IN FRATERNAM MEAM: UNCLE HAM...HOW YOUR MONEY IS WASTED

IN FRATERNAM MEAM

Saturday, November 27, 2004

UNCLE HAM...HOW YOUR MONEY IS WASTED

(by John DeVore)

YOUR TAX BILL HAS INCLUDED......
On Capitol Hill, "pork" is more than just the other white meat--- its your cash, rolled up and smoked.

$15 billion... for Boston's "Big Dig" the most expensive public works project in American history and a construction boondoggle of great importance--if you happen to live in eastern Massachusettes.

$6.9 billion... to design the Army's Comanche helicopter. The project was cancelled in 2004 without building a single usable chopper -- generating an additional $2 billion in termination fees.

$400 million... each year to subsidize public broadcasting, like PBS Sesame Street alone would be a commercial gold mine ...If taxpayers did'nt underwrite it already.

$3.5 million... to refurbish Alabama's Vulcan monument. This 100 year old Birmingham statue is a depiction of the Roman god of fire and metalworking not Spock.

$1.5 billion... to project at the 2002 Winter Olympics including the Olympic tree program ($500,000), adopting an Olympic horse ($70,000), and "resolving racial tensions" in honky-happy Utah ($55,000).

$835 million... to build a single amphibious assault ship the Pentagon never asked for. The project was "requested" by Mississippi senator Trent Lott... who happens to live within view of the shipyard hired to build it.

$9 billion... for the Yucca Mountain nuclear depository in Nevada, a dumping site for radioactive waste. Unfortunately, the toxic waste dump offers protection for only 10,000 years, when uranium has a half-life of billions.

$50 million... to the Environmental Project in Iowa, which features a 4.5 acre indoor jungle, an IMAX style movie theatre and outdoor exhibits of indigenous ecosystems (a.k.a. cornfields)

$300,00... to keep America rocking. This includes $200,000 for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland and an extra $100,000 for the Kids Rock Free Educational Program. Sadly, there are no classes on setting guitars on fire, trashing motel rooms or cornholing groupies.

- - - - - - - - - -

PASSING THE BUCK.....
Time to pay up! Where your tax dollar evaporates, one misspent penny at a time.

MEDICARE ($250 billion, 11.03%)** $600,000 to sail a Medicare-branded blimp aounrd the country-- that's just part of Medicare's $30 million annual advertising budget:"Can't afford health care? Medicare is here to help... as long as you don't have cancer!".

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
($31.7 billion, 1.40%)

GENERAL SCIENCE, SPACE AND TECHNOLOGY
($23.1 BILLION, 1.02%)

INTEREST ON THE NATIONAL DEBT
($153.2 billion 6.76%)
**your personal share? $25,062)

EDUCATION AND SOCIAL SERVICES($97.6 billion, 3.87%)
**$20 million to bail out Pennsylvania's struggling school districts.
Yes, taxpayers nationwide are footing the bill because Pennsylvania
can't solve its own education crisis.)

DEFENSE
($456.2 billion, 20.13%)
**$1 million for the Young Patriots Program, including
video that promotes the significance of National Patriotic Holidays.)

**$1 million for theatre groups to perform Shakespeare in American
Military communities.)

**$6.46 billion for Halliburton's troops support effort in Iraq:
this money includes $45 cases of soda, $85,000 "oil filters",
and $100 per bag of laundry. Meanwhile, a new private earns only
$18,248 a year -- for taking the fire in combat.)

**$9.1 billion was spent this year alone on missile defense research,
a.k.a. "Star Wars" since 1983, more than $90 billion has been
spent on a program meant to defend us against the ever threatening
(and currently nonexistent) Soviet Union.

**$4.1 million a year to pay off Ahmad Chalabi, the traitorous,
Iraqi exile accused of passing U.S. secrets to Iran.
Pentagon brass spent $22 million on Chalab's political aspirations.

GENERAL GOVERNMENT
($25 BILLION, 1.1%)
**$3.6 million for team building exercises to keep those wacky U.S.
Postal Service employees from breaking down and shooting each other.
This included singing, treasure hunts, and dressing in cat costumes.
No, we're not joking.)

COMMERCE
(14.9 billion, .66%)
**$1million to pay for South Carolina "oyster territory"-- because no
shellfish should be left behind.)

**$2million, for the First Tee initiative in St. Augustine, Florida, which
teaches honesty, integrity, and sportsmanship through, um,"golf education".

ENERGY
($548 million, .02%)
**$1.2 billion (from several departments) for the FreedomCAR-- an initiative
started by President Bush to create cars powered by Hydrogen fuel cells, which
would supposedly today replace autos that run on "Freedom Juice".)

VETERANS AFFAIRS
($59.1 billion, 2.61%)
**$231 million for AmeriCorps, the domestic Peace Corps. Rather than
investing in, say, veterans affairs, the U.S. spends $27,000 per
"volunteer" for what amounts to little more than political stump
speech fodder.)

TRANSPORTATION
($68.7 billion, 3.03%)
**$1.2 billion this eyar alone to prop up Amtrak-- on top of more than
$25billion since 1971. The horribly inefficinet, heavily subsidized railroad
incurs two dollars in costs for every dollar sold in tickets.)

HEALTH
($231.7 billion, 10.22%)
**$2.9 million for 32 programs that teach kis abstinece rather than sex ed.)

**$5 million for the Strom Thurmond Fitness and Wellness Center in South Carolina.

AGRICULTURE
($24.7 billion, 1.09%)
**$17 billion for U.S. farm subsidies. Huge and and hugely profitable corporate
farms,which make up only seven percent of the two million farms in America,
snort up more than half of that money.)

**$6.1 million for "wood utilization research", Since 1985, total of $79 million
has been spent investigating the various commercial used for that miracle
mystery substance known as "lumber".)

**$3.8 million for shipping aquaculture research. Since 1985, $61 million has beenspent studying these sea cockroaches.)

COMMUNITY AND REGIONAL DEVELOPEMENT
($16.7 billion, .74%)

NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT
($31.8 billion, 1.4%)
**$375,000 for the restoration of the Homestake Opera House in the opera hotbed
of Lead, South Dakota.)

**$300,000 for Utah forestry education.)

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
($39.7 billion, 1.75%)

MAXIMONLINE.COM

posted by infraternam meam @ 3:06 AM

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