talkpolitics | Entries tagged with budget

'Science is like when I see stuff, and then say it on twitter, right, Kelly Ann?'

Trump once again requests deep cuts in U.S. science spending

This feels like more the very right wing Christians at work. These are the ones who think Trump has been sent by God. They think NASA was created to destroy religion. They are usually flat Earth believers as well.

Science is logical, religion is not. Religious leaders want control and power. Something Trump wants as well. They will do anything for it. If there was a Jesus and he is the loving person they claim he was, he would be angry at these people.

May all those religious right-wing nutjobs go to the hell they believe in.

luzribeiro

Trump: I'd love shutdown if there's no immigration deal

Republicans want to keep immigration out of this spending fight. Trump just called for a shutdown over it.

So once more, we see the Douche-In-Chief's true colors. Whether he's just doing it as posturing* to the Dems in Congress, he has clearly said he's willing to shut down the government over immigration even after he spent weeks trying to blame the Democrats for it.

That the president doesn't care about the millions of Americans who would be adversely affected by this pissing contest is hardly a surprise at this point - what's probably more shocking is the crude bluntness of his statement. He doesn't even care how bad this sounds, and why should he? He's got his millions of mindless claquers and sycophants supporting him no matter what he does.

Things like this are expected when a country elects a mentally deficient imbecile, no?

* Yeah, you heard me. Posturing. Like this guy:

debunkgpolitics.livejournal.com

Originally posted by

debunkgpolitics at California Continues to Support Illegal Immigrants

The Economist published an article about how California lawmakers intend to retain illegal immigrants, besides allowing “sanctuary cities.” (issue for 12/10-16/20016). According to the article, state lawmakers intend to fund the representation of illegal immigrants at deportation hearings. The upcoming measures will even ban immigration enforcement in public schools, courthouses, and hospitals. Meanwhile, too many legitimate California residents continue to suffer. Children are abused, neglected, and impoverished. Veterans, along with other adults, are homeless and in dire need of medical treatment. Plus, public roads are crumbling. Rather than put on ballots bonds to fund public services that put California in more debt, the money could be spent on supporting those who sacrificed their lives to preserve this great nation and, in turn, California, promoting future generations, and improving other public services. Despite budget cuts for lack of available funds, state lawmakers somehow found money to support violating immigration law. Unfortunately, the focus is on catering to people who have no business in California.

luzribeiro.livejournal.com

Behold! An asshole who happens to be appointed at a position directly affecting science-related policy, attempts to deal with an actual scientist, and finds out his little chartsmanship is cute, but severely lacking in basic knowledge of NASA.

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Seems like the Chairman of the Senate Space and Science and 2013 Person of the Year Ted Cruz doesn't quite like how NASA runs things, particularly how it handles its budget. This hearing was at the subcommittee in relation to Obama's $18.5 billion request, and it's where Cruz used the spotlight to express his dislike of NASA's "fixation" on studying the Earth to the point of questioning the space agency's core mission. After having used a funny bogus chart or two in his vain attempt to show that the space agency is somehow being "misdirected", he went on to point out that NASA's budget for Earth sciences has increased by 41%, and the space missions have decreased by 7%. "In my judgment, this does not represent a fair or appropriate allocation of resources, that it is shifting resources away from the core functions of NASA to other functions".

( Enter NASA chief Charles Bolden )

luzribeiro.livejournal.com

While we're about dysfunctional institutions...

Boehner lashes out at conservative groups on budget deal

""They're using our members and they're using the American people for their own goals," an animated Boehner told reporters at the Capitol. "This is ridiculous."

OooOo, so the ante is upped now!

Hey, it seems likely even McConnell will vote against the Ryan deal. Which, however, doesn't stop it from passing, mind you. The Tea Partiers will still oppose it, while a sufficient number of GOP-ers will likely join with a sufficient number of Dems to have it pass.

One criticism is that GOP-ers are trading away sequestration for virtually nothing - after all, the deal among themselves had been that they shouldn't give up sequestration without a long-term reform in return (which this bill does not do, at least according to their view). The other criticism comes from the likes of Bill Kristol:

"From the point of view of politics, the budget deal is a significant achievement. It averts a meltdown scenario next month, in which it would have become clear that House Republicans don't in fact have the votes in their own conference to insist on the budget caps and sequester. So the real alternative to the deal isn't a more fiscally conservative outcome achieved by Republican unity; it's GOP political disarray and policy defeat. The deal saves Republicans from this fate, while allowing for a focus throughout the next year and in the 2014 election season on Obamacare and other Obama administration failures, rather than on intra-GOP wars and possible government shutdowns."

