About that "Obama phone" and the 41%

Millions Improperly Claimed U.S. Phone Subsidies
Excerpt:

The U.S. government spent about $2.2 billion last year to provide phones to low-income Americans, but a Wall Street Journal review of the program shows that a large number of those who received the phones haven't proved they are eligible to receive them.

The Lifeline program—begun in 1984 to ensure that poor people aren't cut off from jobs, families and emergency services—is funded by charges that appear on the monthly bills of every landline and wireless-phone customer. Payouts under the program have shot up from $819 million in 2008, as more wireless carriers have persuaded regulators to let them offer the service.

Suspecting that many of the new subscribers were ineligible, the Federal Communications Commission tightened the rules last year and required carriers to verify that existing subscribers were eligible. The agency estimated 15% of users would be weeded out, but far more were dropped.

A review of five top recipients of Lifeline support conducted by the FCC for the Journal showed that 41% of their more than six million subscribers either couldn't demonstrate their eligibility or didn't respond to requests for certification.

Comment: I understand the Obama Phone lady repented. The program, by the way, was not initiated by President Obama.

Low income housing at $ 392,000 per unit

$100 million in flour power to transform Pillsbury A-Mill

 Excerpt:

More than 130 years after the Mississippi River was diverted to power the Pillsbury A-Mill, it continues to flow beneath the building -- its dull roar a constant reminder that this landmark helped make Minneapolis the flour capital of the world.

The mill stopped operating a decade ago, but the building is largely unchanged. Gaping holes in the floors mark where there were once grain chutes. Broken window panes reveal stunning views of downtown Minneapolis and St. Anthony Falls. In the disheveled offices, there's unopened mail and a pair of reading glasses on a desk, as though the people who once worked at the mill are just away on break.

Now, a robust rental market and an ambitious plan from a local developer could mean new life for the site. Dominium Co. plans to convert the complex into 255 rental apartments for low-income artists, including studios and performance spaces. The project will cost more than $100 million, making it one of the most expensive residential construction projects on the books in the Twin Cities.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to save this place," said Owen Metz, senior development associate for Dominium. "It's going to be an amazing project."

Comment: Of course the only way this could be financed is with state and federal government funds. Have to be a poor artist to live there! More on the A Mill here

In praise of Dave's Barber Shop

Taxpayers fleeced in bailout of Senate barbershop ‘institution’

Excerpt:

America’s most distinguished leaders get their hair cut at the Senate barbershop, but taxpayers are the ones really getting clipped.

The barbershop ran almost $300,000 in the red last year but received an infusion from Senate coffers that is keeping it in business, the Senate sergeant at arms, Terrance Gainer, told The Daily.

A federal bailout isn’t that unusual since the economic downturn, but some senators didn’t even know their salon was in hot water — and don’t think it should be, considering what they pay for a little off the ears.

A shampoo, cut and blow dry is $27 and highlights are $105, according to the barbershop’s website.

Comment: My regular barber is my wife and a 10 year old Wahl clipper. Kathee does a super job: shaves around the ears and uses the razer on my neck. Plus she trims my eyebrows. Every now and then she is too busy to cut my hair and I find myself at Dave's Barbershop. They manage to give me a decent haircut for $ 12. (cash only ... no credit cards!). AND they manage to do this without taking a government subsidy!

Airport follies

A $64 million 'airstrip to nowhere' in the Aleutians?

Excerpt:

The village of Akutan in the Aleutian Islands is getting a new $64 million airstrip, but right now, no one is certain how villagers and seasonal workers will get to it. That's because it's being built on an uninhabited island six miles away, across a strait exposed to the stormy Bering Sea

Missed connections - Tunnels can't link plane to terminal

Excerpts:

Monroe Regional Airport (Louisiana)officials learned Tuesday passenger loading and unloading bridges at the new $36 million terminal are not being able to connect to airplanes.

...

"I'm trying to find out what's going on," Mayo said. "What I've been told is the loading bridges are not long enough to reach the airplanes. They are several feet short, which presents a problem for the planes connecting to the loading bridges

Comment: Image above from Airplane! (Stupid but funny! A quote: "Elaine, you're a member of this crew. Can you face some unpleasant facts? "

Obama doesn't lie ... he misleads

Does He Lie?

Comment: 3 examples

Excerpt:

1. "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits -- either now or in the future," he solemnly pledged. "I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit, now or in the future. Period."
   
