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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | 15 March 2001 | Vol. II #39 | ||
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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | 15 March 2001 | Vol. II #39 | ||
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Congress last year spent $18.5 billion on 6,333 pork-barrel projects inserted into annual spending bills by individual lawmakers with little or no review, according to Citizens Against Government Waste's 2001 Congressional Pig Book released Wednesday.
The analysis of congressional pet projects lists lawmakers from Alaska as the biggest pork spenders, managing to squeeze $480 million in pet projects into last year's appropriations bills -- roughly $766 dollars for every citizen in the state.
Congress had a banner year for pork last year, increasing spending on pet projects by 46 percent from the previous year and bringing total pork-barrel spending over the past 10 years to almost $120 billion, the Pig Book says.
Citizens Against Government Waste's report includes a laundry list of pork projects from last year's spending bills identified by the group. For example, the first entry includes a $5.7 million wood utilization research project to take place in Alaska, Idaho, Maine and other states.
"Apparently, the many mysteries of wood still elude federal researchers," the report says.
The 2001 Pig Book lists Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, committee member Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss, as the leaders in successfully securing pork projects.
According to the Pig Book, Lott added $460 million to last year's defense bill to ensure that an amphibious assault ship would be built at Ingall's Shipyard, near Lott's home in Pascagoula, Miss. The Pentagon has made no request for such a ship, the Pig Book said.
But on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers argue that their first task is to take care of constituents in their home states, the term pork spending can simply refer to a legitimate activity.
"Pork spending is in the eye of the beholder," Lott said earlier this week. "In my state, it is any federal spending project north of Memphis."
And Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., considered a leading crusader against unauthorized pork-barrel spending, said that he does not necessarily object to the individual projects, but instead to lawmakers inserting them quietly into bills with little or no oversight or examination.
"I want to point out that my objections are based not on the merits of these projects -- although some make us laugh and cry at the same time -- but by the procedures that are used to put them into appropriations bills," McCain said.
Citizens Against Government Waste compiled its report by including projects that met two of the following criteria: Included in spending bills at the request of just one lawmaker; not authorized by another committee; not competitively awarded; not requested by the president; greatly exceed either the president's request or the previous year's funding; not the subject of congressional hearings; or only serve a local or special interest.
Also at the news conference were a 1,000-pound pig, two piglets, and a man dressed in a pig suit, who appeared at the Pig Book's release.
[ UPI ]
Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), America's largest taxpayer watchdog group, today denounced the United States Postal Service's (USPS) recent tactics to obtain another rate increase as "nothing more than political extortion."
The Post Office is expected to post losses of between $2 and $3 billion this fiscal year. It received a 4.6 percent rate hike in January 2001 and intends to seek a 10 to 15 percent increase as early as this summer. Officials this week announced the Post Office will halt all new construction, leasing, or expansion of new postal facilities in an attempt to cut costs.
"The USPS argues it is not to blame for its current financial woes and that its hands are tied," CAGW Vice President Leslie Paige said. "To get their way on these new rate increases, they are resorting to an alarmist campaign by dramatically ceasing their new operations. It is typical Washington politics, the equivalent of shutting down the Washington monument to foment public concern and twist the government's arm.
"Postal officials so far have provided no data on the cost-savings or cost-benefit analysis of the new proposal, but they have made clear that practically every congressional district in the country will be affected," Paige added. "Such behavior indicates political, not financial objectives."
The USPS Office of Inspector General has identified more than $1.4 billion a year in waste, fraud, and abuse in Post Office operations. The agency, which has tax exemptions and other government-conferred benefits worth more than $1 billion annually, has seen a decline in mail volume over the last several years due to the Internet. Yet, the Post Office today employs 906,000 people, a 36 percent increase from 1980. The agency has lost tens of millions of dollars in failed commercial ventures unrelated to delivering the mail and has been plagued by wasteful spending, such as shelling out exorbitant moving stipends to postal executives to move closer to their offices and postal officials using chauffeur-driven limos.
