I work for the government as you all know and I hate when
our government wastes my tax dollar, as I am sure you do as well. I am going to
point out some ways our government blows money that really irritates me. You
can agree or disagree; this is what I see from my position, which I am not in
the lower scale. If you see or know of any other ways our government is wasting
money, besides the Muller investigation, please send them to me. I work or have
worked between the State Department and Department of Defense for many years.
On both home fronts, I have seen waste at taxpayers’ expense, and the “Fraud,
Waste, and Abuse” program, where you identify these type actions, very seldom
act, so do not hold your breath. If there is a person, they want to target,
they will, but if it is someone special, they can get away with murder.
Some of the waste is easy to spot. While we were hurting for
money for equipment maintenance, to maintain our readiness, our 0-5 bought all
new furniture for his office. The cost was $60K, but his predecessor replaced
the furniture in his office two years earlier. We had problems keeping our
readiness for war in the green yet most every 0-5 who took over every 2 years
always bought $60K or more of new office furniture. You will have people say, “That
is a different color (pot) of money, but I know in the position I am in, that
you can change the color of money to meet mission requirements. We had six 0-5
where I was stationed, that is $300K wasted every two years. The office
furniture the enlisted were using looked like it came from the Korean War, it
was broken and piece milled together to get part of it to work. Why not spend
it where needed, on the enlisted? This would be the same color of money. Throughout
all branches of the military, you have around 25,091 officers in these
positions, which is a waste of $1.5 billion every two years. Let us say only
two thirds of the officers do this, that is still $1 billion every two years
and this does not count the thousands of Generals from O-7 to O-10.
Another area where the DoD loses billions and even our
troops lives is when politics play a part in the equipment the military gets.
We were testing six vehicles designed to protect our troops in a combat environment
for dependability, operational ability, and IED (improvised explosive device)
blast protection. The one vehicle, which failed in all areas, was the one the
administration directed the military to buy to help boost the economy of a
state before the upcoming senator race. The Democratic senator won his election,
but it was at the cost of over 100 troops losing their lives. Politics placing
our troops in an inferior vehicle for political reasons caused these deaths. The
cost, in lives was not the only price; the administration directed the military
to blow $30 billion of their budget on these inferior vehicles. Politicians
should NEVER be a part of what the military choses for equipment, every time
they are, we lose more lives that are military.
Let us look at another political problem costing the
military a fortune. In 2012, the Air Force and Navy, directed by the Obama
Administration, had to buy Bio
Fuel for their aircraft and ships. JP-8, jet fuel, at the time cost $3.60
dollars per gallon; the Jet Bio Fuel cost $59 dollars per gallon. The fuel bought
from Gevo Inc, an Obama and Democratic donor cost 16.4 times more than JP8.
With the Air Force and Navy using 23.3 billion gallons of Jet Fuel a year, it would
take the cost from $83.88 billion dollars a year to $1.374 trillion a year.
Sense neither the Air Force, or the Navy have that kind of extra money to blow;
they had to cut all training for readiness to 20% of the previous year. The
Bio-Fuel side effect was it destroyed the jets fighters’ engines, which added
another $1.5 million dollars per engine change. I am 100% for Bio-Fuel and
renewable energy when it is reasonable and works, this did neither.
We can fix this easily; pass a law that says, “No person or
entity who receives money or their subsidiary receives money from any US
Government, State Government, or Local government contract can donate to any
political party, candidate, or cause. If caught they will be ban from all
future US Government, State Government, or Local government contract.” We need
to pass another one that says, “No tax-exempt entity who receives one dime from
a foreign donor nor any government grants or subsidies can donate to a
political party, candidate, or cause. If caught, they lose their tax-exempt
status.” This would solve many of these problems and very quickly.
We had a project, which was broken into three parts. The
contractor wanted 1.6 million to complete all parts. I talked the PM into
letting me do two parts, which by myself only took two months to complete. The
PM paid them 600K for the third part, but do you really believe the work I did
was worth a million dollars.
We had a part on a piece of equipment, which the civilian
side used in applications; it was the exact same part, part number, and Form,
Function, and Fit (FFF). Civilian side cost was $600 dollars; military cost was
$1,800 dollars. I price challenged this part and it was rejected. The yearly
cost across all branches was near $30 million dollars, we could have saved
close to $20 million dollars by forcing fair market value but leadership
refused.
I watched seven projects, which anyone with my skill set
could have completed within a year, cost the government close to $30 million
dollars; just give me 10% of what you save and I will be happy.
