owns, where it is located, or its value because it is a secret.   National Security. 

None of these numbers even touch on the Pensions accumulated by Congress and their respective ‘staff’.  Federal employees have 3 sources of retirement benefits:  FERS, SS and Thrift Savings Plan.  The FERS Plan:  1 Utilize average 3 highest paying years x number of years in government x 1.1% = monthly payment.   Example:  $200,000x20x1.1% = $44,000 per month or $528,000 per year until death.  This would be over and above their SS and TSP.  Of the 2.7 million federal retirees, 44% receive FERS or 1.188 million.  ANNUAL COST = $627+ BILLION.  

WHY do Government employees receive Pensions AND Social Security?  Add to the fray Insider stock trades, and funny money dispositions of the “allowance”, and the waste is exponential!  THE BLACK HOLE of Congress.

Would anyone want to be a member of Congress if pensions, stock trades and allowances were eliminated?   I doubt it.

In 2020, Ted Cruz made $320,000 as an ‘author’.  Roughly half of that was a result of his campaign buying the books.  TWO Direct violations:  1) 15% outside earned income rule and 2)  Using campaign funds for personal gain.

The room for cutting waste is monumental and hopefully can help restructure the entire fraud committed annually at the expense of US Taxpayers trying to support themselves on savings and SS benefits.   IF the federal government were dissolved and all assets given over to every private citizen over the age of 18 (260-20 million millionaires)– we would each have $562,500 – roughly.  Because technically – Congress are OUR Employees and the value of all Assets belong to us.

CONGRESS is Superfluous. Turn The WH Into A Museum

Posted on by Helena

The Conservative Treehouse made an interesting notation:  In President Trump’s announcement regarding Kash Patel being the incoming FBI Director, he said: “I am proud to announce that Kash Patel will serve as the next FBI Director…”   He did not state that Trump nominated him or appointed him – but instead stated an announcement – a fact.  While it may have simply been an oversight in the script, or purposeful is an unknown, but it does bring up an interesting argument.

Between 2009 and 2023, 80 appointments had remained unconfirmed 50% of the time – ‘acting director’.   Leaving open the potential to remove certain positions from requiring senate confirmation.   In addition, there is no limit as to how many appointments the President can fill during a recess without confirmation.  

But there is an even more interesting potential:   What if Trump were to create a ‘shadow government’ defunding the current government without going thru the legal process of firing anyone.   Without funds they would collapse of their own volition.   The House and the Senate would be mute.   In the scheme of things Congress is relatively unessential.  Their fundamental job is to be a giant ‘oversight committee’ .  

We already have one representative per state – governors.  Why have 535 superfluous members of congress?

In THEORY:   “Congress is the legislative branch of the federal government and has the sole power to create and change laws. Congress also sets the annual budget for the government by levying taxes and tariffs.  Congress is the voice of the people and the states.” 

The US Code of Federal Regulations is 175,000 pages long delineating 300,000 federal crimes.   The actual number is unknown – this is an estimate because even our government Does Not KNOW.   I seriously doubt we need more laws.   Thus Congress is relieved of that responsibility.   Congress is the voice of the people…   there is not one individual who would claim this is remotely factual.

Not to mention all the Congressional members require staff to do – nothing, offices that are vacant, free travel and expense accounts, and payroll including benefits and pensions – that break the proverbial Bank.  Congress is – a worthless endeavor.  Unessential to the continuation of government.

During the Biden Administration, Congress enacted 362 new laws – none of which can be cited by Congress or anyone for that matter except maybe Ben Carson who has a photographic memory.. 

The first law passed under the Biden Regime was to provide for Lloyd Austin to be named DoD as an ‘exception to the rule’ that he was ineligible due to his retirement being over 7 years.  Another law was passed to make all veterans and their spouses subject to CoVid vaccinations.  Another – To prevent across-the-board direct spending cuts, and for other purposes.  Another –  To educate health care providers and the public on biosimilar biological products, and for other purposes.  Another  – To facilitate the expedited review of COVID-19 hate crimes, and for other purposes. 

WHY do these Laws exist?   This is micro-managing to extreme!

What all these Acts and Laws have in common is the phrase, “And For Other Purposes”.  Unnamed.   However, when a new law is enacted, it can create an entirely new department to facilitate the Act replete with more staff, salaries, and expenses.  In other words, Congress’ purpose has now become a designation of government oversight and expansion to extreme.  A citizen can’t walk around the block without potentially violating a dozen laws.  But no one would know because NO ONE knows all the laws on the Books.

The fact that Trump feels confident that every one of his ‘picks’ will be in charge eludes to either hundreds of recess appointments or a complete overhaul wherein the White House could become a Museum along with Patel’s statement that the FBI building will also be vacated…

GOVERNMENT WASTE – INTEL, DEI and Research

Posted on by Helena

The US has 18 different Intel agencies.  The US also funds private NGO intel.  All are within the ‘oversight’ of IC Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA).   The U.S. intelligence budget has two major components: the National Intelligence Program and the Military Intelligence Program.  The combined budget is $106.3 billion.   Russia has three intel agencies.

According to the Wilson Center, Russia’s military budget is $81.7 billion – which they call ‘unprecedented’… Unfortunately, they don’t really know what the true spending and budget are given Russia does not publish this information and our 18 intel agencies can’t figure it out.   But like a good neighbor – they ‘guess’.  So, to help out these 18 Federal intel agencies and all the NGO’s taxpayers pay for, Reuters provided the information via a one page classified document?  I seriously doubt it.

