After analyzing the holdings of all 535 members of Congress and comparing them to their earmarks for pet projects since 2008, the Washington Post found numerous eye-opening instances of potential self-enrichment at taxpayers’ expense, including:

• Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS): obtained a $900,000 earmark to resurface roads where he and his daughter own two homes.  “I didn’t say, ‘Do the street that I live on,” Rep. Thompson protested when the Washington Post confronted him.  “The earmark went to the county.  It had no designation on it whatsoever, and that was it.”
• Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett (R-MD): secured approximately $4.5 million for an interstate interchange that leads to Rep. Bartlett’s home, his 104-acre farm, and rental properties that earn him $150,000 annually.  “He was being an advocate for what was presented to him as the highest priority,” the congressman’s press secretary Lisa Wright said.  “Coincidentally, this was around two miles from his farm.”
• Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX): bagged $665,000 in taxpayer funds to expand a road 600 feet away from his family’s food processing plant, H&H Foods.  “It helps everybody,” Rep. Hinojosa told the Washington Post.  “The only way it made sense to handle this tremendous population growth and avoid problems for the school buses that go through that intersection was to widen it.”
• Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA): scored $750,000 for a new bridge three blocks away from a 7,000-square-foot building he and his wife own as well as Columbia Basin Paper & Supply, a janitorial supply company he previously owned that is now run by his brother.  “It never crossed my mind,” Rep. Hastings told the Washington Post.  “Every business in Pasco will benefit by that.”
• Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MA): landed a $187,000 earmark to replenish a shoreline 90 miles away from his home district near a beach that, coincidentally, he and his wife own two condominiums by that generate $15,000 in rental income.  Rep. Ruppersberger said questioning the proximity of his properties to the project was “ridiculous.”  “That’s a stretch to say that thing’s going to benefit me.”
• Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA): secured $6.3 million to replenish a beach 900 feet away from a $142,900 cottage he owns.  “It’s absurd to suggest that this benefits me,” Kingston protested to the reporters.  “The beach doesn’t improve the real estate of a house, unless it’s on the beach.  The only thing that changes in value is the beachfront property.”
• Rep. John W. Olver (D-MA): obtained $5.1 million in earmarks to restructure a road 209 feet from Rep. Olver’s 15-acre home and several adjoining properties he and his wife own.  “I had no monetary interest whatsoever in this project,” Rep. Olver said.  “I had nothing to with the design.  I was never notified of any of the hearings.  I had no involvement whatsoever.”
• Rep. Candice S. Miller (R-MI): obtained a $486,000 earmark that helped add a 14-foot bike lane within walking distance of her house.  “People earmark for all kinds of things,” Rep. Miller said when asked about the project.  “I’m pretty proud of this; I think I did what my people wanted.  Should I have told them, ‘We can never have this bike path complete because I happen to live by one section of it’?  They would have thrown me out of office.”
• Rep. Harold Rogers (R-KY): secured $7 million in earmarks, a portion of which went to overhaul streets around the corner from a bank where he is director emeritus and owns a $1-$5 million stake in the bank’s holding company and also narrowed the street he lives on to slow traffic.  “Congressman Rogers sees no conflict of interest in helping local community leaders achieve their goals for growth,” the congressman’s chief of staff Michael R. Higdon told the Washington Post.

The Washington Post report also concluded that 16 members of Congress directed taxpayer dollars to “companies, colleges, or community programs where their spouses, children or parents work as salaried employees or serve on boards.”

The practice of earmarks continues to be a source of angst for conservatives and citizens concerned with out-of-control federal spending.  In 2010, a record high 11,230 earmarks accounted for $32 billion in federal spending.

“A Nation of Moochers: America’s Addiction to Getting Something for Nothing” (St. Martin’s Press) was just released, and the fact that I’m writing this at the very moment President Barack Obama is announcing yet another government plan (his fourth, I think) to “bail out” those “victims” who bought homes they couldn’t afford, makes this informative and engaging page-turner feel about as urgent and timely as any author could hope for.

