We Have A Spending Problem

On Monday, The Daily Signal posted an article about government spending. The article included five charts that illustrate the problem.

These are the charts:

When interest payments make up a quarter or our spending, we have a problem. We have been living beyond our means for so long that we will never get out of debt without drastic action. There have been various plans to cut the federal budget in the past–one of which simply required taking one penny away from every dollar. It is time to reconsider these plans and to reconsider shrinking federal employment by at least 10 percent. If companies are forced to cut back because of inflation, the federal government should also be required to reduce its size. We are becoming the economically illiterate consumer who pays the minimum payment on his credit card every month and wonders why the balance never goes down.

Action Is Good, But When Do We See Results?

On Friday, Townhall reported that Congressman Jim Jordan is seeking a specific document from FBI Director Christopher Wray regarding payments to the Biden family from overseas entities.

The article reports:

As House Republicans continue to explore impeaching President Joe Biden, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) has a request for FBI Director Christopher Wray. On Thursday night, Jordan sent Wray a letter informing him that the Committee is seeking an FBI FD-1023 form from March 1, 2017 to do with “a confidential human source (CHS) report about payments made to the Biden family from foreign entities.” As the letter explained, the FD-1023 in question “is referenced in a second FD-1023 from June 2020 detailing bribery allegations that involve President Biden and his son, Hunter,” and is needed to “evaluate whether sufficient grounds exist to consider drafting articles of impeachment.” 

The Committee knows about the FD-1023 thanks to testimony  that former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania Scott Brady provided, who had asked the FBI to find information on files to do with Burisma–where Hunter Biden served on the board of directors–after he had been tasked by then Attorney Bill Barr to sort through FBI files. 

As Jordan explained during his Thursday night appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity,” the 2017 FD-1023 “became the basis for…Brady… asking to talk to the [CHS] that produced the 1023 form we have.” They’re now asking for this form. 

Brady testified it was “correct” that the FD-1023 in question “was not information provided from the public.” The FBI also waited until being contacted by Brady to reach out to the CHS for more information. Brady categorized the FD-1023 as having “not been developed,” making clear “it’s fair to say that it had not been looked into or developed any further.” It was because of Brady’s directive that the FBI took action to develop the information in the FD-1023. 

Frankly, it is my opinion that all that will become of this is that Christopher Wray will stall until the end of the year, hoping that a few more Democrats will be elected to the House of Representatives and the issue will go away. We have seen so much obvious evidence of wrongdoing for years, and nothing has been done. I am not optimistic about that changing.

Bidenomics And The Cost Of Buying A House

Although President Biden has attempted to buy votes from younger voters with his student loan bailout programs, in the process he has created inflation and interest rates that put buying a home out of reach for the very people he has tried to bribe.

On Monday, Breitbart posted an article about what has happened to monthly mortgage payments under President Biden.

The article reports:

The average monthly mortgage payment in Joe Biden’s America has soared to $3,322, per analysis from the Wall Street Journal.

That $3,322 is nearly double the average monthly mortgage payment when His Fraudulency assumed office. When former President Trump left office, the average monthly mortgage payment was $1,787.

The article includes the following Twitter post:

The article notes:

Those obnoxiously high mortgage payments are not only due to the Bidenflation caused by His Fraudulency’s lunatic government spending. There are other factors…

For those of you who vote Democrat and are currently pissing away all your money on rent because you can’t afford a home, riddle me this: What happens to the housing market when a president throws open our southern border to millions and millions of illegal aliens who need a place to live? Think hard now… Could it be that when you have a finite amount of something people want and then flood the country with millions more people who want it…? Yes, that’s right, dummies, the cost of that Something People Want explodes and that Something People Want becomes scarcer. And now you want it and can’t get it because you’re a dummy.

The second factor is this… Democrats hate single-family homes. This is why they use Climate Change to justify blocking the construction of new homes. Democrats want us all packed in cities in massive government housing complexes. By the way, they make no secret of this.

The final factor is this… This is all by design, dummies. Democrats know lunatic government spending creates lunatic inflation and that lunatic inflation destroys purchasing power and creates high interest rates that make it impossible for the middle class to purchase a home. Democrats also know that when you flood a country already dealing with a housing crisis caused by enviro-lies with millions of illegals, housing costs explode.

If you are a young American just entering the workforce full time, do yourself a favor and vote every Democrat (and RINO Republican) out of office. That is the only way you can secure your financial future.