"The USPS wants Congress to 'free' it to compete in the private sector," Paige concluded. "But postal officials never suggest relinquishing their huge tax exemptions or reducing the Post Office's bloated workforce, which could be accomplished with a hiring freeze. These are the kinds of decisions private businesses routinely make to stay profitable. Congress should block further rate hikes until the USPS cuts the wasteful spending and to trim its bloated workforce for a start."
CAGW is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.
[ CAGW press release ]
Thirty-one nonprofit groups that have united to oppose President Bush's tax-cut plan are recipients of federal tax money, according to the Capital Research Center.
"It is not surprising that these organizations would oppose any cuts in one of their major sources of revenue — money collected from American taxpayers," said Capital Research Center President Terrence Scanlon.
The groups are part of the "Fair Taxes for All" coalition created to oppose tax cuts.
The bulk of these tax dollars went to the National Council of Senior Citizens (NCSC), whose successor group, the Alliance for Retired Americans, joined the Fair Taxes for All coalition. NCSC received more than $300 million in grants in the past five years, according to the Federal Assistance Award Data System.
Other coalition members receiving significant taxpayer support include the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, the NAACP, the National Education Association, and the National Council of La Raza.
Organized labor is taking a leading role in the anti-tax-cut coalition. The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the nation's largest government employee union, co-chairs the coalition alongside People for the American Way. AFSCME received $447,000 in federal grants from 1997 through 1999.
The AFL-CIO, which received more than $6 million in tax money from 1997 through 2000, is a member of the coalition and has started "Bushwatch," a Web site dedicated to opposing Mr. Bush's legislative agenda.
[ Greg Pierce, Inside Politics ]
Former first brother Roger Clinton and his sister-in-law Sen. Hillary Clinton woke up to some bad news Wednesday morning.
The Pardongate probe is heating up, with investigators zeroing in on witnesses that could implicate the duo in serious criminality.
For the first time Roger has been tied directly to CLM LLC, an Arkansas company accused of selling pardons in his name.
Last week the first sibling said through a spokeswoman that he had nothing to do with CLM, though witnesses said they were told the acronym stands for Clinton, Locke and Morton.
Now CLM partner Dickey Morton tells the New York Daily News that Roger was not only involved in the business, he has documents that prove the first brother was a full-fledged partner.
Guy Lincecum, who says he purchased a pardon for his brother Garland on the promise that Roger could make it happen, produced $200,000 in canceled checks last week. One was a $100,000 cashiers check, but on the other the payee is listed as CLM.
Morton acknowledges the payment, but told the News that what Lincecum bought was advice on a scheme to use a Christian foundation to sell tax-exempt bonds in Las Vegas.
Whether Morton's alibi holds up is one question. But there's no question that Roger's has already begun to unravel.
The first sibling has also refused to answer a set of written questions sent by House Pardongate probers, which could trigger a new public hearing with Roger as the star witness, committee spokesman Mark Corallo told the New York Post.
Pardongate probers may be closing in on Hillary as well, as they seek to question former New York Democratic Party leader Paul Adler, who headed up her Jewish outreach committee during her Senate campaign last year.
Adler is expected to tell the FBI whether there was a quid pro quo arrangement between Hillary and four Hasidic rabbis in the village of New Square, N.Y., which voted 1,400 to 12 in her favor.
The New Square rabbis had been jailed on charges of bilking the government out of millions of dollars of federal aid. But their jail sentences were commuted when ex-President Clinton granted them clemency on Jan. 19.
Mrs. Clinton acknowledges attending a December White House meeting with her husband and New Square emissaries, who were there to plead for the commutations. But Hillary has claimed she took no position whatsoever on their appeal.
Adler has more than a little incentive to cooperate. Last month he pleaded guilty to tax fraud charges and will be looking to reduce a possible five-year jail term. He's scheduled to be sentenced in May.
In more bad news for Hillary, chief Pardongate prober U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White has added Michael Chertoff to her staff.