   Wonderful. The president seems serious, veto-ready, determined to hold the line. Until, notes Harvard economist Greg Mankiw, you get to Obama's very next sentence: "And to prove that I'm serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don't materialize."
   
   This apparent strengthening of the pledge brilliantly and deceptively undermines it. What Obama suggests is that his plan will require mandatory spending cuts if the current rosy projections prove false. But there's absolutely nothing automatic about such cuts. Every Congress is sovereign. Nothing enacted today will force a future Congress or a future president to make any cuts in any spending, mandatory or not.
   
   Just look at the supposedly automatic Medicare cuts contained in the Sustainable Growth Rate formula enacted to constrain out-of-control Medicare spending. Every year since 2003, Congress has waived the cuts.
   
   Mankiw puts the Obama bait-and-switch in plain language. "Translation: I promise to fix the problem. And if I do not fix the problem now, I will fix it later, or some future president will, after I am long gone. I promise he will. Absolutely, positively, I am committed to that future president fixing the problem. You can count on it. Would I lie to you?"
   
   
2. And then there's the famous contretemps about health insurance for illegal immigrants. Obama said they would not be insured. Well, all four committee-passed bills in Congress allow illegal immigrants to take part in the proposed Health Insurance Exchange.
   
   But more important, the problem is that laws are not self-enforcing. If they were, we'd have no illegal immigrants because, as I understand it, it's illegal to enter the United States illegally. We have laws against burglary, too. But we also provide for cops and jails on the assumption that most burglars don't voluntarily turn themselves in.
   
   When Republicans proposed requiring proof of citizenship, the Democrats twice voted that down in committee. Indeed, after Rep. Joe Wilson's "You lie!" shout-out, the Senate Finance Committee revisited the language of its bill to prevent illegal immigrants from getting any federal benefits. Why would the Finance Committee fix a nonexistent problem?
   
   
3. Obama said he would largely solve the insoluble cost problem of Obamacare by eliminating "hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud" from Medicare.
   
   That's not a lie. That's not even deception. That's just an insult to our intelligence. Waste, fraud and abuse -- Meg Greenfield once called this phrase "the dread big three" -- as the all-purpose piggy bank for budget savings has been a joke since Jimmy Carter first used it in 1977.
   
   Moreover, if half a trillion is waiting to be squeezed painlessly out of Medicare, why wait for health-care reform? If, as Obama repeatedly insists, Medicare overspending is breaking the budget, why hasn't he gotten started on the painless billions in "waste and fraud" savings?

Conclusion: "Obama doesn't lie. He merely elides, gliding from one dubious assertion to another."

Comment: The most glaring are # 2 and # 3:

#2, No health care for illegals. Great ... we'll just make them all legal!
#3, Every President says this ... we will save money by reforming _____________. Well reform ___________ FIRST! If you can't do that ... ignore the other!

No Thermostats here!

Energy Dept. Fails to Use Thermostats to Cut Costs

Excerpt:

The Energy Department strives to be a leader in championing energy efficiency. Its Web site lists energy-saving tips, while Secretary Steven Chu calls conservation one of the department’s most important goals.

But at many of the agency’s buildings, even at national laboratories where talented scientists seek technological breakthroughs to save energy, the department has failed to use one of the most effective tools available to any ordinary household: thermostats that automatically dial back the temperature when nobody is around.

A recent audit found that the department could save more than $11.5 million annually in energy costs by properly employing these “setback” controls to adjust the heat and air conditioning at night or on weekends.

The Energy Department’s inspector general found that the department, which spends almost $300 million annually on utilities, could save enough energy to power more than 9,800 homes each year by doing what experts say every household in the country should also be doing.

Comment: Unbelievable!

Clunker waste

Unusable engines beginning to pile up in junkyards

Excerpts:

Though it might seem as though the CARS program -- which requires trade-in vehicles to be crushed or shredded so they can't be resold -- would benefit junkyards, some owners are reporting just the opposite effect.

...

Ms. Leshow wouldn't be surprised if it takes weeks or months for Blazczak Salvage to begin getting trade-ins.

Her frustration was echoed by Dave Norris, owner of Millerstown Pic-A-Part in Tarentum, which processes and crushes cars.

His junkyard has gotten around 75 clunkers since the program began two weeks ago, but that's not a significant increase for a recycling plant that typically processes 150 to 200 cars per day, he said.

"It seems to be a really cumbersome process for dealers. They have to scan paperwork to get the government's acceptance of their deals," he said. "There's a real bottleneck to the whole program."