Let alone that another shutdown would essentially ~~lose 2014 for the GOP~~ kill the momentum they may've gained from Obamacare's shaky launch. The Dems know this pretty well, and they were prepared to respond accordingly. There might be some truth to the notion that this is the best possible deal for the GOP at this point (you know, "Take a step or two back before you leap a few steps forward", etc etc). In a nutshell: IT WAS A TWAP! BUT THEY ESKAP'D IT! YAYZ?

So they'll choose to swallow their pride, eyes still fixed on the bigger prize: November 2014.

Unless they wanna continue looking tough and avoid becoming the "sissies" they constantly accuse their opponents of being, by budging a little bit here, and setting a precedent where they're no longer the "Party of No". Wonder how that'd reflect on their base, eh?

mahnmut.livejournal.com

O, glory to thee, you ~~evil~~ awesome democratic dictators of your imaginary ~~dystopian~~ utopian societies! Hypotheticals are nice things, aren't they? Well, here's yet another dose of crazy-ass hypothetical situations for thee, the benevolent ruler of your gargantuan fictional nation, as inspired by the NationStates game. The last time a ruler's dilemma was presented to you, the issue was a proposed major shift in Insert Country Name's foreign policy, to match the impending threat from invasions by bad guys from abroad. Obviously, the majority of us turned out to be sissies enough to delegate the solution of the problem to Mr Diplomat - as if international situations ever get resolved through talking, and then some more talking. But duh! Here's a new situation for ya. Let's see how you're gonna handle this!

The Issue
It's time for the government to allocate spending for the coming year, and as always, special interest groups are keen to have their say.

( The debate & a poll )

yes-justice.livejournal.com

Uh, red team, wtf? You've allowed these tea party freaks drive to the car into a ditch. That's the plan?

“We’re very excited,” said Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.). “It’s exactly what we wanted, and we got it.”

Well, yay for hurting people IRL?

( IDGI? )

To quote Lincoln: "What is our present condition? We have just carried an election on principles fairly stated to the people. Now we are told in advance, the government shall be broken up, unless we surrender to those we have beaten, before we take the offices. In this they are either attempting to play upon us, or they are in dead earnest. Either way, if we surrender, it is the end of us, and of the government. They will repeat the experiment upon us ad libitum."

telemann.livejournal.com

The U.S. Post Service is curtailing its Saturday delivery in an effort to save money. It was required by Congress to pre-fund its pension fund 75 years in advance (something that no other government agency does). After Wal-Mart, the Post Office is the largest employer in the United States, but its workers get a living wage, and are unionized. And unlike the Pentagon, the Post Office is required to break even.

Bypassing all the back and forth over privatization, allowing Fed-Ex or UPS to compete, one solution to help the Post Office is to restore its banking ability. I was pretty surprised to learn the Post Office even had been operating as a savings bank. You can read about its history here.

Starting in 1911, the United States Postal Savings system allowed Americans to deposit cash with certain branch offices of the Postal Service, at 2% interest. The system held $3.4 billion in deposits for four million people by 1947; though it lost its advantage of depository insurance in the 1930s with the advent of the FDIC, it survived until 1967. The system was primitive—it was essentially a certificate of deposit that the Postal Service subsequently re-deposited in participating local banks, earning 2.5% and keeping the extra 0.5% for administrative costs. But it aided Americans by accepting money not circulating in the economy, adding convenience to the banking system, and promoting lifetime saving. Eventually, private banks changed their rules to compete for the unbanked and offer more attractive services. Congress determined that the Postal Savings system was no longer necessary. But with the end of free checking and consolidation of the commercial banking system, the need for a public option to foster competition has returned.¹

With over 10 million Americans without access to banking (a lot of them in rural areas), and the Post Office's 32,000 retail windows, I think this is a wonderful idea. The The National Association of Letter Carriers is for the idea, and some studies suggest banking fees would improve the Post Office balance sheet to the tune of ten percent per year, and provide a much needed service for rural and lower incomes who are illegible for traditional banking accounts and are often the victims of non-traditional services, such as "pay-day-loans" which can charge as much as 400 percent APR. Everyone on the left and the right agrees that access to a banking system is critical for the financially disadvantaged to have some hope of getting out of poverty. So to me, this is a definite "win-win."