This Might Backfire

On Thursday, The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article about President Biden’s new plan to forgive student loan debt.

This is the headline from the article:

American workers – are YOU happy to pay $1,800 EACH to wipe the student debt of the privileged elite who’ll earn $52,000 a year? Because BRAD POLUMBO reveals that’s your bill for desperate Joe’s naked bribe for votes

The article reports:

‘Congratulations! I erased your student loans. Now will you vote for me?’

That’s what President Biden should have said in an email to more than 800,000 student loan borrowers – because his latest scheme to ‘forgive’ some of their $1.78 trillion in outstanding debts is nothing more than a bribe.

‘Your student loan has been forgiven because of actions my Administration took to make sure you receive the relief you earned and deserve,’ read the White House message sent to in-boxes on Tuesday.

Gee – Democrats are so generous with other people’s money.

What had these lucky few done to ‘earn’ and ‘deserve’ this multi-billion dollar ‘relief?’

Very little.

In a bit of bureaucratic sleight of hand, Biden and his dutiful ministerial assistants transformed an obscure Education Department repayment program into a brand new entitlement program.

The monthly payments of hundreds of thousands of borrowers will be capped at five percent of discretionary income, and if they pay these tiny installments for 10 to 20 years their entire remaining loan will be wiped away.

This move is aimed at college students and graduates ages 18-34. This is a demographic that is not generally supporting President Biden.

However, according to the Census Bureau, only 35 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 29 vote, and 48 percent of people between the ages of 30 and 44 vote. Almost 60 percent of people between the ages of 45 and 64 vote, and 66 percent of people over 65 vote. It is quite possible that those over the ages of 45 learned critical thinking in school–something that is rarely taught now. If the people over 45 realize that they are paying for this student loan forgiveness program, it is very possible that they will turn out to cancel the votes of the younger people benefitting from the program. It is also possible that those in the age group that will benefit will include enough people who didn’t go to college that are angry about paying for someone else’s education that they could not afford for themselves.

At any rate, please follow the link to read the entire article. It will be interesting to see if this actually works or backfires. Meanwhile, we should mention that it is entirely unconstitutional.

Following The Money

We don’t pay our national leaders a lot of money, yet many of them become millionaires while in office or shortly after leaving office. It happens on both sides of the aisle, and I believe it is time we looked into how this occurs. Meanwhile, in one instance someone has.

The Ukraine News Agency is reporting today that Burisma Group, a Ukrainian energy company, paid former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden received $900,000 for lobbying activities. This was reported by Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada member Andriy Derkach, who cited investigation materials.

The article reports:

Derkach publicized documents which, as he said, “describe the mechanism of getting money by Biden Sr.” at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine’s press center in Kyiv on Wednesday.

“This was the transfer of Burisma Group’s funds for lobbying activities, as investigators believe, personally to Joe Biden through a lobbying company. Funds in the amount of $900,000 were transferred to the U.S.-based company Rosemont Seneca Partners, which according to open sources, in particular, the New York Times, is affiliated with Biden. The payment reference was payment for consultative services,” Derkach said.

He also publicized sums that were transferred to Burisma Group representatives, in particular Hunter Biden, a son of the former U.S. vice president.

“According to the documents, Burisma paid no less than $16.5 million to [former Polish President, who became an independent director at Burisma Holdings in 2014] Aleksander Kwasniewski, [chairman of the Burisma board of independent directors] Alan Apter, [Burisma independent director] Devon Archer and Hunter Biden [who joined the Burisma board of directors in 2014],” Derkach said.

“Using political and economic levelers of influencing Ukrainian authorities and manipulating the issue of providing financial aid to Ukraine, Joe Biden actively assisted closing criminal cases into the activity of former Ukrainian Ecology Minister Mykola Zlochevsky, who is the founder and owner of Burisma Group,” he said.

The article concludes:

It was reported earlier that Derkach publicized correspondence between the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and officers of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. According to publicized correspondence, starting from July 14, 2017, the lists of criminal proceedings undertaken by NABU officers were sent from the electronic mailbox of Polina Chyzh, an assistant to NABU first deputy head Gizo Uglava, to the electronic mailbox of Hanna Yemelianova, a legal specialist of the anti-corruption program of the U.S. Justice Department at U.S. Embassy in Ukraine.