In addition to stimulating car sales, one of the goals of the government program is to get gas-guzzling vehicles off the roads in exchange for those that get better mileage.

"A substantial opportunity exists for fraudulent diversion of the trade-in vehicle, largely because its still-functioning engine makes it attractive to return the vehicle to the road rather than relegate it to the scrap yard," said the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's final rule for the CARS Program.

However, it is those parts that account for 60 percent of recyclers' revenue, according to the Automotive Recyclers Association.

"The most valuable part is the engine," said Mr. Norris, adding that each could fetch between $500 to $1,000. "It takes the real profit out of the picture."

Without the engine, he estimates he will get around $75 for the scrap metal for each car.

Comment: I saw an example of a cash for clunker trade in. It was a 1990 Izuzu Trooper. The body was clean with no rust. Getting trashed for no good reason. A lot of nice used cars are being destroyed for no good reason.

Let them fly coach

House Orders Up Three Elite Jets

Excerpt:

Last year, lawmakers excoriated the CEOs of the Big Three automakers for traveling to Washington, D.C., by private jet to attend a hearing about a possible bailout of their companies.

But apparently Congress is not philosophically averse to private air travel: At the end of July, the House approved nearly $200 million for the Air Force to buy three elite Gulfstream jets for ferrying top government officials and Members of Congress.

The Air Force had asked for one Gulfstream 550 jet (price tag: about $65 million) as part of an ongoing upgrade of its passenger air service.

But the House Appropriations Committee, at its own initiative, added to the 2010 Defense appropriations bill another $132 million for two more airplanes and specified that they be assigned to the D.C.-area units that carry Members of Congress, military brass and top government officials.

Because the Appropriations Committee viewed the additional aircraft as an expansion of an existing Defense Department program, it did not treat the money for two more planes as an earmark, and the legislation does not disclose which Member had requested the additional money.

An Appropriations Committee staffer said the military was already planning to replace its passenger fleet, and the committee “looked at the request and decided they should speed up the replacement.”

The Gulfstream G550 is a luxury business jet, which the company advertises as featuring long-range flight capacity that “easily links Washington, D.C., with Dubai, London with Singapore and Tokyo with Paris.” The company’s promotional materials say, “The cabin aboard the G550 combines productivity with exceptional comfort. It features up to four distinct living areas, three temperature zones, a choice of 12 floor plan configurations with seating for up to 18 passengers.”

Congress Members Criticize Auto Executives’ Corporate Jet Travel (November 2008)

Excerpt:

One member of the House Financial Services Committee asked the chief executives of General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC on Wednesday to raise their hands if they were willing to give up their company planes as they pleaded with the committee for a $25 billion bailout. None did.

The symbolism of the perk was potent to several congressmen, who said their constituents would be aghast at the privilege in such troubled economic times.

“It’s almost like seeing a guy show up at the soup kitchen in a high hat and tuxedo,” Rep. Gary Ackerman (D., N.Y.) told the gathered executives. “Couldn’t you have downgraded to first class or something, or jet-pooled or something to get here?”

Others questioned whether GM’s Rick Wagoner, Ford’s Alan Mulally and Chrysler’s Robert Nardelli were fully committed to the transformation of their struggling businesses if they were unwilling or unable to see how disturbed taxpayers would be by what they called a powerful sign of corporate extravagance. ABC News also picked up on the subject with an investigative news report.

Comment: Let them fly coach ... like the rest of us!

Essential Air Service: Example of government waste

Rural air travel subsidies gain big budget boost

Excerpt:

A much-criticized subsidy for rural air travel would get a budget increase of more than 40 percent under a spending bill unveiled in the House on Monday.

The legislation approved by a House Appropriations subcommittee would give $173 million in the upcoming budget year to the Essential Air Service, which provides subsidies to small airlines to fly unprofitable routes. That's a $53 million increase.

In many cases the flights are nearly empty. In other instances, such as flights between Buffalo Niagara International Airport and Jamestown, N.Y., just 76 miles away, it's quicker to drive than fly.

The Bush administration sought unsuccessfully to cut the subsidies, which keeps flights going to 107 communities spread across 31 states in the continental U.S. and 45 tiny towns in Alaska. But the Essential Air Services program enjoys strong support among lawmakers; in April, 22 senators wrote White House budget director Peter Orszag to demand more money for it.

"Simply put, the Essential Air Service program was a promise made to rural America, and a promise that must be kept," the senators wrote.

