Admin spends, spends, spends.

This crowd is really living the life. No wonder the country is broke.



OPINION
Eric Holder defends using Justice Department airplane for 27 personal trips
BY JOEL GEHRKE | APRIL 4, 2014 AT 4:18 PM
TOPICS: BELTWAY CONFIDENTIAL ERIC HOLDER JUSTICE DEPARTMENT

Attorney General Eric Holder testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, April 3, 2014,...
Attorney General Eric Holder disputed a Government Accountability Office report on his use of Justice Department airplanes for personal trips, saying it overstated the number of trips he took and failed to recognize that some trips were job-related.

"My staff keeps telling me to take it easy, you know, well, this is one that gets me," Holder told Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., during a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing. "There was this notion that we've taken -- I think it was described as hundreds of personal trips. That was wrong. GAO counted flights, not round trips. And we looked at it and figured out from the time period that they were looking, we took not hundreds, but 27 personal, four combined -- official and nonpersonal trips -- and none of the trips that I took or that the [FBI] director took ever had an impact on the mission capability of those airplanes."

Holder made the comment when asked if he would report those trips to the General Services Administration in the future.

"We didn't have a reporting requirement that existed before," he said. "If they want to change those rules, we'd be more than glad to make sure that we share that information with the appropriate organization, but this is something that is really wide open."

Holder noted that he has responded to multiple Freedom of Information Act requests and provided the information to GAO, as well as to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

"Just so that people understand that we're making appropriate use of DOJ aircraft," Holder told Wolf. "A lot of this stuff was described as mission and nonmission, and the way in which that was defined was not necessarily correct, because a nonmission trip -- for instance, the trip that I took to Newtown to visit the school after the shooting -- was described as a nonmission trip."

You want to talk about spending?

http://www.demonews.org/want-to-talk-deficits-bushs-iraq-and-afghanistan-will-cost-4-6-trillion/

The Right Wing Book Of Mythology would like to blame Obama for all of this!   

Why is your reply to EVERYTHING always to blame Bush, NB??? You always feel the need to say Bush did it. Well, I won't argue, Bush did spend too much, but it doesn't mean somebody can't start doing something to stop it. Obama certainly isn't and the Dems in Congress aren't and most of the Repubs. in Congress aren't . So they are all to blame, who cares? Just tell them to stop fighting the ones with the brains who ARE trying to get some fiscal control.

The best way to get back to fiscal control is to do away with the massive tax breaks that Bush gave to the wealthy and corporate interests. That would be a great start! Let's see, $4 to $6 trillion for the wars and another $4 trillion for the tax cuts, and you want to know why I keep blaming Bush? There are no responsible Republicans in Congress. The right wingnuts just want to take everything away from the poor, and that's not gonna happen!

So you think it's ok that 6 million is missing from here and 3million is missing from there etc? It doesn't bother you a bit that they don't keep track of the money they already have in WAshington? You don't think there is enough waste to cut without cutting anything else?

The biggest waste of money are those useless hearings about Benghazi and the IRS. How many millions has that cost us? We are not going to have a Pentagon budget of $750 billion and strip out everything else. That's the dream of Paul Ryan and the right wingnuts, but it's not gonna happen.

Could you argue with this quote?

"Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong."

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See there you go. That just proves we will NEVER save any money as long as those lefties continue to call Ryan names because he is one of the only ones who wants to try to get this monstrous budget under control. They just are unwilling to work with him at all. Just call him names instead. WHO is the party of NO????? Don't tell me there can't be cuts when in a couple of short years of the Obama administration it went from 9 trillion to what 17 trillion?

We went from $9 trillion to $17 trillion in debt because of 2 costly wars, Medicare-Part D, massive tax cuts and a recession that was nearly another Great Depression, and none of the above can be blamed on Obama. Paul Ryan's budget radically cuts spending on social programs that aid the poor, while increasing spending on an already bloated Pentagon. If you want a Military Industrial Complex you'll have to raise taxes to pay for it, rather than take it out of the hides of poor people. There are several Republican congressmen running for Senate around the country, and this vote for Ryan's budget will expose them for the benefactors of the oligarchs that they are.

News Hawk wrote:Could you argue with this quote?

"Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong."

War mongering is not my life of choice. I like the consensus building approach to conflict, like we're using with Iran and Russia. Haven't we seen enough kids killed and mangled by these unnecessary wars?