✔ brings banking to remote rural areas
✔ brings banking to economically disadvantaged and gets 11 million into the financial
✔ helps the Post Office's bottom line by raising an additional 7 to 10 percent

[1.] Signed, Sealed, Deposited. Pacific Standard, by David Dayen • Published 15 February 2013.

zebra24.livejournal.com

I went through so-called post-debate fact check at nytimes.com.
Obama-press is so funny.
Almost everything Romney said was in the list to check, however almost nothing from Obama's speech was there. Even more, if something said by Obama was wrongit wasn't stated even in first paragraph of explanation [even if checked].
If something was inaccurate on Romney side it was said directly and without necessary explanations. If Romney was accurate, it was usually a page-long explanation why Obama is still better.

Most offensive to my mind was a "NYT Graphics" about "Obama is on track for doubling exports" which was once claimed by Obama as a target.
Graph not even adjusted for inflation and such graph shouldn't be used for a fact check at all. Even though they used plain extrapolation instead of projected numbers.
Export dropped in 2009 during Obama's presidential and still isn't counted as his fault. But why his faulty projection to "double export" isn't counted as a lie since started from the lowest point under Obama, not from year before he came?
nytimes.com should have started to count from solid 2008 number not from faulty 2009 number.
But even then inflated picture shows that Obama is behind trend, still header says "on track". Simple draw line from any year before 2009 to 2011 number no way you will be "on track", only way to say he is on track is to draw line from 2009 number to 2011 which is ridiculous due to low recovery speed. Moreover imports under Obama is also increased, sums up to trade deficit every year during his term and in nearest future.
If he wanted to have jobs in USA why import risen so much?

Nobody even asked Obama, where is his budget deficit reduction plan when "1 dollar of tax increase accounted for 2.5$ of spending decrease".

Nobody questioned Obama's faulty promise to cut budget deficit by 5.4 trillions during 10 years!!!!
Deficit cuts he mention multiple times is for duration of 10(!) years, how he can promise something that will be 6 after his last term ends?
Is he going to be a president of USA for another 10 years? Do fact check: what constitution says about it?
Let me ask you - what will be debt increase during those 10 years?
And what will be principal and interest payments in 2022 budget?

That's very impressive that Obama isn't even responsible for 2009 budget deficit (BTW he voted for it), but is projecting something till 2022.
But even then why not to mention that any given two years deficit under Obama will be worse than two years deficit under Bush? Total debt increase under Obama and last year of Bush is astonishing! Why not to mention that in fact-check?

Why not to mention that due to Obama's policy deficit risen 3 times from if count 2008 and about 8 times from from 2007?? And he is telling us about deficit reduction?
5.4 trillion over 10 years in deficit reduction won't help him to get even 2008 result by 2022, not even close to balance budget.

Is that so called "fact check" and neutral media??

tniassaint.livejournal.com

So explain this to me... When I served in the USN I paid into the education program which was matched by all of us - the tax payers. this money was then used by me later to pay of school. Many of my conservative friends have said this is NOT an entitlement program, but an earned benefit - and thanks for the service. ( Honestly, I have even heard it called an entitlement plan but don't get me started).

You're Welcome. It was not the best time of my life.

So explain to me how people paying into Social Security should consider it an entitlement program when they have paid into it and are now drawing money from it. Why is this an entitlement program and the other is not. I will also point out that ANY raiding of Social Security, medicaid and medicare for purposes other than what they were intended for should be considered fraud and criminal. Explain to me why that's wrong.

They should not be counted as part of the Federal Budget. They are and should be independent of the federal budget. The money is intended for the purpose they were slated for and NOTHING else. If the defense budgets could be taken off the table and not figured into the budget figures why are these left in. They are supposed to be funded through the independent collection and the money assigned to their specific use ONLY. They are not a part of the general budget.

Oh more?

So in FL the Lottery and Lotto were allowed to be established under the proposition that the money was to go to education funds. The fund has been raided over and over again and now we find ourselves unable to fully fund the education system. This is fraud. It should be illegal. It should be looked into and stopped. These issues are about honesty and integrity in the system. Don't howl over how we cannot spend money when we raid these fund s to spend them on things other than what they were intended for. What rubbish.