Among the reasons for big increase is the upheaval in the airline industry, including higher fuel prices, and the larger subsidies required to attract new carriers into the program after other airlines drop out.

Indeed, the subsidies also have a new benefactor in President Barack Obama, who requested the big increase in his February budget submission despite acknowledging that the program is inefficient.

Comment: Kathee sometimes travels to Des Moines. She figures that driving to Des Moines is a better deal (even with the travel time) than flying. My last business trip to Des Moines, 3 of us rented a car and drove!

$145 a linear inch!!

Whistleblower: Is 1-mile bike path worth $9.2 million?

Excerpt:

A mile-long bike path planned for downtown Minneapolis promises a quick, safe way for cyclists to travel separate from busy street traffic. But its estimated $9.2 million price tag has some gasping.

It's a total that, in the past, paid for nearly 2 miles of highway lane on Interstate 94 in St. Paul, or 5.7 miles of bike trail on government land for the Midtown Greenway.

Proponents say it's the final link in a century-old vision for paths connecting the city's lakes and the river. It will extend the Cedar Lake Trail, an off-street bicycle "freeway" linking western suburbs with the heart of the city. Downtown, the paved route will take cyclists next to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, under the new Twins ballpark and to the Mississippi River Parkway -- without crossing a single street.

Others say the path has become too pricey to justify as governments consider cuts to critical services because of the recession.

At issue is a geographically difficult three-block stretch of construction to extend the path all the way to the river, a change of plans for which proponents raised an extra $4.8 million in federal and state funding in 2005 and 2006. A city plan would have put bike traffic up a ramp and onto painted bike paths along local streets at that point.

HT: Citypages

Comment: As long as it is someone else's money (sourced from the Federal government) or "creates jobs" the average Joe won't care about this kind of waste. The comments on the Citypages blog are humorous!

Will Obama's 'Responsibility' Era overrule Davis-Bacon?

One suggestion for transcending 'worn-out dogmas.'

Excerpt:

President Obama said in his Inaugural Address yesterday that government must spend to rebuild roads and bridges, but that those "who manage the public's dollars" must also "spend wisely" and "reform bad habits." With that ambition in mind, here's an idea to save tens of billions of taxpayer dollars in the months ahead: Repeal Davis-Bacon superminimum wage requirements for construction projects.

We're referring to the 1931 law that requires contractors on all federal projects to pay a "prevailing wage." In practice, this means paying the highest union wage in every part of the country. Over the years nearly every analysis -- by the Congressional Budget Office, the Government Accountability Office and Office of Management and Budget -- has concluded that Davis-Bacon tangles projects in red tape and inflates federal construction costs.

A 2008 study by Suffolk University and the Beacon Hill Institute examined local wage data for construction workers and found that the Department of Labor estimates for the "prevailing wage" in cities are about 22% above the actual wages paid in these cities. It estimates that Davis-Bacon adds slightly less than 10% to federal building costs, or $8.4 billion a year.

Davis-Bacon was devised in part as a way to keep blacks and immigrants from federal construction projects during the Depression. Nowadays its impact is mainly to reward unions for political campaign support, though it still does have some racial implications. A 2001 study by labor economists Daniel Kessler and Lawrence Katz examined state Davis-Bacon-type laws for the National Bureau of Economic Research and concluded: "Repeal is associated with a sizeable reduction in the union wage premium and a significant narrowing of the black/nonblack wage differential for construction workers."

Comment: The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931. Answer to the question posed in the post title - "No change"!

More: A 'Responsibility' Era - A pragmatic call to Americans to lift our national game

WSJ: "The prosperity of recent decades has produced a culture of entitlement and sometimes even of complacency."

Mob Museum? "What is the interest for my family?"

Stimulus Money for a Mob Museum. Got a Problem?

Excerpt:

The planned Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, a k a “the Mob Museum” on its own Web site, is to include interactive exhibits where visitors can snap their mug shots, stand in police lineups and wiretap one another. Such a center, Mayor Oscar B. Goodman said in an interview Thursday, is “absolutely falling within the four corners of what President-elect Obama is trying to achieve.”

“This is a project where all the plans are in place and we can start it within 30 days,” said Mr. Goodman, a former criminal defense lawyer who represented several Mafia figures in the 1970s and 1980s.

Citing studies showing that 250,000 tourists a year would visit the attraction and noting that tourism is to Las Vegas what car sales are (or were) to Detroit, the mayor continued: “I don’t know why Mitch McConnell would take on this project. It’s a great project.”

