Try as we may, keeping a handle on the stupidity in Washington is a daunting task! Our former 5th District Congressman, Tom Perriello, said ”If you don’t tie our hands, we’ll keep on stealing”. We never tied his hands but did get his butt out of our business and district. That, being a plus for us, just scratched the surface of the Congressional Philanthropist that occupy Washington.

Folks, if it’s your money, or that of a private individual wanting to promote any cause deemed good, go for it! However, I do not see Congress or the Federal Government as philanthropic organizations. Am I wrong? They act as if they are.

The tax dollars spent by some Federal Government Departments and Congressional members is… I’m at a loss for words here. Just put your own negative adjective in, you can’t go wrong.

Senator Tom Coburn, (OK) published WASTEBOOK 2011. I have read it! I have followed up and read many of the links in the document, at least to the point of running out of Pepto-Bismol! If it doesn’t upset you as well, there has to be a place in one of the Occupy Groups that you can fill.

Let me begin with $2.5 million for social services and about $4.4 million for programs to improve China‘s environment. We can improve their environment by ceasing to purchase so many products from them! If they don’t manufacture, pollution becomes less of a problem. Less pollution, better environment!

$120 million to federal employees who were deceased, every year, for at least the last five years! Bad as this is, many Federal employees that are alive shouldn’t being drawing checks either!

Our good friends in Pakistan, a 3 year package totaling $23 million to help them develop plans on how to use less energy. Make them buy those stupid curly bulbs from China, send some of the money they save back to China to help improve the environment! Problem solved!

We all love Sesame Street, but enough to give the Pakistanis $20 million over 4 years for them to reproduce it? All in the name of art….nope! Somehow I just can’t see Big Bird in a sheet with a towel wrapped around his head.

Speaking of Art there’s this little ditty, $350,000 to support an International Art Exhibition in Venice Italy! All of you saw that right?

Closer to home there’s a need for art as well, for instance, over $74,000 to The Treehouse Museum (UT), this for the purpose of teaching puppetry. If there’s anything about puppetry this administration doesn’t already know I’d be surprised!

Rock and Roll, an art in itself, may have helped collapse Russia! We don’t know how and I really don’t care, but the Congressional Philanthropist decided to spend $550,000 for a documentary (CA). You can imagine the size of a crowd attending that preview!

This is good… over $126,000 for a study of political websites and campaign strategies! Get this, it’s in Illinois! Ain’t that where Chicago is? Dead people and cartoon characters that vote, don’t spend a lot of time on websites or have any concern for campaign strategy!

Here’s a doozey, should you trust your tweets? The folks in Massachusetts wanted $492,005 (why the extra $5) to answer that question. They got it. Give Anthony Weiner a call, $2 at the most, get your answer. Or to be more practical, people can figure it out for themselves. But this may not be about people, just congressman trying to see how many abs, or whatever, they can show before they lose their seat.

More, along the tech lines, Auburn Maine received nearly $100,000 to purchase ipads for kindergarten children, California took nearly $150,000 to produce a cell phone game called “RapidGuppy”. Yep, rapid guppy it is, shows the life cycle of the fish. From the aquatics to soil, California relieved you of over $206,000 for ‘Virtual Sprouts’, a game. This is web-based, so you sit on your butt and play an interactive version of the First Lady’s Organic Garden. The purpose? To teach nutrition and, get this, combat obesity! With all these programs in place it is now important for people in Indiana to have nearly $765,000 to figure out how college students use mobile devices for social networking! May I refer you to ipads for kindergarten kids?

According to the IRS, children, prisoners and other folks, that do not own a home, were given tax credits of $1billion! This was for home energy related improvements, paid to folks that don’t own homes! See, it’s pretty simple once you understand! Now, when there is a tax credit on one side of the books, there is a tax debit/charge on the other side of the books. Guess who paid that?

What the IRS didn’t show on their books the Department of Energy did. The Federal Weatherization Program, for all intent and purpose, lost $231.3 million. In addition to this some $8.1 billion (8 times the norm) was awarded from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This is proof positive the recovery part, will not come from the Federal Government! The reinvestment part has to stop. You invest as an individual, get a return, you reinvest. The Feds did not get a return but do reinvest. Something doesn’t wash.

HUD, or Housing and Urban Development, is responsible for the same thing as NeighborWorks America. That is overlapping and we don’t know how long, Neighborhood Reinvestment (there’s that word again) Corporation which received nearly $170 million, funneled it to NeighborWorks America!

We have an administration now wanting to promote a socialist agenda on the American people. Some irony in sending $1.35 million to Barbados for Entrepreneurial training. But much of Washington should be questioned.

New York has bilked you out of $606,000 to study online dating! No brainer! Folks meet, fall in love, get married, or they don’t. Kentucky, a little chunk close to $357,000 to study stoned Japanese Quail. Yes, as in cocaine stoned! There is some concern they may practice risky sex habits? Ask anyone that’s been stoned… you don’t need a Federal Funded study!

What price stupidity, abuse and arrogance? This is a small example, not inclusive by any means of the entire WASTEBOOK 2011, but just the surface. This one Senator, this one report, is no more than 1% of the potential the Senate has to stop waste! Thanks to Senator Coburn for these disclosures. I urge you to look at the entire WASTEBOOK 2011, on line.

What price stupidity, abuse and arrogance… this report alone, $6.9 billion.

Darriel Burnett
Chairman, Danville TEA Party