What you need to know up front is that “Moochers” isn’t an attack on the poor or needy or, for that matter, a specific political party. In fact, from beginning to end, Sykes makes clear that as a country we have an obligation to feed the hungry and offer shelter to the homeless. Moreover, he isn’t even targeting a particular group, which would be impossible without a sawed-off shotgun anyway, because America’s moochers come from every level of our society.

What Sykes is targeting is a mentality, a dangerous and un-American mentality that infects almost every aspect of our culture, and one that is currently being bred into our children by those on both the left and right who are empowered by fomenting and excusing the dependence, greed, and selfishness of others. From corporate welfare to school lunches for the well-to-do to Wall Street bailouts to paying millionaires not to grow crops to tax breaks for Hollywood gajillionires to unending unemployment benefits to disaster relief for those who haven’t suffered disasters to TARP, and finally, to the shameless who walk away from mortgages they can afford to pay — what Sykes is exposing is that we are on the march to becoming Greece. Not just a European welfare state, but the kind of welfare state where the populace has been engineered by a nanny state to riot at the very thought of not being able to mooch the life to which they have become accustomed.

A large part of the problem is that thanks to those who control the levers of our media and culture, the only thing we’re taught to be ashamed of anymore is the act of attempting to shame someone. As a result, those who “want” instead of “need,” are openly and proudly grabbing all the goodies they can get their shameless hands on, and doing so  at the expense of others. Worse still, those others have even been born yet.

Sykes’ examples are not only legion, they’re also dispiriting. There have always been moochers,  grifters, and leeches willing to live off of the productive, but they used to creep in the shadows knowing that if their behavior was exposed they would be shunned and shamed. Today, those who live off the productive have no reason to hide. Self-respect isn’t something you earn anymore. It’s all about self-esteem now. Everyone gets a trophy, so why not brag about how you’re getting something for nothing. It’s not a sin, it’s an accomplishment!

Today, public schools in upper-middle-class neighborhoods openly push to increase their free breakfast and lunch programs; graduate students take food stamps to Whole Foods; 25 year-old boys no longer want to be men and choose instead to live with their parents for as long as they can; and then there’s those truly awful public employees who somehow think it’s a virtue to make public spectacles of themselves when faced with the prospect of having to share a standard of living closer to those of us who pay for their exorbitant pensions and benefits.

Sykes also points out that what’s happening is just the opposite of compassion, that there’s nothing moral or virtuous about creating spoiled, dependant crybabies with no self-respect. It’s bad enough Republicans and Democrats alike are bankrupting the country with addictive drugs labeled tax  loopholes, subsidies, and freebies — but as a nation we’re losing that all-American pride that used to make the very thought of accepting a handout unbearable — even if we truly needed it. There will always be awful politicians trying to buy votes. But what Sykes sees (and meticulously documents) is a growing market of those willing to be purchased, and that’s something a country simply cannot survive.

Included in this must-read are some common sense solutions that include Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan’s “Roadmap.” It’s also going to take politicians from both parties who care more about their country than their personal power and parents willing to lead by example.

But the very best place to start at curing this cancer, is by educating yourself with Skyes’ excellent primer on the subject.

The article, a fawning exhibition of non-investigative journalism, referred to Prend as the “Guru of Green.” Reuters neglected to question whether Prend’s close government connections had created conflicts of interest as he secured multi-million dollar government loans and grants for his investments.

Prend lobbied the Director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, Carol Browner, for Solyndra’s doomed $535 million DOE loan and presidential endorsement. Prend also visited the White House at least twice and discussed two companies with Browner while lobbying for Solyndra. (The White House refuses to release the second company’s name.)

Prend’s other investments suggest that he is benefiting from taxpayer support for far more than just two companies.

Prend is a board member for scandal-plagued concrete sealant manufacturer Hycrete. Around 2008, Hycrete received a $2 million Corps of Engineers earmark from Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-IN) shortly before company executives donated $20,000 to his campaign and the DCCC. In July 2009, former Hycrete CEO David Rosenberg was invited to a WH Summit on Energy Innovation and Jobs where Obama praised Hycrete as a job creation leader.