The National Intelligence agency’s DEIA Director is Stephanie La Rue who previously worked as a lawyer for the CIA where she received an award – Equal Employment Opportunity and Diversity Award for Exceptional Service.  Every department within the federal government now has their own DEIA agency and allocated Budget.  Yet Russia manages without any.

DEI required training before it could be implemented across the various departments – the cost – unknown.  The HHS alone spends nearly $40 million per year on their DEI program which funds 294 employees.   Color is the point. 

The Federal Government now publishes an annual report on the demographics of its employees;  18.2% black, 9.53% Hispanic, and 6.5% Asian.   Federal workers with ‘targeted disabilities’ – which include blindness, deafness, partial or complete paralysis, missing extremities, dwarfism, autism and epilepsy – accounted for 2.5% of the total workforce in 2021.  Equitable healthcare coverage is available for the LGBT community.

ALL these expenses are paid for by Taxpayers. 

Musk has been tweeting about some of the experimental funding in NIH such as trying to figure out why monkey’s throw their poop, or can monkey’s be trained to play poker, or can we transgender monkeys…  He has declared that he will create a Leader Board for all the agencies and their funding waste.  Transparency.  In real time.   Russia doesn’t use animals for testing except in makeup products.  How much of the US funding could be diverted to SS and Medicare?  NIH Budget = $50 billion.

But NIH is not the only funded research facility, 1,000 Universities have R&D expenditures of which 55% is paid for by Taxpayers = $100 billion.  What is the research?  Genetically modifying food, health and medicine, lithium batteries, and research on ‘Troops’…

For Example:  Johns Hopkins receives the most government funding for Research.   They spend it to ‘research the opioid epidemic’, for diseases that don’t exist in the US, climate change digital health, AI, and biologic & chemical weapons.  In fact – every university is researching the same fundamental topics while torturing primates which are raised on an island offshore of South Carolina.   Recently 43 lab monkeys escaped from the Alpha Genesis lab which provides the primates for NIH and Universities.  I was rooting for the monkeys.

 When researching diseases, the point is to find a new Pharma Drug that will not cure the infectious disease, but calm it while providing 12 more diseases that you didn’t have but do now.  When researching biologic weapons – it is to use them across a wide range of countries – and blame Russia.  And when researching diseases that don’t exist in the US, the goal is to create a vaccine that will increase mortality.

Yes.  Our government spending could easily be cropped by 75%.  Forcing overpaid DEIA employees to actually work for a living.  With Federal Employees now counting roughly 22 million – the elimination would affect 16.5 million who would need to become productive members of society contributing to SS and Medicare.

EPA and FDA – Corrupted and Trashed

Posted on by Helena

In their infancy, as in ‘Once Upon A Time’, the FDA and the EPA had high standards and great benefits. They were created as monitors for the public as a result of scams and corruption that caused injurious harm and/or resulted in death.

Today, the same agencies that were created to save us from corruption, collude to defraud us. With burgeoning budgets and unnecessary employees, they have become just another toxic part of the government landscape.

How quickly we forget. It was just 3+ years ago in 2013 when the federal government shutdown occurred. The EPA itself declared that of its roughly 16,200 employees, only 1600 would be considered ‘essential’. That translates to 93% were considered useless or nonessential by its own executives.

In the corporate world that is called – waste.

In fact, the shutdown – which occurred during Obama’s watch and was not Bush’s fault – found that 800,000 government workers were actually considered ‘nonessential’.

The FDA furloughed 45% of its workforce as nonessentials.

The problem is the inherent evolution when oversight becomes a back scratching, personal vendetta, agenda, or simple bribe. And suddenly, it is the new normal and fixing the situation means gutting it and starting fresh. It is the same bureaucracy that mashed out a disastrous Obamacare that is bankrupting middle class. Ben Carson actually read the 20,000+ page mandate, something apparently no one else in Congress chose to do before signing it into law.

The “D” part of the FDA is no different. We have come to accept the host of possible side effects of drugs, many of which include cancer and death.   Supposedly, the benefit outway’s the risk. But then we are also plagued with fraudulent studies conducted by corrupted officials and faked studies by corrupted officials, studies that omit data, and studies that are just plain ridiculous.

How do you fix a broken system?

  1. you don’t ask the good ole boys…
  2. you follow through on consequences
  3. you make the consequence outweigh the corruption
  4. you increase competition in the generic market
  5. you create a better more definitive definition for ‘efficacy’
  6. look internally into the qualifications and value of staff
  7. oversee the approval process with science instead of politics
  8. fast track litigation consequences – put the fear of God into the pharma’s

The EPA is perhaps – worse. With even larger nonessentials, backlashes of ‘accidents’, nonqualified staff, and pending lawsuits, the EPA is a verifiable ‘MESS’.

How do you fix the EPA?

  1. fire everyone and start over!

Let the bludgeon come down. Sometimes an organization is just too messed up to ‘fix’, and needs to be eliminated so as to start afresh. Riddled with waste and corruption the EPA has exerted a power freak, control freak agenda that is borderline absurd. To the point that they just recently relaxed the rules that now allow a homeowner to collect rainwater on their own property. (All the water in the sky and ground belong to the government…)

The water-grab by the EPA is so vast that the it allows them to control construction, property evictions, egregious fines, and more in their oversight of streams, ponds, and even runoff. Most opponents consider this to be a tyrannical power grab that puts the public at mercy for water and the government as the King.

Where there is government – there is no completion – and thus the power-grab is complete.