As lead counsel to the Senate's 1996-96 Whitewater investigation, Chertoff argued that Mrs. Clinton obstructed the Vincent Foster death probe and knew more than she was saying about the mysterious reappearance of her Rose Law billing records in the White House book room.
[ NewsMax ]
Harvard's new president, Larry Summers, has more in common with another famous Harvard alum and Washington figure, Robert Rubin, than the university's directors may realize.
Besides their Harvard degrees and their tenures as secretary of the Treasury under President Clinton, both Mr. Rubin and Mr. Summers managed to get tangled up in Cobell vs. Norton, a lawsuit that accuses Treasury of mismanaging $90 billion in individual Indian trust accounts.
U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth found Mr. Rubin and his Cabinet colleague, then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, in contempt of court on Feb. 22, 1999, after they repeatedly violated a court order to stop destroying Indian trust documents. Mr. Summers was deputy Treasury secretary at the time.
It turned out that during the contempt trial, Treasury workers in suburban Maryland destroyed another 160 boxes of trust records, a fact that six Treasury officials hid from Judge Lamberth for four months.
A court-appointed special master who investigated that lapse later called Treasury's Indian trust system clearly out of control. On Nov. 2, Mr. Summers, who by then had succeeded Mr. Rubin as secretary, filed with Judge Lamberth, under seal, the results of Treasury's internal investigation of the six officials' document-destruction cover-up.
The Indian plaintiffs and Dow Jones & Co. Inc., publisher of the Wall Street Journal, immediately asked that the report be made public. A decision is pending.
The Indian plaintiffs also asked Judge Lamberth to impose sanctions, possibly including contempt, against Mr. Summers for filing a frivolous motion to seal the report. That matter is also pending.
Judge Lamberth socked Mr. Rubin and Mr. Babbitt with more than $600,000 in penalties, but emphasized that next time, the Treasury secretary — not the taxpayers — would pay the price, possibly including jail time.
If that happens, Mr. Summers will be off to a fast start as a Harvard president of distinction.
[ John McCaslin, Inside the Beltway ]
The Pentagon said yesterday that it had started a review of the Army's contested decision to issue the Rangers' exclusive black beret to all soldiers.
A spokesman said Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz also will look into a department decision last fall to bypass a "buy America" law to acquire the wool berets from low-wage factories in communist China and other Third World countries.
The review, requested last month by President Bush, was announced a day after Sen. John W. Warner, Virginia Republican and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, urged Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to suspend the beret program until a new Army secretary examines it.
Mr. Wolfowitz's announcement culminates weeks of intense pressure from former soldiers and members of Congress. They argue that making the berets available to every soldier in the Army voids the uniqueness of the black beret for 3,000 Rangers, one of the Army's most elite combat groups.
"I think it's moving pretty quick and it's exciting," said ex-Ranger David Nielsen, who last week completed a 750-mile protest march from Fort Benning, Ga., to Washington. "I want to find the best way out for everyone. I don't want to see anyone embarrassed. Maybe there's not an 'A' or a 'B,' but maybe a 'C' position that makes everybody look good. Maybe khaki berets for soldiers."
A source close to the issue said Mr. Rumsfeld feels compelled to act in the face of widespread disagreement with the beret policy.
The Army chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, who set out the policy in October as a symbol of "a transformed Army for the 21st century," is said to be discussing how he should respond if Mr. Rumsfeld suspends the program permanently. Congressional and Army sources say the four-star general is convinced he made the right decision and stubbornly defends it.
Asked a retired soldier who worked in the Bush campaign: "Can Shinseki take a hint?"
He notes the growing number of letters from Republican and Democratic congressmen opposing the general's decision, and the fact that the commander in chief ordered the Pentagon review.
The issue became further inflamed last week when The Washington Times reported that the Defense Logistics Agency bypassed the "Berry Amendment" and ordered hundreds of thousands of black berets from Third World countries, including China.