Prend was apparently involved in another RockPort Capital investment, Soliant Energy. Soliant went bankrupt even after receiving a $4 million DOE grant. Prend also apparently sits on the board of SustainX, which recently secured a $5.39 million DOE grant.

In late 2010, RockPort Capital invested in and appointed co-founder Wilber James to the board of troubled energy start-up Ener1. Within months, the Elkhart, Indiana company received a $118.5 million stimulus grant and a visit from Joe Biden. During his visit, Biden inspected the electric-drive THINK City vehicle, an Ener1 and RockPort investment. The THINK City vehicle was manufactured in Elkhart prior to THINK’s fourth bankruptcy in June 2011. Think is a Norwegian-based company. Elkhart was also where President Obama announced $2.4 billion in electric-drive grants.

Another RockPort investment, Southwest Windpower, has also been honored by a visit from President Obama and a plug during his weekly address. Southwest was afforded tax credits shortly before receiving a $10 million joint investment from GE.

Reuters’ most glaring omission is its failure to discuss the implications of Prend’s position as the director of the DOE National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) National Advisory Council (appointed in 2007) and the Solar Technology Review Panel Chairman. His position with NREL to influence the government with federal loans and grants for green technology would appear to create a serious conflict of interest.

With some research, it seems that Prend’s investments and conflicts of interest warrant close journalistic scrutiny–more serious than Reuters has seen fit to offer.

That’s right, everyone’s favorite “budget-friendly” pals, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Governor Pat Quinn, have a “great deal” for you!  It’s a new $1 billion CTA Red Line renovation, and Chicago taxpayers only have to pick up 4% of the bill!!!

The rest of the state will kick in $646 million from a grant from the $31 billion Illinois Jobs Now program that Governor Quinn signed into law in 2009. In other words, all the increased taxes and fees “everyone” has been paying all across the land of Lincoln will now go towards more than 60% of the renovation costs for Chicago’s mass transit line.

According to Crain’s Chicago Business, the renovation will cover 11 stations and include new track and power systems. Sadly, $1 billion doesn’t go as far as it used to, and fairly large portions of the line’s most dilapidated sections will remain in their current dilapidated condition.

From Crain’s:

“Since I became governor, I have focused on creating  jobs and improving transportation service for our citizens. This major investment in the CTA’s Red Line does both,” Mr. Quinn said.

“These investments will make our city a more enticing place to live, to start a business, to raise a family,” Mr. Emanuel said. The city will provide $44 million for the project. The source was not immediately known.

Not to worry, Illinois, the rest of the country is going to help you foot the bill too! That’s right, Crain’s also reports, “The remainder of the needed funds, $255.5 million, will come from anticipated federal grants, officials said.” Yep, you guessed it, that means the Obama “Stimulus.”

There is one more great selling point the Crain’s article brings to light–except for you whiteys that want a crack at some of the work: “Officials said the project will create more than 2,700 construction jobs, with particular emphasis on hiring minority- and women-owned firms and individuals.”

It’s nice to see that although Emanuel and Quinn have sparred recently over Quinn’s shut down of plans for a new downtown Chicago casino, the two can still come to terms on getting north siders out to the Sox games faster, since there doesn’t seem to be any new downtown jobs coming anytime soon.

Cross Posted at: RebelPundit. Follow @RebelPundit on Twitter.

President Jimmy Carter’s 1979 gift to the teachers’ union Educrats – the Department of Education – changed fundamentally and increased dramatically the federal role in K-12 education.

Government schools have year by year diminished as education facilities – and risen instead as indoctrination centers.

Where graduates can’t read the diplomas they’re handed – but they can roll a condom on a banana.

The taxpayer money spent on schools and union pet projects has increased again and again, year after year.

We’ve by now since the Department’s inception more than doubled per student spending – from $5,718 (1980-81) to $10,441 (2007-08) (yes, that’s inflation-adjusted).

The mythical import of lowering student-teacher ratios (it makes little to no difference in learning) imposed upon us a rash of new union hires – that did nothing to improve education, but did a great deal to inflate the union dues-paying rolls.