Senator Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican and the minority leader, attacked the museum this week as a kind of localized earmark project that does not belong in legislation Congress passes to jumpstart the flailing economy.

Comment: This kind of c**p spending will be paid for by our grandchildren!

Sollozzo: Bene. Don Corleone. I need a man who has powerful friends. I need a million dollars in cash. I need Don Corleone and all of those politicians that you carry around in your pocket like so many nickels and dimes.
Don Corleone: What is the interest for my family?
Sollozzo: Thirty percent. In the first year your end should be 3, 4 million dollars and then it would go up.
Don Corleone: And what is the interest for the Tattalgia family?
Sollozzo: [to Tom] My compliments. I'll take care of the Tattalgia's, out of my share.
Don Corleone: So, I am to receive thirty percent for finance, for legal protection and politcal influence, is that what you're telling me?

That's what they all say!

Obama says he'll address growing deficit _ later

Excerpt:

But he says it'll be easier to tackle that deficit when the economy is up and running.

Obama told reporters in Chicago on Friday that every economist he's spoken to has told him that the most important thing to do—even for the deficit—is to fix the economy. Otherwise, he says, the government will have to spend more on services for out-of-work Americans, and the deficit will grow even faster.

He says the deficit is not a problem that he's simply going to leave for a future president.

As for the infrastructure projects that will be part of his plan to reinvigorate the economy, Obama says none of them will represent wasteful spending.

Comments:

Re: "the deficit is not a problem that he's simply going to leave for a future president". Don't take this one to the bank!

Re: "the infrastructure projects ... [will not] will represent wasteful spending" - doubt it!

More on cities' infrastructure requests

Mayors' infrastructure request full of pork

Excerpt:

The U.S. Conference of Mayors went to Capitol Hill earlier this month with a report listing 11,391 infrastructure projects proposed by 427 cities. The mayors claimed the proposal would create 847,641 jobs in 2009 and 2010.

The more than 800-page document is titled "Main Street Economic Recovery: 'Ready To Go' Jobs and Infrastructure Projects."

"Our plan calls for investments that will stimulate our economy by quickly creating jobs, fixing our aging and crumbling infrastructure, increasing our global competitiveness, and further reducing our carbon footprint," Miami, Florida, Mayor Manny Diaz said at a news conference last week. Accompanied by other big-city mayors, he held up a copy of the hefty report to stress its importance.

"To reverse the current economic crisis, we must invest wisely. We must invest where we get the greatest return. We must invest in Main Street," said Diaz, who is the president of the mayors' group.

But a close examination of the projects by CNN shows proposals that go far beyond basic infrastructure plans for roads, bridges and other traditional public works projects.

Government can always find new ways to spend our money

Santa Claus government

Excerpt:

he U.S. Conference of Mayors sent its list of wishes to the political equivalent of Santa Claus: Congress. The mayors apparently figure with all the talk from President-elect Obama about infrastructure repair and job creation, they might as well try to pile onto Santa's lap, too.


The mayors claim the economy will be stimulated if their wishes are granted. What do they want? The National Taxpayers Union (NTU) has analyzed the 72-page list. Here are some of the lowlights.

• $1.102 billion in projects involving sidewalks; — $1 million for annual sewer rehabilitation in Casper, Wyo. (emphasis mine);
  
• $6.1 million for corporate hangars, parking lots, and a business apron at the Fayetteville, Ark., airport.
  
• 15 projects with the term "stadium" in them, including a $150 million Metromover extension to the Florida Marlins' baseball stadium; and
  
• 81 projects mentioning "landscaping" and/or beautification efforts.
  
• $1,500,000 for an initiative in Dayton, Ohio for the "Reduce Prostitution-Off the Streets Program." The proposed spending would "connect individuals involved in prostitution with resources to leave a life of prostitution." I guess Ronald Reagan was right when he observed, "It has been said that politics is the second-oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first."
  
• "$6,000,000: Ventura, Calif., Water Surfers Point Improvements." "This project is to protect the beach with natural buried cobble stone, create sand dunes over the buried cobble, relocate, and rebuild the State Owned Omer Rains beach front bike path, and construct parking lot and drainage."
  

Kristina Rasmussen, NTU's director of government affairs, offers more analysis of the mayors' report on NTU's blog: "Total cost of the wish list is $73,163,299,303. They claim this will create an estimated 847,641 jobs in 2009 and 2010. Divide that out, and you get a cost to taxpayers of $86,314 per job. Not exactly a great deal."

Comment: Keep your eye out for these government scams!