Wednesday, March 13, 2019

SQUANDERING AMERICA - FEDS SPEND MILLIONS ON LOBSTER, GOLF CARTS, PIANOS AND SHOPPING SPREES WHILE A MILLION HOMELESS DIE

Feds Spend Millions on Lobster, Golf Carts, Pianos in Monthlong Spending Spree

March 12, 2019 Updated: March 12, 2019

In an annual spree to spend money during the last month of the fiscal year, the federal government spent millions on lobster tails, steak, alcohol, golf carts, and pianos in September 2018, according to a report (pdf) by OpenTheBooks.com.
Government agencies scramble to spend taxpayer money every September, lest Congress appropriate fewer funds the following year. In September 2018, agencies spent $97 billion, an increase of 16 percent compared to the spending spree in fiscal year 2017, and a 39 percent increase from the same time in 2015.
The spending ballooned in the final week of the fiscal year, totaling $53 billion, more than the entire month of August. The government spent more than $10 billion per day on Sept. 27 and 28. Agencies spent 10 percent of all annual contract funds during the final week.



(OpenTheBooks.com)

The Department of Defense spent $4.6 million on shellfish in September, including $2.3 million for snow crab, Alaskan king crab, and crab legs and claw, and $2.3 million for lobster tail. Lobster tails cost anywhere from $20 to $30 per pound.
“This kind of waste has to stop. It’s an insult to taxpayers,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) wrote on Facebook.
Lobster and crab were not the only luxury foods the government spent taxpayer money on. Agencies splurged $293,245 on steak, including ribeye, top sirloin, and flank steaks, and spent $308,994 on alcohol, according to the report.
Agencies also splurged $53,004 on china tableware, $673,471 on golf carts, and $1.7 million musical equipment including pianos, tubas, and trombones. Taxpayers also shouldered $7.7 million for iPhones and iPads and $9.8 million on workout and recreation equipment.
The largest portion of the spending spree, more than $25 billion, went to contractors in the Washington area. Texas and California ranked second and third with almost $9 billion and more than $7 billion respectively.



(OpenTheBooks.com)

“As the national debt surpasses $22 trillion, it’s time to end Washington’s use-it-or-lose-it spending culture,” the report concluded. “Ending this wasteful phenomenon would go a long way toward generating big savings and winning the public’s trust.”
In total, the government spent $544 billion on contracts in fiscal year 2018, part of the $4.1 trillion total budget. The federal budget is expected to swell to $4.75 trillion in fiscal year 2020.
The report highlights the issue of rising government spending, which is the biggest domestic threat to national security, according to Director of National Security Dan Coats.
“I’m concerned that our increasing fractious political process, particularly with respect to federal spending, is threatening our ability to properly defend our nation both in the short term and especially in the long term,” Coats said on Feb. 13.
The leading Democratic candidates for the 2020 presidential race embrace policy proposals which could quadruple government spending. The so-called “Green New Deal” proposal alone would cost up to $93 trillion in 10 years, far surpassing the total projected government spending for the next decade.
The runner-up in the 2016 Democratic primary, socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), is running for the 2020 nomination on a platform which includes the Green New Deal, government-run universal health care, free public college tuition, and a federal $15 minimum wage, among other proposals.
Follow Ivan on Twitter: @ivanpentchoukov

DYING AMERICA: Poverty, Open Borders, Widespread Homelessness, Housing Crisis, Opioids, Corrupt Politicians and Then Suicide!

"In a state like Florida, where immigrants make up about 25.4 percent of the labor force, American workers have their weekly wages reduced by perhaps more than 12.5 percent. In California, where immigrants make up 34 percent of the labor force, American workers’ weekly wages are reduced by potentially 17 percent." JOHN BINDER
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"In the last decade alone, the U.S. admitted ten million legal immigrants, forcing American workers to compete against a growing population of low-wage foreign workers. Meanwhile, if legal immigration continues, there will be 69 million foreign-born residents living in the U.S. by 2060. This would represent an unprecedented electoral gain for the Left, as Democrats win about 90 percent of congressional districts where the foreign-born population exceeds the national average."

SOCIALISM AND THE DEMS’ LA RAZA SUPREMACY WELFARE STATE ON OUR BACKS

PELOSI’S OPEN BORDERS MEXIFORNIA where La Raza loots first!