Yet another myth – Head Start – also does nothing to improve scores, but does a great deal to improve the unions’ bank accounts.

So too do the myriad new administrators (read: non-teaching bureaucrats) added to the taxpayer payroll.  The non-teacher to teacher Educrat ratio has for decades gotten worse, and worse, and worse.

Despite all of this new spending – and with the fostering and funding of all of these education myths – reading and math test scores have not risen an iota since the Department of Education’s creation.

And the level at which they’ve flat-lined is alarmingly low.

And this year marked an all-time rock bottom for Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores.  The. Worst. Ever.

All hail the Department of Government-izing Schools.

The universal Educrat response?  “We’ll get rid of the tests.”

If you’re stinking up the joint – and you know it, and you (certainly) don’t want to make changes to the education gravy train graveyard – you systematically get rid of any and all ways of assessing your stink-upiness.

There may very well be a legitimate discussion to be had about the value-level of standardized tests.  The point here is – this is not at all why these folks are seeking to end them.

—–

The Educrat appraisal exam currently being targeted for elimination is the one that is now most blatantly demonstrating their collective incompetence – the SAT.

Behold the new tome: SAT Wars: The Case for Test-Optional College Admissions.  A series of essays calling for making the SAT – an elective.  (And – does anyone doubt? – eventually a thing of the past.)

The book is edited by Joseph A. Soares, a Professor of Sociology at Wake Forest University.  Which went SAT “optional” a few years ago.  So this tome is – for them – a self-justifying prophecy.

Some of the essays’ authors are college admissions Educrats.  Some are college professors.

And some are from the Leftist anti-assessment outfit called FairTest.

—–

Behold FairTest’s policy prescriptions.

They are against K-12 testing.  They’re against university testing.  They’re against teacher test-based merit pay.

In short, they have been working since 1986 for an accountability-free education system.  From kindergarten all the way through college.

FairTest’s current projects include:

• Uncovering the bias, misuses and coach ability of the SAT, ACT and similar college entrance exams
• Stopping the misuses of SAT/ACT scores to determine eligibility for college financial aid such as National Collegiate Athletic Association’s initial eligibility rules (Propositions 48 and 16) and the National Merit Scholarship Competition
• Promoting test score-optional policies for college admissions
• Attacking the false notions that test scores equal merit
• Monitoring the unregulated and highly profitable testing industry, particularly its rush to computerized testing, by “Examining the Examiners”
• Exposing flawed employment tests, such as the National Teacher’s Exam (NTE), and advocating hiring and promotions systems based on genuine performance

In short, an all-out assault on all things assessment – and those doing the assessing.

—–

Behold FairTest’s funders.

There’s the Woods Foundation of Chicago.

On whose board of directors President Barack Obama sat from 1993-2001.

Joining Obama on the board in 2001 was Bill Ayers.  In whose home then-community organizer Obama launched his political career.

Ayers is an “elementary education theorist” – and Venezuelan Communist dictator Hugo Chavez-lover, and unrepentant Weather Underground bombardier terrorist.

Some of Ayers’ “elementary education theories?”

He wants to indoctrinate elementary school students – children between the ages of 5 and 12 – so as to get them to work to overthrow the American capitalist system.

And let us quickly peruse Ayers’ “Critical Pedagogy” – on what Ayers thinks is important to focus as a teacher:

The primary assumption of critical pedagogy is that disparities between individual and social group outcomes in life are due to entrenched societal oppression. So, if anyone or any group has ‘more’ than another it is because they are either oppressing others or benefiting from the ‘oppression of the masses’.

Thus, all whites benefit from an unjust social system and, as a result are inherently guilty of racism.

Advocates implicitly deny any definition of the ‘pursuit of happiness’, which does not result in equality of outcome. That necessarily limits American’s liberty and their pursuit of happiness to the politically correct calculus of Critical Pedagogy theory.

Lovely.

FairTest is also funded by the United Church of Christ.

As in the Chicago branch being Trinity United Church of Christ – which President Obama attended for twenty years.

