Tax Dollars at Work

[Gaspar]

Announcing 2012-The Musical

The work will examine the destruction of the planet as seen through the eyes of a small group of time travelers who witness the future and return to the present day to demand change before it is too late.

The musical is silent (performed by mimes) and funded with a $50,000 grant from the federal government.

Since the average tax burden on an american family is $10,000, this performance is being brought to you by the total taxes levied on 5 american families.

My bet is that those five families (perhaps yours) could put that $10K to better use?

[Gaspar]

Another great idea:

$2 million project in the lunchroom of a San Antonio elementary school, where high-tech cameras installed in the cafeteria will begin photographing what foods children pile onto their trays — and later capture what they don't finish eating.  Digital imaging analysis of the snapshots will then calculate how many calories each student scarfed down.

[guido911]

Announcing 2012-The Musical

The work will examine the destruction of the planet as seen through the eyes of a small group of time travelers who witness the future and return to the present day to demand change before it is too late.

The musical is silent (performed by mimes) and funded with a $50,000 grant from the federal government.

Since the average tax burden on an american family is $10,000, this performance is being brought to you by the total taxes levied on 5 american families.

My bet is that those five families (perhaps yours) could put that $10K to better use?

If only the rich would pay their fair share. We could have even more mime musicals.

[Townsend]

If only the rich would pay their fair share. We could have even more mime musicals.

We can only dream for a better world such as this.  We can only dream.

[Conan71]

If only the rich would pay their fair share. We could have even more mime musicals.

Hey Greedo, adopt a few mimes, would ya?

[Townsend]

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/budget-cuts-army-plan-halt-abrams-tank-production/story?id=13582237

Army Plan to Halt US Tank Production Draws Fire in Congress

The Army's M1 Abrams tank has careened across battlefields in U.S. combat operations since 1980.

But now the 75-ton, American-made icon is at the center of the federal budget debate, with the Pentagon calling for production to halt and Congress determined to say no.

The Army says taxpayers could save $1.3 billion in the defense spending bill for fiscal year 2012 if lawmakers agreed to temporarily shutter the nation's only tank production facility in Lima, Ohio, for at least three years, starting in 2013.

The closure would be the first cessation of U.S. tank production since World War II.

"We've got a very fit and complete fleet that we'll have at this time. And that's what has caused us to stop buying something that we no longer need," Lt. Gen. Robert Lennox, the Army's deputy chief of staff, told a Senate committee last month.

But a bipartisan group of lawmakers, under pressure from the tank's producer, General Dynamics Land Systems, says the military has it all wrong.

One hundred thirty-seven House members argued Friday in a letter to Army Secretary John McHugh that the proposal would dangerously harm the country's "industrial base," forcing highly-skilled workers to go elsewhere and adding unnecessary re-training and certification costs to the taxpayers' tab.

"Our industrial base cannot be turned on and off like a light switch," said Rep. Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee and co-signed the letter. 

"It's always more expensive than the initial estimates," said Daniel Goure, an analyst with the Lexington Institute, a defense industry think tank, of the Army's proposal.

"As for the workers, this is an extraordinarily experienced and specialized crew. You can't take 'Joe the Welder' out of the auto body shop and put him on the tank line in a day when they start back up," he said.

Company officials say 250 workers at the Lima plant and thousands of others at more than 500 businesses in the tank equipment supply chain would be forced to find other work.

"We simply cannot shut down this plant and expect them to wait around for it to start up again," said Rep. Michael Turner, whose district is adjacent to the Abrams plant.

But with U.S. defense spending expected to top $700 billion this year -- twice the amount spent 10 years ago -- critics say programs such as the Abrams tank line shouldn't be immune from cuts to help trim the federal deficit.

"At a time when the defense budget obviously needs to go south, not north, only a cynic would say it's predictable that Congress won't cancel a program the Department of Defense says it doesn't need," said Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information, a think tank.

Lt. Gen. Lennox said because the military's fleet of tanks is an average of just four years old, the military won't need technical upgrades or new equipment until at least 2016, when the plant could reopen.

The Army estimated closing the plant and reopening it later would not cost more than $800 million, while keeping the plant running at a minimal level would cost roughly $2.1 billion.

"The amount that we've been given, that it would take to keep those plants open, is extraordinarily enough of or put our scarce resources against something else," Lennox said of the funds.

The House Armed Services Committee, which is drafting the defense spending bill for 2012, has included $272 million to keep Abrams tank production going through Sept. 30, 2013. The bill still needs to pass the Senate and get signed into law by the president.

The funds would churn out roughly 60 tanks and keep thousands of workers on the job, supporters say.

"Politicians are so ineffectual that the only way they feel they can appeal to voters is by bringing home the pork," Wheeler said. "These tanks are eminently useful. I'm not against them. But we've got plenty, and many upgraded ones as well."

[Conan71]

Isn't this a bunch of chutzpa:

"But a bipartisan group of lawmakers, under pressure from the tank's producer, General Dynamics Land Systems, says the military has it all wrong."

So the military says they don't need any new tanks, but the lobbyists er legislators say they don't know what they are talking about.