Vote unscrupulous thugs out of office. Keep electing thugs and you will keep getting thugs.

Mood: amused
Music: 10cc The Things We do for Love

ja-va.livejournal.com

There is a popular conservative motto which is repeated over and over again recently: "education is the next bubble, people have already said. Financing college is the new real estate, and we know how that works out."

It has been repeated so frequently that there seem to be a need to address it.

First, it is worth understanding why this has been raised as an issue. After George W. Bush ruined this countries finances, and created huge deficit by paying for two foreign wars and allowing economy to slide into the worse crisis since the Great Depression, it became evident that borrowing forever is not going to work and something needs to be done. Education seem to be an easy target (God forbid we cut military spending!). It is all too obvious that children of the wealthy will never have a need to borrow for college, so cutting financial support and student loans is a win-win game.

( Now, let us look at the problem itself. )

telemann.livejournal.com

In a letter written on April 17, 2012, the Roman Catholic Bishops condemned proposed budget cuts to social safety net programs, including food stamps calling the cuts "immoral." On April 4, Bishop Blaire cautioned that “at a time when the need for assistance from [affordable housing] programs is growing, cutting funds for them could cause thousands of individuals and families to lose their housing and worsen the hardship of thousands more in need of affordable housing.” ¹. The letter also said such cuts are immoral because they threaten human life and dignity, and any proposed budget should consider how it would affect "the least of these." (Matthew 25).

Government and other institutions have a shared responsibility to promote the common good of all, especially ordinary workers and families who struggle to live in dignity in difficult economic times Just solutions, however, must require shared sacrifice by all, including raising adequate revenues, eliminating unnecessary military and other spending, and fairly addressing the long-term costs of health insurance and retirement programs.²

Rep. Ryan (who is a practicing Roman Catholic) tried last week to justify his draconian budget cuts and political philosophy during an interview on the evangelical Christian Broadcasting Network ³: Ryan claimed Catholic principles formed the basis of his budget:

The preferential option for the poor, which is one of the primary tenants of Catholic social teaching, means don’t keep people poor, don’t make people dependent on government so that they stay stuck at their station in life, help people get out of poverty out onto life of independence.⁴

The Ryan plan gets nearly 60 percent of all its cuts from programs that help the poor and unemployed, "it would kick millions out of SNAP, (the federal food stamp program) and would gut the Women, Infant, and Children nutrition program. Food stamps lifted millions of women and children out of poverty in 2009, while tax credits and other programs benefiting low-income families (which could be cut by Ryan’s plan to end such credits) kept millions of women and children out of poverty. And it guts Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act, ignoring the Church’s teachings on health care." ⁵

Then the real fun started: Catholic church leaders reacted quickly and harshly to Ryan's justification by using church teachings has been fast and quick. On April 24, over 100 priests and faculty members of Georgetown University called a press conference to condemn Ryan's misrepresentation of Christian values and his profound misreading Church teaching:

Your budget appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the gospel of Jesus Christ. We would be remiss in our duties to you and our students if we did not challenge your continuing misuse of Catholic teaching to defend a budget plan that decimates food programs for struggling families, radically weakens protections for the elderly and sick and gives more tax breaks to the wealthiest few.⁶

The teachers also were quick to point out Rep. Ryan picked a single statement from Pope Benedict to justify his statement, but willfully ignored a large body of church writings, recent statements of several popes and even the Gospels themselves. The current pope, who is no screaming liberal has outright called for redistribution of wealth, a quote that Rep. Ryan is unaware of:

Profit is useful if it serves as a means towards an end that provides a sense both of how to produce it and how to make good use of it. Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty (21).

Therefore, it must be borne in mind that grave imbalances are produced when economic action, conceived merely as an engine for wealth creation, is detached from political action, conceived as a means for pursuing justice through redistribution(36).⁷

Rep. Ryan tried to brush off any previous connections to Ayn Rand, and been influenced by her philosophy. But he must have forgotten this little speech:

I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are and what my beliefs are. It’s inspired me so much that it’s required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff… The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand.”
- Representative Paul Ryan, February 2, 2005

Last year, the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace released a report calling for significant world banking system reforms. "It’s a fierce denunciation of the free-market theology embraced by Republicans and Democrats alike, and likely to put more than a few Catholic politicians in the uncomfortable position of either ignoring or downplaying the Vatican’s position on financial reform." ⁸

I think this is a fantastic turn of events, just a few weeks ago, right wing conservatives were using the Catholic Church as a proxy in the war on "Obamacare," and the church is now taking a very aggressive push-back against one of the fundamental principles of conservative thinking on economics and as John-Paul II called it, "the idolatry of the market." I have personal disagreements on the Church as a practicing Roman Catholic, but the church for me is at its most inspired (literally) when it writes on the fundamental rights and dignity of the poor and on world peace and social justice. "If you want peace, work for justice."