With President Obama’s “mentor” and “spiritual advisor.”  The man who married the President and Michelle.  The man who baptized their children.  The thoroughly unreasonable Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

As in “God D**n America.”

As in “You are not now, nor have you ever been, nor will you ever be a brother to white folk.  And if you do not realize that, you are in serious trouble.”

As in “them Jews ain’t going to let (President Obama) talk to me.”

That guy.

In case anyone thinks I’m unfairly painting all of the United Church of Christ with President Obama’s two-decade digs – there’s their March 14, 2008 written defense of Reverend Wright and his love-ful sermon-ology.  Which begins:

In the wake of misleading attacks on its mission and ministry, Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ is being lauded by United Church of Christ leaders across the nation for the integrity of its worship, the breadth of its community involvement and the depth of its commitment to social justice.

“Trinity United Church of Christ is a great gift to our wider church family and to its own community in Chicago,” says UCC General Minister and President John H. Thomas. “At a time when it is being subjected to caricature and attack in the media, it is critical that all of us express our gratitude and support to this remarkable congregation, to Jeremiah A. Wright for his leadership over 36 years….”

And so it goes with FairTest and their funding.

—–

Why are all these radical Leftist joints kicking coin to FairTest?  Because they are all of very like mind.

The Left is rife with entities that pose as promoters of issues – but they are first and foremost promoters of Leftism.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is truly about the advancement of Leftism – not (all) Colored People.  Ask Clarence Thomas.

So too with the National Organization for Women (NOW).  Ask Sarah Palin.

So too is it with FairTest.

Their stated agenda is of secondary import to their advancement of the Left agenda.

Of which a fundamental tenet is the proactive breakdown and destruction of standards – assessments – of all sorts.

Testing, teaching – any and all.

At which FairTest is diligently at work.

In which the President calls for nearly half a trillion dollars in new taxes – under the oh-so-tired guise of making the “rich” “pay their fair share.”

(Someone needs to introduce these people to Reality.  Here in Reality, life isn’t fair.  The sooner they realize this – and stop trying to use government to make it so – the better off we all will be.)

The American people are overwhelmingly underwhelmed by the President’s latest bit of Leftism.  (Not to mention many Congressional Democrats.) I wonder why?

Perhaps it’s the fact that the federal government has increased its per annum spending by 29% in just the last four years – from $2.73 trillion to $3.82 trillion.

During the depths of the Great Recession – when the private sector was least equipped to shoulder the gigantic new burden.

And that a return to 2007 spending levels would negate most of our deficit problem, and begin to work dramatically on our debt problem – without raising taxes a cent.

Perhaps it’s the fact that the federal government wastes gobs and gobs and gobs of money.

Solyndra’s half a billion dollars squandered – which the Administration knowingly threw down a soon-to-be-bankrupt Crony Socialist rathole – is just the tip of a Titanic-sized iceberg.

For instance, we dedicated more than $60 billion of the 2009 $867 billion alleged “stimulus” to “green jobs.”  But Newsweek at the time reported:

The working definition (of green “job”) paints a broad stroke….But..leaves lots open to interpretation…making it difficult, if not impossible, to measure whether eco-based jobs are being created and whether, as the administration has claimed, they’re the saviors of a sagging economy.

No kidding.

As Solyndra yet again reminds us, the federal government was not designed to be a venture capital firm.  Because they have for one hundred-plus years proven utterly incapable of identifying good ways to “invest” (read: spend) our money.  In a pathetic attempt to create (or save?) jobs – or for any other reason.

We the People see the government taking and wasting more money than ever before – and are thusly less than enthusiastically receptive to President Obama’s call for anyone to fork over any more coin.

Especially when we know that there simply aren’t anywhere near enough “rich” people to tax our way out of this spending-induced mess.

—–

And as for making the “rich” “pay their fair share” – if the rich are to start doing so, they are due for a huge tax cut.

The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution affords us equal protection before the law.  Meaning we are all to be treated equally by the law.