Wow!  No wonder we have spent ourselves into oblivion.

[nathanm]

Gaspar, you need to learn to focus on the important things. Rather than the half cent that went to mimes, you ought to be concerned with the tens of thousands you've spent in Iraq, or the tens of thousands you've spent on unconstiutuional wiretaps and everything else that is actually big money, not things that even in aggregate make up less than one percent of the federal budget.

[Conan71]

Gaspar, you need to learn to focus on the important things. Rather than the half cent that went to mimes, you ought to be concerned with the tens of thousands you've spent in Iraq, or the tens of thousands you've spent on unconstiutuional wiretaps and everything else that is actually big money, not things that even in aggregate make up less than one percent of the federal budget.

You don't get it.  It's that incremental "it's not that much" attitude of over-priced programs the government should not be spending money on in the first place.  It's to illustrate how out-of-control our spending is and how much is being siphoned off with minimal oversight.  People need to wake up and realize not only is a billion dollars a lot of money, so is a million when you add up a thousand worthless programs which provide few jobs or any real good for communities or our society.

[nathanm]

You don't get it.  It's that incremental "it's not that much" attitude of over-priced programs the government should not be spending money on in the first place.  It's to illustrate how out-of-control our spending is and how much is being siphoned off with minimal oversight.  People need to wake up and realize not only is a billion dollars a lot of money, so is a million when you add up a thousand worthless programs which provide few jobs or any real good for communities or our society.

The entire non-defense discretionary budget is such a small part of the overall budget that looking for savings there is like breaking open your kid's piggy bank when you're trying to pay the mortgage on a McMansion. Sure, every little bit helps, but it doesn't make any real difference.

It's cutting off the electricity to save $40 a month instead of deciding not to gamble away the other $4000. No matter how many of these little expenditures you add up, you're not going to find the savings we need. Do we need to eliminate wasteful spending? Of course. Everyone agrees with that. It isn't productive to even think about those things until we've tackled the bigger stuff. We're just treating the paper cut while ignoring the heart attack.

[Gaspar]

The entire non-defense discretionary budget is such a small part of the overall budget that looking for savings there is like breaking open your kid's piggy bank when you're trying to pay the mortgage on a McMansion. Sure, every little bit helps, but it doesn't make any real difference.

It's cutting off the electricity to save $40 a month instead of deciding not to gamble away the other $4000. No matter how many of these little expenditures you add up, you're not going to find the savings we need. Do we need to eliminate wasteful spending? Of course. Everyone agrees with that. It isn't productive to even think about those things until we've tackled the bigger stuff. We're just treating the paper cut while ignoring the heart attack.

Nickel and dime, nickel and dime.

Why not cut waste everywhere?  Defense, social, and stupid.

The NEA has proven that it is a platform for funding arrests who's work cannot generate revenue through direct support by the public. 

Art should appeal to peoples senses, and illicit emotions or stimulate thought.  When this appeal is strong enough, it generates desire (demand).  This is what gives art value.

Art is without merit if it cannot generate interest in the market, no matter how passionate the artiest feels about his or her work, passion alone does not generate value, or merit support.  In fact, support of passion alone is damaging.

Just like everything else, true artists are minimized in a market filled with subsidized work.

[Red Arrow]

It's cutting off the electricity to save $40 a month instead of deciding not to gamble away the other $4000.

I see it more like fixing a leaky toilet inlet valve while we try to figure out how to pay for a more efficient dishwasher or laundry washing machine.

[Gaspar]

I see it more like fixing a leaky toilet inlet valve while we try to figure out how to pay for a more efficient dishwasher or laundry washing machine.

+1

[Conan71]

The entire non-defense discretionary budget is such a small part of the overall budget that looking for savings there is like breaking open your kid's piggy bank when you're trying to pay the mortgage on a McMansion. Sure, every little bit helps, but it doesn't make any real difference.

It's cutting off the electricity to save $40 a month instead of deciding not to gamble away the other $4000. No matter how many of these little expenditures you add up, you're not going to find the savings we need. Do we need to eliminate wasteful spending? Of course. Everyone agrees with that. It isn't productive to even think about those things until we've tackled the bigger stuff. We're just treating the paper cut while ignoring the heart attack.

Maybe I'm just too much of a perfectionist and cannot tolerate waste at any level.  It's a "feh" attitude which has allowed this to go on even in the larger budget segments like social programs and military spending as well.  In order to cut waste in those programs you have to go through with a scalpel as well, not a chainsaw. 

It's all about cutting bits and pieces here and there.  To simplify it, I've made the suggestion in the past that you could do cuts without prejudice by simply placing a flat percentage cut on all federal expenditures.  1 to 3% with a corresponding tax increase on every single American and American business would be a great place to start.  It sounds like a nominal amount, but if you chose the 3% route, it's got a huge multiplicative effect.

I'm amazed more people don't seem to get up in arms about the literally millions of ridiculous ways the government is bilked out of money on an annual basis.  The federal government is one of the dumbest consumers on the planet.

[carltonplace]

Now now, mimes need to eat too. A mime is a terrible thing to waste.