Resources:

1.
Georgetown University's Father Thomas Reese finds discrepancies between Catholic doctrine and Paul Ryan's fiscal ministry, and explains that in an interview on The Colbert Report (Unfortunately the video will not embed, please click on the image to view it.)

Report by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace on the Global Economy. The report calls for major reforms to the world banking system, and calls for a tax on financial transactions to be used in creating social justice for the poor. When Rep. Ryan was questioned about the Pontifical Commission report, he dodged specific answers and finally settled on some sort of moral-relativism.

2.
Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth).

======================================

Footnotes:

1. U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops letter "Federal Budget Choices Must Protect Poor, Vulnerable People, Says U.S. Bishops’ Conference."

2.ibid

3. The Christian Broadcasting Network, founded by former Republican presidential candidate Pat Robertson (he prayed hurricane Gloria away from Virginia in the 1980s.

4. Source:"Paul Ryan Cites Catholic Social Teaching To Defend Budget That Ignores It." by Travis Waldron April 10, 2012.

5. ibid

6. U.S. News article "Paul Ryan's budget plan inspired by Ayn Rand, not Jesus Christ."

7. Faith in Public Life article "Why Pope Benedict Disagrees with Paul Ryan on Income Inequality, Economic Principles" by Nick Sementelli, October 28, 2011.

8. Time magazine article: "The Vatican’s Radical Ideas on Financial Reform" by Amy Sullivan, October 24, 2011.

dwer.livejournal.com

On April 9th, the USDA Economic Research Service released a report suggesting that food stamps (called SNAP) have an enormous beneficial effect mitigating poverty, especially in children.

http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/err132/

We found an average decline of 4.4 percent in the prevalence of poverty due to SNAP benefits, while the average decline in the depth and severity of poverty was 10.3 and 13.2 percent, respectively. SNAP benefits had a particularly strong effect on child poverty, reducing its depth by an average of 15.5 percent and its severity by an average of 21.3 percent from 2000 to 2009.

Today, the GOP announced that they want to cut the SNAP program by over 10%.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/75190.html

Those effected most are people who have never used the service before, but have struggled in the recession.

So why cut services now? When it's being used more than ever, when people are in more trouble than ever, why on earth would the GOP decide that it's not even enough to phase out some of the recent increases, but simply cut them off beginning this September?

Defense. If they can't cut social spending, the Budget Control Act automatically cuts the DOD budget. Why is that unacceptable? Well, I don't know, but I certainly look forward to the GOP rank and file having to run on a platform that says "paying defense contractors is more important than keeping children fed", particularly in Florida, where SNAP participation has doubled.

zebra24.livejournal.com

Main point here: http://www.onlinecriminaljusticedegree.com/tsa-waste/
But I can't understand how it is possible to defend government regulations after reading and understanding something like this.

TSA is only example of such government stupidity, we are paying for.

You can imagine states physically destroying the pavement on the roads. Can you imagine that?

Or, f.e. extending road with additional lines AND reducing speed limit from 45 to 35 MPH same time?
Can you imagine FIVE live people doing X-ing regulation, while one is doing actual job??

Or making claims about "market failure", after housing bubble (at least 50% of which is responsibility of GSE's (Government Sponsored Enterprises) taking into account GSE's bankruptcy and inability to pay it's bill??

How somebody can argue FOR Obamacare, understand same time that all previous government social experiments already in big trouble right now???

Can you imagine, all long-term USA government UNFUNDED LIABILITY is about $111 Trillions.
Not Billions, Trillions?
That mean even if America will keep it's economy growth, it won't be able to fund Medicare/Pensions as promised, even with raising taxes, even with borrowing.
I can't imagine any reasonable man in such situation, saying let's borrow more, let's spend more, let's give more unfunded promises!!!

