US Government Almost Out of Money, Spends $1.1 Trillion

Maybe you’ve heard and maybe you haven’t, but the US government is going to run out of money for the daily operations it carries out.  On Saturday.  That’s in four days.  And the congress has now agreed on this ridiculous compromise deal that is going to cost over a trillion dollars. 

The number of a trillion includes an estimated 800 billion dollars in lost tax revenue due to the Bush era tax cuts being extended.  But there is a whole host of new spending in this bill, now being tagged as an omnibus bill because it packages almost twenty other bills into one.  The new spending includes hundreds of earmarks. 

Now, in light of the idea that the government will be out of money, does more spending make sense?  Also, is lost tax revenue spending?  I’ve struggled with that one a little bit.  How can extending current tax rates cost money, unless the government already thinks it’s their money in the first place?  To me, it’s like buying one lottery ticket then buying a bunch of stuff before you win the lottery.  Democrats in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, as well as the White House, were counting on that money to fund more spending.  Spending that, I’m sure, we will be told will further stimulate the economy. 

Let’s see… the original stimulus bill was supposed to stimulate the economy.  When the stimulus bill was approved, unemployment was around 7%.  It is now around 10%, and has not significantly dropped in the past few months.  How was this stimulus money spent?  A lot of colleges were given grants to study monkeys, bugs, and dinosaur bones.  Many of these studies were done, or are being done, in other countries.  A heck of a lot of signs were bought to tell you that the road you are driving on is being fixed using stimulus money.  No one is working, or the road has been crudely patched, but there are signs everywhere.  Some bridges have been fixed, roads repaved and what not, but a lot of that money has been wasted.  How much, and by whom?

Glad you asked.

University of Montana students got a $141,000 grant to travel to China to study dinosaur eggs.  Penn state got almost $100,000 to go to Argentina to study plant fossils.  for more outrages, check the following link.

http://boortz.com/nealz_nuze/2010/12/our-tax-dollars.html

These amounts of money are a speck compared to the size of the overall stimulus package.  But it adds up.  And none of these grants did anything to get people back to work.  Still think the government is a good steward of your money? 

For most people, when you are out of money, you stop spending.  You don’t take out loans to buy a big screen TV.  I would have preferred the government to take that $700 billion and send out vouchers or checks to the American people, who would have, in turn, bought stuff.  That would have stimulated the economy.  Instead, we got trickle up poverty.  Give the money to non-producers and hope for the best.  Fund projects that would pay union workers to do the work.  Send college students overseas to study crap.  Hey, they could have had the students travel in the US.  At least some of the money would have been spent here, on hotels, meals, fuel, equipment, whatever.  Then, the crap they study might actually shed some light on stuff that happened in the US in the past. 

As you can tell, I’m a little irritated by the idea that the government can spend money responsibly.  They can’t.  Not now.  Not ever.  And why?  Because it’s not their money.  It’s the same thing that happens with my kids.  When they have to use my truck, they don’t clean it, put gas in it, check the oil, whatever.  Why?  Because it’s not their problem to fix it if it breaks.  Same thing with the government.  All of these guys know that eventually, they will be out of a job, and whatever damage they may have done will have to be fixed by someone else.  It’s really that simple. 

Maybe it’s time for us, as a country, to finally say no to these clowns.  No, as in “no, I won’t vote for your non-math doing, overspending, power hungry asses again.”  But I’m not naiive enough to think that Republicans will do any better.  I hope so, but their ideas of reducing taxes and spending seems to center on cutting spending on things that could actually benefit most people, and cutting taxes on people who can actually afford to pay more.  Cut spending on the Department of Education.  Cut the National Endowment for the Arts.  Cut welfare spending.  And cut taxes for everyone that actually has tax liability.  Don’t send a check to someone who didn’t have any tax liability.  That’s insane. 

It’s time for change.  No more career politicians.  No more lobbyists.  No more earmarks for buddies in your home state.  That’s what the party of NO should be saying.