Yet we have a progressive income tax – where different people have the law applied to them differently depending upon how much money they make.  This is ridiculous, in addition to being unconstitutional.

The top current rate is 35% – and President Obama calls for an increase to 39.6%.  (Either percentage is an obscene theft, but let us move on.)  There are five additional, lesser, tiered rates – again, descending as one’s income decreases.

Equal treatment by the law?  Hardly.

And it gets vastly more absurd when one examines the percentage of the total tax take the “rich” pay.

The wealthiest 1% of the population earns 19% of the income but pays 37% of the income tax. The top 10% of earners pay 68% of the tab.

Meanwhile, the bottom 50%…now earn 13% of the income but pay just 3% of the taxes…. (S)ome 45% of American income earners paid no income tax at all in 2010.

President Obama calls for this overwhelmingly imbalanced ratio to be – made even more overwhelmingly imbalanced.

And President Obama makes yet another error.

Letting people and companies (read: employers) keep their own money is NOT the same thing as giving some people other people’s money.

Yet the President incessantly conflates the two.

President Obama’s proposal to place a harsh cap on the itemized deductions of businesses – i.e. reducing the amount of their own money that they can keep – is not the same thing as writing them a government check.

There is certainly a tax reform argument to be made here.  We need much lower (and much fewer) corporate and personal tax rates, without the Pandora’s box of special breaks and deductions.

But to say that a business offset to lower their tax liability is the same thing as a government check being cut to someone is patently absurd.

We’ve earned our coin, and we want – and deserve – to keep a whole lot more of it then we are currently allowed under our confiscatory and labyrinthine tax code.

Only through the Picasso-esque Huge Government worldview – where all money is government’s, and any kept by those who earned it is “lost revenue” – does this not make sense.

We the People aren’t buying it.  As demonstrated by our utter lack of faith in President Obama’s “jobs” and “deficit reduction” plans.  As demonstrated by the 2010 election.

As will again be demonstrated in November of next year.

The Times Free Press of Chattanooga, Tennessee reports that the city of East Ridge made a startling discovery. Town fathers realized the town government owns 149 vehicles. Turns out they only 119 employees. They do indeed have more cars than employees.

Two months ago City Councilman Jim Bethune noted that the city seemed to have an awful lot of cars sitting around that are never used. So, they decided to sell a few to help make up for budget shortfalls and to get rid of the needless vehicles.

City officials made the surprising discover when they finally rounded up all the city’s vehicles. Then they got another surprise. The town had been so slipshod in records keeping that they couldn’t even locate the titles for 11 of those cars. The city had to pay the state $121 to file for each missing title.

Then the city found ten titles for cars it could not even find. They had no idea what happened to them. There was an additional 30 vehicles with titles they hadn’t received yet (they were recently purchased) or they didn’t have because they were donated cars. That made their ownership “questionable” and unable to be sold.

Naturally all these cars are insured — and some of them aren’t even operable — at a cost of $42,471 annually to the taxpayers.

Now, imagine this scenario repeated in nearly every town, city, county, state and federal office across the country. Imagine the waste, confusion, slipshod records, and downright neglect that car pools nation wide are mired in. Imagine how much money could be saved if every town cleaned up their motor pool mess and took pains to stop it from happening again?

But isn’t this just the sort of waste that we all know full well that government perpetrates? There is no accountability. They don’t have any imputes to do the right thing because no one is holding their feet to the fire. They can waste all the tax money they want, they feel. Who’s to stop them?

It may seem like a small thing, but if every government did this the savings to the taxpayers collectively would surely reach into the billions. And this is just one small area of waste. There is office rentals, furniture and office equipment, planes, road working equipment, governments own all sorts of things they have no use for and we are footing the bill.

Then there’s land and real estate. How it ever came to be that governments own more land than actual citizens do is a crime. Billions of acres of land in this country are owned by government instead of being in the hands of private citizens where said acreage could be put to productive use.

This is not to even mention the may thousands of useless employees and their expensive benefits packages that governments pointlessly employ.

Like I said. We the taxpayers are footing the bill for all this waste. And it grows by millions every single day.