The amendment requires the Pentagon to buy clothing made of American components in American plants. The agency said waiving the law was the only way it could meet Gen. Shinseki's deadline of having all 474,000 active duty soldiers in a beret by June 14, the Army's birthday.
"I am also troubled by reports of the manner in which the berets are being procured," Mr. Warner said in his letter to Mr. Rumsfeld.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, Mississippi Republican, wrote to Mr. Rumsfeld last week as well, saying "Taking the black beret away from Rangers complicates the laudable goal of creating esprit d'corps in the Army."
In the House yesterday, Rep. Lois Capps, California Democrat, circulated a letter to be signed by her colleagues that calls on Mr. Bush to consider terminating the foreign contracts.
"The seemingly arbitrary deadline for the new berets will cause U.S. firms to lose millions of dollars and send this important business to foreign companies," Mrs. Capps said.
"Military uniforms are a powerful symbol for U.S. soldiers, representing who they are and what they stand for. That is one reason why they are manufactured in our own country, except in times of crisis. The Army's decision to purchase the black berets from companies who manufacture them overseas may undermine the very morale and unity the Army is attempting to instill in its forces with its decision to outfit its soldiers in matching headgear."
Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters Mr. Wolfowitz will look at Gen. Shinseki's policy itself as well as the overseas contracts.
"There are several different facets to this overall topic, and the deputy secretary has been asked to take a look at each of them and come back holistically to the secretary with his recommendations on the way ahead," Adm. Quigley said. "His charter is very broad. . . . He'll move it along pretty quick."
There was confusion at the Pentagon after White House spokesman Ari Fleischer announced two weeks ago that the president himself wanted a review, and nothing happened. Mr. Rumsfeld then told reporters that he had not asked the Army for any information. His remarks were taken as a lack of enthusiasm for the president's instructions.
Mr. Fleischer yesterday repeated the president's instructions.
"This is something that DoD [Department of Defense] is looking at now," he said. "Secretary Rumsfeld will be addressing those questions.
"He said he has not asked the Army to do so. I think you should allow the secretary to speak for himself. The secretary is aware, certainly. He had a conversation with the president. So because he says he hasn't asked the Army to is not an indication of what Secretary Rumsfeld is or is not doing."
Rep. Charlie Norwood, Georgia Republican, complained personally about the beret policy last month to Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld during an Air Force One trip to an Army base in Georgia.
[ NewsMax ]
Israel is keeping close tabs on a Lebanese water project, which could divert the flow of an important river, preventing it from feeding Israel's main supply of fresh water.
While defense and water officials are downplaying the size of the project, one Israeli lawmaker said such tampering with a water source, which diverts it from a downstream neighbor, is a 'justification for war.' Israeli lawmaker Michael Kleiner, who heads the right-wing Herut party, said Israel should respond swiftly to this Lebanese test of the new Israeli government. He maintains that the project was begun shortly after Israeli elections last month.
"The theft of water sources is a justification for war according to standards of international law," Kleiner said. "Lebanon put Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to the test and studies the limits of deterrence of the State of Israel."
In the 1960s, Kleiner said, Israel risked a full-scale war with Syria, when it repeatedly bombarded Syrian attempts to divert sources of the Jordan River to within Syrian territory. Eventually, Syrian building stopped.
"If Israel will not react, it will invite more infringements," Kleiner added.
[ CNS ]
Just because the vehement anti-gunners in the former Clinton administration have left Washington, D.C., don't imagine for a moment that Washington's most vociferous anti-gun lackeys have left with them.
During Clinton's reign of corruption, anti-gun bills blew through Washington like a tornado through a small Kansas town. On Clinton's watch, socialist-minded lawmakers -- unencumbered by cowering Republicans -- passed the Brady Act, numerous "assault weapons" bans, and pushed the federal agencies responsible for enforcing gun control laws.
Now, a new bill has been introduced in the Senate by notorious anti-gun lefties Dianne Feinstein of California, Chuckie Schumer of New York, and that lush from Massachusetts, Teddy "Kill 'em with your Car, Instead" Kennedy.