Speaking of government contractors, many of them bleed all
government agencies of every dime they can get no matter if they fulfill their
contract or not. This is the norm when it comes to government contractors. I
watch daily as all parts of the government dishes out millions to companies, to
do the same type projects I do, never meeting standard or time, yet getting
paid massive amounts of money.
If you did this throughout the Federal Government, you would
save at a minimum $400 billion dollars a year. The effect would be these
companies would start giving a reasonable price, instead of an inflated price,
or we would do it in house. It took 102 days in WWII to design and build a
prototype of the P-51 Mustang, yet with all our innovations, it will take 4
years to get a production model of even a simple item. The contractors milk it
for all they got.
You can believe it or not, this is a small fry, the military
is probably the best agency for not wasting the taxpayer’s money when compared
to the State Department, IRS, EPA, and of course our US Congress. I would say
90% of the military waste is directly due to interference and mandated by our
politicians. When you see the Defense budget, most of it is Pork Spending, by
both Democrats and Republicans, which the military never sees. If you look at
the attachments of pork to the Defense Budget, you will come up with over $197
billion dollars of pork. The military on average gets 20% of the budget so let
us pass a bill where the military automatically gets 20% every year, and then
there will be no attached pork.
The State Department is a master at hiding what they do,
unless you look at Hilary’s server. They have a base budget of $51.7 billion
dollars but often it does not go to where it should as we seen in Benghazi,
which allowed the Benghazi attack to be successful. When you look at their
definitions of spending, it is all smoking mirrors. If you look, they spent
over $7 million dollars on “Diplomatic Engagement”, what does that mean? They
spent $30 million dollars on “Conventional Weapons Destruction”, yah right,
when you have Conventional Weapons; you can used them for their own destruction.
The UN is currently claims $100 million dollars State Department money for liberated
areas; I thought that was why we gave them a budget. They spent $275.0 million
dollars on the Syria Recovery Trust Fund, the same Syria who is supporting Radical
Islamic Terrorist fighting against our soldiers. Think about that. They spent $390
million dollars on stabilization, stabilization of what? Their accounting is so
vague, it is hard to tell anything they are sending money to.
IRS spent $4.1 million on one conference in 2012; in 2010,
they had spent $37.5 million on one conference according to the NYT. Even events
held in employees’ own town, the IRS allowed these employees to get hotel
rooms, some costing $3,500 dollars a night. These same employees were targeting
people on their political or social views and needed fired. They are
blowing millions, if not billions of taxpayers’ dollars while discriminating
based on political views and even race.
Liberals and their bias need removed from all government agency just as any
conservatives with bias. These unwarranted investigations into law-abiding
citizens and groups cost the government millions in time and litigation. Of the
core $11 billion the IRS receives, it is about 60% pork for everything from $3,500
dollars a night hotel rooms to million dollar art appropriations. It is hard to
give you an exact number because even though they are a government agency and
must show financials, it is almost impossible to decipher without their key. If
they used this money correctly to stay in modern times, they would not still be
using faxes. They also gave $92 million dollars in bonuses, even to the people
who were targeting people and groups.
The EPA in 2009 was funded at $7,643,674,000 dollars and it
was raised to $10,297,864,000 dollars in 2010. It went up a whapping 35% but
they only hired 229 more people; that is $11,590,349 per person; does something
seem off here to you? Even if everyone hired was paid $100K, that would only be
$22.9 million dollars so where is the other $2,631,290,000 dollars? The EPA
spent $19. 5 million dollars on testing of cow farts, yes you heard me right. The
EPA gave $28 million dollars to the Chinese for the purposes of treating swine
manure.
Our US Congress people are the worse, they are responsible
for all the above but even have some specials for themselves. You have James
Moran (D-VA) who wrangled $98,257 for a shuttle from the Congressman's home to
DC. There is Charles Schumer (D-NY) who wrangled $190,000 for artwork. Not to
be topped by Howard Berman (D-CA) who wrangled $200,000 for a tattoo removal
program. From our biggest state has Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) who wrangled $238,000
for PTA training. Then Liberal Chris Shays (R-CT) managed to wrangled $1.9
million for Pleasure Beach taxi service. He was not to be out done by Carl
Levin (D-MI) who wrangled $3.8 million to save a baseball stadium.
This is just a few examples, there are literally thousands
and as you can see, they come from both sides. You must ask yourself, why are
they allowed to do this. These politicians think our money is theirs for the
taking. Many people do not know, but when this country was founded, all the
operating funds came from tariffs, not taxes. I think we need to get back to
it.
Let me know what you think.
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