Derkach also said that NABU-leak materials will be published on his Facebook account and materials that he got from investigating journalists have already been passed to Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigations and the Prosecutor’s General Office.

He also said he will initiate the creation of an ad hoc parliamentary investigative commission and has already requested launching a criminal case against Ukrainian officials into interference into U.S. elections. The court session is scheduled for October 21, he said.

Burisma Holdings is a Cyprus-registered gas producing company holding assets in Ukraine. It is one of Ukraine’s top-three independent gas producers headquartered in Kyiv. Zlochevsky is the founder and the ultimate beneficiary owner of the company.

It may be a blessing to the Democrats that Joe Biden is no longer their leading presidential candidate.

Somehow The Government Doesn’t Seem To Be Able To Get This Done

WITN Channel 7 posted an article on Thursday about the recovery funds for Hurricane Matthew. Yes, that’s Matthew–not Flo.

The article reports that because of administrative mistakes and inexperience, federal housing funds for victims of Hurricane Matthew have been delayed. As of July (two years after the hurricane) only 6% of the hurricane relief funds have been distributed.

Many organizations, such as Operation Blessing, Samaritan’s Purse, and other groups, have been working to help victims of Hurricane Matthew and Hurricane Flo repair their homes, but are still a lot of people waiting for help.

In New Bern, it is currently very difficult to find a contractor to do repair work. Some less-than-ethical contractors came in from out of state, did part of a job, and left with the payment. The New Bern Convention Center is not expected to open until September.

It is a disgrace that two years after a natural disaster people are still waiting for federal aid. It is also discouraging that we have had a major disaster since Hurricane Matthew that we have not fully recovered from and that this year’s hurricane season is rapidly approaching.

 

 

Judicial Watch Investigates

Judicial Watch is one of my favorite organizations. The have turned the use of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests into an art form. They are a non-biased group that is simply demanding transparency in government–from both parties.

Yesterday One America News Network posted an article about the latest FOIA request from Judicial Watch.

The article reports:

Conservative watchdog group filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the FBI in an effort to pierce the veil of the resources used in the $25 million probe.

Specifically, the organization is looking to obtain all communications and payments made to the author of the anti-Trump dossier — Christopher Steele.

The former British intelligence officer was funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee in order to compile his 35 page document.

Judicial Watch is now trying to determine the FBI’s involvement.

It’s already known that the FBI made 11 payments to Steele, but the details behind those payments were heavily redacted.

Conservatives suspect rogue actors at the bureau were looking to reverse the results of the 2016 election, which is something Attorney General William Barr said he’s looking into.

I don’t think they were rogue actors–I think the operation began very high up in the FBI, but we will have to wait to see if that is where the trail leads.

Unequal Justice?

The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article today about Jussie Smollett, who recently claimed to have been attacked in Chicago by Trump supporters. (Trump supporters in Chicago?) Smollett was facing 48 years behind bars on 16 felony charges for allegedly lying about the attack. The Bond Proffer is included in the article and makes for very interesting reading.

Evidence points to the fact that the attack was staged and that two of Smollett’s fellow actors were paid (by check) to help stage the attack.

The article states:

The charges against Jussie Smollett have been sensationally dropped and a judge has sealed the case after the actor agreed to pay $10,000 in bond forfeiture. 

The Empire actor appeared in Chicago on Tuesday for an emergency hearing after his lawyers announced the news in a statement.  

Smollett, 36, was facing up to 48 years behind bars on 16 felony counts of filing a false police report.   

On Tuesday, the charges were dropped after Smollett agreed to forfeit his $10,000 bond. 

It remains unclear what prompted the decision but the Cook County’s State’s Attorney’s office said it was due in part to Smollett’s ‘volunteer service in the community.’  

I don’t mean to be cynical here, but this does not increase my faith in justice in Chicago.

I am not sure any purpose would have been served by sending Smollett to jail for 48 years. However, I wonder if Joe Sixpack would have gotten the same treatment. It is interesting to me that the judge has sealed the case after the $10,000 payment.

Campaign Finance Violations On Steroids

Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article about some campaign finance violations by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti. The violations listed are not minor violations, there are some major amounts of money involved here.

The article reports:

Two political action committees founded by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s top aide funneled over $1 million in political donations into two of his own private companies, according to a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission on Monday.

…The arrangement skirted reporting requirements and may have violated the $5,000 limit on contributions from federal PACs to candidates, according to the complaint filed by the National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group.