Can you imagine whole bunch of TV shows, talking about reducing budget deficit by 1/10th of what is necessary and whole bunch of people staying against it?

a-new-machine.livejournal.com

A few weeks back, This American Life had an episode that actually asked a question that I don't think gets addressed all that often: what kind of country do we want? In typical public-radio fashion, it skewed liberal, but it's an interesting story nonetheless (the parts where Norquist explains how screwed up the pension system is for states are particularly interesting, even if the host tries to push the conversation in a rather unnecessary direction). ( Read more... )

a-new-machine.livejournal.com

So, there's a new report [pdf] out on the budget plans of the various candidates. I think it can be pretty easily summed up in a simple chart:
( Read more... )

chessdev.livejournal.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/doing-the-math-on-romneys-budget-promises/2011/08/25/gIQA5N1V4Q_blog.html

In his speech to CPAC, Mitt Romney repeated a promise that he’s delivered repeatedly on the campaign trail. “Without raising taxes or sacrificing America’s critical defense superiority, I will finally balance the budget.” That sounds pretty good. It sounds really good, in fact. And then you look at the numbers.

Romney has, essentially, made four significant fiscal promises: He has pledged to cap federal spending at 20 percent of GDP. He has pledged to cut taxes to about 17 percent of GDP. He has pledged to a floor on defense spending at 4 percent of GDP. And he has pledged to balance the budget.

So let’s add it all up: Romney has to cut federal spending down to 17 percent of GDP. Federal spending is currently at 24 percent of GDP, and the Congressional Budget Office predicts that it will be around 22 percent for the next decade. For comparison’s sake, Paul Ryan’s budget would keep spending above 20 percent of GDP for at least the next 20 years.

In that spirit, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities tried to run the numbers on Romney’s proposals. The results were so outlandish that they actually ran them two ways to make Romney look better.

...

( Read more... )

[chessdev] This in part is why I believe Romney's campaign is essentially 'say anything that will get me elected, truth be damned!'

He's campaigning on promises that are outlandish with little hope of actually coming to pass -OR- would make people so brutally unhappy that they would be reversed anyway. Yet somehow his voter base seem to be comprised of people hell-bent on voting against their own interests.

enders-shadow.livejournal.com

So, since OWS is leaderless, some groups will invariably do things others do not....

like making demands. Demands are good, I think, for a movement. It's a target. And the target provides direction.

So, what direction do some OWS groups go in?
What are their demands?

( Read more... )

soliloquy76.livejournal.com

The Government Accountability Office (GAO), which is responsible for auditing the legislative branch of the US by finding waste, redundancy, and fraud within the government, is facing nearly $42 million in budget cuts in 2012. (That's 7.6% of its budget, and more than 10% of all budget cuts to the legislative branch. Compare this to the mere 3.17% in cuts to Senate personnel.) This is the same office that saved the US government $43 billion in 2009 and identified over $200 billion in savings in 2011, which many in Congress agreed to tackle but none of which were implemented. In addition, new rules are requiring the GAO to do a detailed cost analysis on its reports (a report on their report), even though it already accounts for its work. This would undoubtedly reduce its efficiency.

Senator Tom Coburn wrote a critical op-ed yesterday claiming that the GAO is being singled out when compared to the other cuts being made and has written a bipartisan letter to the bipartisan subcommittee heads responsible for these cuts. According to the op-ed, even the Appropriations committee responsible for the cuts admits that these cuts will hurt the GAO's ability to conduct oversight.

Some other highlights:

The cuts could cost taxpayers $3.3 billion next year due to waste, fraud, abuse and inefficiency.
Congress had held 318 less oversight hearings this year compared to last year.
The GAO's workload increased 30% this year compared to last year

Why would Congress cut funds for a group that saves taxpayers billions of dollars each year? And why wouldn't Congress send any of the GAO's recommendations to the president to save us even more?

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Entries tagged with budget

Space force, huh?

True colors, again.

California Continues to Support Illegal Immigrants

Chartsmanship goes interplanetary

GOP establishment strikes back

Budget Time: Accountants Excited

You had one f-ing job.....

(no subject)

fact check or fun?

Money Money

"Education bubble"?

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops condemn Rep. Ryan budget plan....

Resources:

Footnotes:

Oh, SNAP -- The benefits of Food Stamps, and why Republicans want to cut them anyway

Who cares?

Who shall bear us forward?

One-winged deficit hawks

Doing the math on Romney's Budget Promises

A picture is worth a thousand words (or less)

Breaking News: Congress is broken

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