7 OUT OF 10 ILLEGALS ON WELFARE!

https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/12/mexifornia-where-mexico-loots-first-7.html

What is the true cost of all the Democrat Party’s “cheap” labor?

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No Justice for Taxpaying Americans 
By Howie Carr 
But the real double standard kicks in when the undocumented Democrat gets to the courtroom. A taxpaying American can only dream of the kid-gloves treatment these Third World fiends get. 
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Illegal aliens continue overwhelming the state, draining California’s already depleted public services while endangering our lives, the rule of law, and public safety for all citizens. Arthur Schaper
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The costs of illegal immigration are being carefully hidden by Democrats. MONICA SHOWALTER

New poll shows American youth are increasingly supportive of socialism

A Harris poll exclusively reported by Axios has found that a larger majority of youth—Millennials and Generation Z—are embracing “socialism” and policies associated with it. The increasingly positive view of socialism is a continuation of a trend recorded in the last few years.
According to the poll, which was conducted in February 2019, 61 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 (born after 1995) view socialism in a positive light. Furthermore, 73.1 percent of Millennials, those born between 1980 and 1994, and Generation Z, those born after 1995, believe the government should provide universal health care, and 67.1 percent think college should be tuition-free.
The top three voting issues for Gen Z, according to the Harris poll, are mass shootings, racial equality, and immigration policy and treatment of immigrants. Millennials’ top issues are access to health care, global warming/climate change and mass shootings.
A similar 2018 Gallup poll found that 51 percent of Americans between 18 and 29 viewed socialism positively, while less than half of the same age group found capitalism agreeable. The Gallup poll’s inclusion of ages 25 to 29 makes an exact comparison difficult, but the results from the new Harris poll suggests an increased interest in socialism compared to last year, an ongoing trend since the aftermath of the Great Recession.
The source of the interest in socialism is not hard to find. American youth are part of a generation that has experienced nothing but economic crises, social degradation, unending violence, and the deteriorating living conditions of the working class.
Many are without access to decent paying jobs and are forced to live with their parents. The average student graduating from college with debt has a total debt of nearly $30,000, with no guarantee of employment. Furthermore, research shows that Millennials are the first generation set to be worse off than their parents.
Youth have grown up in the shadow of the “war on terror” and have been subject to police brutality and gun violence at home and in schools. The US military’s murderous campaign in the Middle East is immensely unpopular among youth. For the fifth year in a row, police have killed over 1,000 people, and last year’s March for Our Lives was a response to the stream of school shootings that claimed the lives of hundreds of children.
The widespread support for socialism terrifies the ruling class, which fears above all that the growth of working class struggle over the past year will acquire a socialist orientation and perspective. The US has seen an escalating wave of strikes and workers’ militancy. From 2009 to 2018, strike activity jumped from 124,000 work days lost, to 2.8 million, an increase of over 2,000 percent.
Last month, US President Donald Trump unleashed a tirade against socialism and declared a global crusade against it. He declared the United States would “never be a socialist country” in the State of the Union speech. Trump’s speeches are a direct appeal to ultra-right forces in the US and spout the poison of nationalism and xenophobia.
For their part, the Democrats have had two distinct but parallel responses. A dominant faction of the party establishment has hastened to repudiate any association with socialism. Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris recently told reporters she was not a “democratic socialist” but a “progressive Democrat.” In 2017, when responding to an NYU student asking about the future of the party, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi declared, “We’re capitalists.”
The Democrats have worked with the pseudo-left to promote identity politics and the claim that race, gender and other identities are the dividing forces in society instead of class. The promotion of middle-class politics over the class divisions in society is aimed at dividing the working class, undermining class consciousness, and therefore socialist consciousness, and advancing the interests of privileged layers of the upper-middle class.
On the other hand, there are figures such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who are tasked with channeling opposition to capitalism behind the Democratic Party. Significantly, Millennials and Generation Z will make up 37 percent of voters in the upcoming 2020 elections. Large sections of young people are responding favorably to Sanders’ second presidential election.


Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, and Sanders’ denunciation of big banks and Wall Street, are part of a desperate effort to prevent the leftward movement of workers and young people from breaking with a political organization that advances a right-wing, militarist, anti-working class and pro-capitalist agenda.

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