Campaign finance attorneys described the arrangement as “really weird” and an indication “there’s something amiss.” They said there was no way of telling where the political donations went — meaning they could have been pocketed or used by the company to pay for off-the-books campaign operations.

PACs are required to disclose how and when funds are spent, including for expenditures such as advertisements, fundraising emails, donations to candidates, and payments for events and to vendors.

The private companies to which Chakrabarti transferred the money from the PACs are not subject to these requirements.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article for the details.

This is interesting for a number of reasons. Was it a rookie mistake or was it planned corruption? Is this coming out now because AOC has become a problem for the Democrats–she is so far left that she may cost them votes in 2020?

The article concludes:

Bradley A. Smith, a former chairman of the FEC, said he has never seen such an arrangement. “It’s a really weird situation,” he said. “I see almost no way that you can do that without it being at least a reporting violation, quite likely a violation of the contribution limits. You might say from a campaign finance angle that the LLC was essentially operating as an unregistered committee.”

Chakrabarti declined to comment on the FEC complaint or provide details about his companies’ financial activities. Corbin Trent, a spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez, declined to comment.

Zeynab Day, communications director for the Brand New Congress PAC, said Chakrabarti was not currently affiliated with the group and that it recently went through a “transition period.” She referred questions about the LLC to Chakrabarti. “I’m unable to answer any questions about the LLC … I am not informed about them. We are not an affiliated group,” she said.

A spokesperson for Justice Democrats said he did not know why the PAC paid so much money to Chakrabarti’s LLCs. When asked what the Justice Democrats PAC does on a daily basis, he said, “It’s very clear what we do,” but declined to elaborate.

Chakrabarti founded Brand New Congress PAC, in April 2016. According to a statement released by Justice Democrats PAC last May, Chakrabarti “was the only controlling member” of the company Brand New Congress LLC and “took no salary.” The statement added: “Saikat is lucky to have a small side business that generates him enough income that he is able to do all of this work as a volunteer.”

If this story is accurately reported, it is bound to get more interesting!

The Internal Revenue Service And Tax Fraud

On Tuesday, Byron York posted an article at the Washington Examiner website about widespread fraud in the Earned Income Tax Credit program.

The article reports:

“The Internal Revenue Service continues to make little progress in reducing improper payments of Earned Income Tax Credits,” a press release from Treasury’s inspector general for Tax Administration says. “The IRS estimates that 22 to 26 percent of EITC payments were issued improperly in Fiscal Year 2013. The dollar value of these improper payments was estimated to be between $13.3 billion and $15.6 billion.”

That’s not pocket change. Remember that these are the people who will administer the revenue part of ObamaCare.

The article explains that the IRS is not making any serious effort to end this fraud:

The new report found that the IRS is simply ignoring the requirements of a law called the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act, signed by President Obama in 2010, which requires the IRS to set fraud-control targets and keep improper payments below ten percent of all Earned Income Tax Credit payouts. “The IRS continues to not provide all required IPERA information to the Department of the Treasury,” the new report says. “… For the third consecutive year, the IRS did not publish annual reduction targets or report an improper payment rate of less than 10 percent for the EITC.”

Let’s eliminate all bonuses paid to IRS employees until this fraud is at least under control. That might cause the IRS to develop some interest in solving the problem.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Improper Unemployment Payments

Yesterday CNS News posted a story about $5,159,629,434 in improper unemployment insurance payments for all 50 states, U.S. territories and the District of Columbia for the period July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012.

The data is included in a chart on the Department of Labor (DOL) website.

The article reports:

The DOL outlines its “core strategies to reduce improper payments” and other actions it is taking to improve performance at the state level, including providing funding to the states.  (See TOP Document.pdf )

“On Sept. 27, 2012 the Department announced the award of approximately $169 million in supplemental budget requests (SBRs) to 33 states for projects related to program integrity and performance to address their root causes most likely to quickly reduce improper payments.”

I don’t think fraud is the biggest problem with unemployment insurance. Now that unemployment benefits can be collected for more than a year, how much incentive do people have to look for work during that year? The fraud in the payments needs to be addressed, but so does the length of time benefits can be collected. I understand that the economy is not creating jobs, but does extending the amount of time people can collect money for being unemployed actually help the economy,  the unemployment rate, or those people looking for jobs.

Enhanced by Zemanta