News Buzzard wrote:The biggest waste of money are those useless hearings about Benghazi and the IRS.

Nearly every hearing ends up with nothing to show for it.

News Buzzard wrote:How many millions has that cost us?

Hearings don't cost much, as the participants would be paid regardless of where they are.




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It is my understanding that we are getting out of those wars gradually (as planned before Bush left office). We have a lot less troops over there already. Where are the savings???

WHL wrote:It is my understanding that we are getting out of those wars gradually (as planned before Bush left office).  We have a lot less troops over there already.  Where are the savings???

You don't believe in taking care of the mangled soldiers and families of the deceased? That's a decades long commitment and the real price of war. It's little consolation that we planned on ending the wars prior to Bush's departure, because we shouldn't have started them in the first place. The Bush disaster will haunt us for years to come and Paul Ryan wants to pay for it by kicking old and poor people to the curb.

I agree with you, we never should have gone into Afghanistan and once we got rid of Saddam we should have gotten out of Iraq. The Russians spent 10 years in Afghanistan and got nowhere and we are doing the same. Why didn't we learn? Besides, trying to change these countries is like trying to change Dems into liking Repubs. We might as well give up. These horrible leaders keep these countries under control. Unfortunately we haven't had a strong leader since Reagan to keep these leaders afraid of us and therefore not testing us.

By getting rid of Saddam we turned Iraq into a Shiite controlled country, favorable to Iran. I'm not so sure that's a good thing.

I agree with the guy who wrote this article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-w-orlando/the-paul-ryan-budget-is-an-aff_b_5085094.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

WHL wrote:This crowd is really living the life.  No wonder the country is broke.  

Obama now probes everyone's health – in Kenya!

U.S. subsidizing massive in-person survey

In the latest addition to the Obama administration’s growing aid-to-Kenya portfolio, the U.S. will help subsidize a nationwide citizen-health assessment in every Kenyan county without exception.

While the estimated project cost remains undisclosed, a separate Kenya-based trade-promotion project unveiled late last week came with an additional $70 million price tag.

The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, with U.S. taxpayer help, will implement the 2014 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey, or KDHS. Kenya will coordinate the efforts with United Nations agencies, the U.S. government and “other partners.” The U.S. will fund a KDHS requirement to deploy contractor caravans across the entirety of this East African nation of 45 million.

How about the Illegals?




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Well of course we would expect a native of that country to help his own.   

Spend Spends Spending...

The General Government is buried under some 200+ trillion “dollars” worth of unfunded long-term liabilities. This is an unpayable sum by anyone’s calculus. The failure to pay it will have catastrophic economic, social, and political consequences. The problem will not be solved by Congress. In fact, Congress is making the situation worse. The debt is the great rent in America’s ship of state through which economic dissolution is pouring in. Congress proposes to fix this problem by borrowing more money which can never be repaid. This is equivalent to the lunatic notion that blowing off the rear quarter of Titanic would have saved the ship by allowing the water surging in at the bow to flow out through the new hole at the stern!

If this were not enough, almost all Americans are utterly unprepared to deal with the consequences of the depression, hyperinflation, or combination of the two which collapse of the national economy will cause.

http://www.newswithviews.com/Vieira/edwin263.htm




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WHL wrote:"...It is my understanding that we are getting out of those wars gradually (as planned before Bush left office).  We have a lot less troops over there already..."  

We are in NATO, and the US has pledged to defend
Estonia.

If Russian tanks roll into Estonia, should we keep our word?






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Doctor With Big Medicare Billings Is No Stranger to Scrutiny
By FRANCES ROBLESAPRIL 9, 2014

MIAMI — The doctor who bills the most for Medicare in the country is a South Florida ophthalmologist whose offices were twice raided last year by the FBI and whose generous political contributions and cozy relationship with New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez are under investigation by federal public corruption prosecutors, a New York Times analysis of Medicare data shows.

Data released Wednesday by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services show Dr. Salomon E. Melgen, 59, who moved to Florida from the Dominican Republic in the late 1970s, received $21 million in Medicare reimbursements in 2012 alone. The doctor billed mostly for Lucentis, a medication used to treat macular degeneration made by a company that pays generous rebates to its doctors.