Suddenly, these "leaders" say, America has a huge military sniper rifle problem, if you believe the text of their bill, The Military Sniper Weapon Regulation Act of 2001.
According to the bill, these anti-gunners want to "amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to regulate certain 50 caliber sniper weapons in the same manner as machine guns and other firearms and for other purposes."
"Certain 50 caliber sniper weapons"? Which ones -- the 50-caliber rifles that are commonly used to snipe at and kill American citizens on a daily basis?
I suppose it doesn't matter to these buffoons that nobody's using these rifles to snipe at and kill American citizens on a daily basis in the first place.
That begs the question: "Then why do we 'need' this law?"
With increasing frequency, Congress is becoming less an entity representative of the people and more an entity for consolidating power in Washington, D.C. This "anti-military sniper rifle" bill is a classic example.
Feinstein, Schumer and Kennedy have a demonstrable disdain for the Second Amendment; their past actions, words and deeds prove that.
Specifically, they appear to have a healthy disdain for a well-armed citizenry that is capable of, shall we say, "holding the scoundrels accountable," should they try to take too much power. That is what is behind their motivation to continually offer bills that restrict or ban a citizen's right to own any kind of weapon he or she chooses.
Are Feinstein, Schumer and Kennedy just worried that even an armored limo is no match for a 50 caliber round?
"Whoa, Dougherty," you shriek, "what are you implying?"
I'm not "implying" anything but these lawmakers sure as hell are. They the ones implying that these 50-caliber weapons are allegedly being stockpiled for some sort of offensive against them, the federal government, or both.
I'm not kidding.
The bill's language says one of the reasons why this measure simply must pass is because "the intended use of these long-range firearms, and an increasing number of models derived directly from them, is the taking of human life and the destruction of materiel, including armored vehicles and such components of the national critical infrastructure as radars and microwave transmission devices."
Says who? Where's the proof of that, because it sure isn't in the public domain? In fact, I can't think of a single shooting incident in recent memory in which a murderer used a 50-caliber sniper rifle to do the deed, can you?
But the implications that these weapons are indeed being stockpiled for future action is right there in terms like "armored vehicles," "national critical infrastructure," "radars…" and "microwave transmission devices." I guess, using this "logic" we could add tanks, aircraft carriers, F-15s and, of course, armored limos, to that list too.
Are Feinstein, Schumer and Kennedy really worried about people shooting up "armored vehicles" and radar dishes, or have they simply had too many hits on the water bong and too many nips at the whiskey flask?
Sadly, they do believe it, and that's the tragedy of this bill. These are your "leaders," you folks who live in their states. Aren't you lucky?
California has an acute, widespread power crisis and Feinstein is worried about 50-caliber rifles. Massachusetts has a tax rate that surpasses most socialist countries, and Kennedy is worried about 50-caliber rifles. New York has both Clintons, and Schumer is worried about 50-caliber rifles.
But there is no rash of 50-caliber sniper rifle shootings and, hence, no urgency to this measure. So, there is no real reason for it. And yet, there it is -- sitting in Senate committee -- awaiting consideration or, in this case, legitimacy.
That means, then, that this bill is a "preemptive strike," if you will. A sort of, "Let's ban those things before they use 'em on us!" measure. There simply is no other rational explanation for it.
Now, do you know why the Second Amendment was made the second amendment to our Constitution, right after the freedom to inform citizens about the authoritarian tendencies of our leaders?
Despite the crazy language of this bill -- which was written specifically for a weapon that almost nobody owns -- I wouldn't look for the immediate destruction of the "national critical infrastructure" if I were you, because it's not going to happen, and it sure as blazes won't happen because a few well-off Americans can afford to own and shoot 50-caliber rifles.
Rather, if I were you, I'd worry more about the damage being done to our Constitution and our country by unscrupulous lawmakers who sanction corruption at the highest levels of power while they try to force us to live by a different, more stringent set of rules.
[ Jon E. Dougherty, WorldNetDaily. ]
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