Sliver of Medicare Doctors Get Big Share of PayoutsAPRIL 9, 2014
Study Finds Sicklier Enrollees in Earliest Stage of Health LawAPRIL 9, 2014
The release of the Medicare figures was the latest in a series headline-grabbing disclosures that have dogged the doctor since January of last year. The millionaire surgeon, who lives in a 5,000 square foot home in North Palm Beach and travels by private jet, is better known as the generous campaign contributor whose close relationship with Mr. Menendez has been scrutinized by federal prosecutors.

He's living in ONE Florida county that skims $2 Billion from Medicare every year—so now I understand why this major fraud hasn't been fixed.

We also haven't seen the borders secured from Mexican drug-runners...

What's up with that?






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The Congress could allocate a lot more money for oversight, but this congress believes in a scorched earth approach to governing, except for the Military Industrial Complex!

Hmmm, blaming Congress, NB? I seem to remember Microsoft (I think it was ) offering to set up an anti fraud program for Medicare for FREE but OBAMA said NO!

WHL wrote:Hmmm, blaming Congress, NB?  I seem to remember Microsoft (I think it was ) offering to set up an anti fraud program for Medicare for FREE but OBAMA said NO!

I would like to see some documentation on that. It would be interesting!

Skip to comments.

IBM Offer of Help with Medicare Fraud Rejected By Administration
From email
Posted on July 14, 2011 8:20:09 AM EDT by Portcall24

I searched to see if this had been and found nothing. I received as email and checked both Snopes and Truth or Fiction with nothing noted:

What if I told you that the Chairman and CEO of IBM, Samuel J. Palmisano, approached President Obama and members of his administration before the healthcare bill debates with a plan that would reduce healthcare expenditures by $900 billion? Given the Obama Administration's adamancy that the United States of America simply had to make healthcare (read: health insurance) affordable for even the most dedicated welfare recipient, one would think he would have leaned forward in his chair, cupped his ear and said, "Tell me more!"

And what if I told you that the cost to the federal government for this program was nothing, zip, nada, zilch?

TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government
KEYWORDS:
What if I told you that the Chairman and CEO of IBM, Samuel J. Palmisano, approached President Obama and members of his administration before the healthcare bill debates with a plan that would reduce healthcare expenditures by $900 billion? Given the Obama Administration's adamancy that the United States of America simply had to make healthcare (read: health insurance) affordable for even the most dedicated welfare recipient, one would think he would have leaned forward in his chair, cupped his ear and said, "Tell me more!"
And what if I told you that the cost to the federal government for this program was nothing, zip, nada, zilch?

And, what if I told you that, in the end and after two meetings, President Obama and his team, instead of embracing a program that was proven to save money and one that was projected to save almost one trillion dollars - a private sector program costing the taxpayers nothing, zip, nada, zilch - said, "Thanks but no thanks" and then embarked on passing one of the most despised pieces of legislation in US history?

Well, it's all true.

Samuel J. Palmisano, the Chairman of the Board and CEO for IBM, said in a recent Wall Street Journal interview that he offered to provide the Obama Administration with a program that would curb healthcare claims fraud and abuse by almost one trillion dollars but the Obama White House turned the offer down. Mr. Palmisano is quoted as saying during a taping http://video.foxnews.com/v/4366002/did-white-house-snub-fraud-fighter/ of The Wall Street Journal's Viewpoints program on September 14, 2010:

"We could have improved the quality and reduced the cost of the healthcare system by $900 billion...I said we would do it for free to prove that it works. They turned us down."

A second meeting between Mr. Palmisano and the Obama Administration took place two weeks later, with no change in the Obama Administration's stance. A call placed to IBM on October 8, 2010, by FOX News confirmed, via a spokesperson, that Mr. Palmisano stands by his statement.

Speaking with FOX News' Stuart Varney, Mort Zuckerman, Editor-in-Chief of US News& World Report, said, "It's a little bit puzzling because I think there is a huge amount of both fraud and inefficiency that American business is a lot more comfortable with and more effective in trying to reduce. And this is certainly true because the IBM people have studied this very carefully. And when Palmisano went to the White House and made that proposal, it was based upon a lot of work and it was not accepted. And it's really puzzling...These are very, very responsible people and don't have a political ax to grind.

In Mr. Obama's shunning of a private sector program that would have saved our country almost $1 trillion in healthcare expenditures, presented to him as he declared a "crisis in healthcare," he proves two things beyond any doubt: that he is anti-Capitalist and anti-private sector in nature and that he can no longer be trusted to tell the truth in both his political declarations or espoused goals.