Visit this site to find out where your federal tax dollars are going. The site was created by the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 and provides detailed information on every government contract by company, size and location.
We haven’t had a chance to take a close look at it yet, but please do if you are interested. Use the link below.
A tax ($16) to enter London central zone has failed, as traffic congestion has actually worsened. Read the whole article using this link.
NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg believes filling pot holes saves lives. Use this link to read the article.
Mayor Returns to the Citys Streets, Literally - December 18, 2007 - The New York Sun
Franklin Roosevelt said that “Nothing happens in politics by accident.” That sure was true of America’s independence, where people spoke out, got together, took action. Like Sam Adams, today known as the father of the American Revolution.
Don’t you wish we had people like old Sam living today? Well, we do. The Sam Adams Alliance is finding them and bringing them together to make government more accountable, to put citizens back in charge.
Now, at the end of its first year, the Alliance is recognizing some of these citizen leaders with awards dubbed The Sammies. For 2007:
Many people know Sam Adams mainly as a very substantial beer. Now, here’s a toast to very substantial political activism!
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
In a recent issue of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin were two letters to the editor which caught my eye. In the first, Robin Uyeshiro bemoaned the drug testing for teachers while noting that other important groups are not tested. The second, by attorney William Fenton Sink, discussed the generally low quality of legislators.
Both make good points. Why don’t we put them together and see what results? Obviously, all legislators should be frequently drug-tested and results made public. To do otherwise is to say their duties are less important than teachers, they are self-serving to exclusion of all else, or they are too dumb to get the connection. Perhaps all are true for many of them. We should demand better and replace most as soon as possible.
Dick Rowland is president of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii.
On November 14, Liberty Services, an Evansville, Indiana firm was victimized by a break-in. According to founder Bernard von NotHaus, the gang took everything but desks and chairs.
No ordinary burglars did this. It was government agents. Targeting a firm that dared to provide an inflation-proof safeguard against government money. Liberty’s latest offering was a Ron Paul silver dollar.
According to a leaked affidavit, Liberty Services is being investigated for “uttering coins of gold, silver, or other metal,” or “making or possessing likeness of coins.” Mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy are the types of charges being bandied about. The affidavit says the company’s goal is to “undermine the United States government’s financial systems by the issuance of a non-governmental competing currency for the purpose of repealing the Federal Reserve and Internal Revenue Code.”
Sounds like thought-crime.
Liberty Services has been in business for years. The first Liberty Dollars were sold in 1998. NotHaus has sought to ensure that his company complies with relevant law. Andrew Williams, a spokesman for the Fed, has told the firm that “no law . . . says goods and services must be paid for with Federal Reserve notes. Parties entering into a transaction can establish any medium of exchange that is agreed upon.”
So why the raid now? What real crime has Liberty Services committed? Aside from inflation-proofing their clients? Maybe in court the government will have to say.
Meanwhile, Mr. NotHaus could use some help. To learn more, visit libertydollar.org.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Thousands of pork-filled giveaways have been stuffed into a bloated, end-of-the-year spending bill working its way through Congress this week.Practicing a dead-of-night thievery long associated with big budget bills, the Democratic House leadership released this 1,482-page monstrosity in the wee hours of Monday morning and quickly scheduled floor debate by 6 p.m. that same day. That left budget cutters scant time to uncover how much fiscal skullduggery their colleagues had perpetrated.
The so-called catchall, omnibus appropriations bill, tipping the scales at $516 billion, contained 9,170 parochial spending projects, according to Sen. Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican who has become the GOP’s chief waste fighter on Capitol Hill.
Read the rest of Donald Lambro’s article on Townhall.com
Excerpt from The Pew Charitable Trusts report press release on funding government retiree benefits. Read the whole press release here. It’s a good summary.
Pensions
Nationally, state pension plans are in reasonably good shape. At the end of fiscal year (FY) 2006, states had set aside over $1.99 trillion of the $2.35 trillion they had made in pension promises—leaving about $361 billion unfunded.
But the good news nationally masks important variations across the states:
View the whole 73-page report here. View the Hawaii fact sheet here. Read the Honolulu Advertiser article that finds the report says “Hawaii’s $6.8 billion long-term bill for government retiree healthcare is the second-worst among states when viewed on a per-capita basis.”
Yesterday, we highlighted a piece by Dave Kopel that dealt with the efforts of Washington, DC politicos to maintain their city’s unconstitutional gun ban. Why are they fighting so hard to maintain the ban? Is it because it’s so effective? This bit from The Economist makes one wonder:
“The District’s murder rate will almost certainly be higher in 2007 than in 2006. One-hundred-and-sixty-nine murders were committed in the city in the year to mid-November—as many as in all of 2006 (which had the lowest murder count in DC for over two decades). The city’s police chief, Cathy Lanier, has suggested the rise is due to gang activity and in particular the growing use of high-powered firearms, such as assault rifles.”
Paul Jacob, the featured speaker at the GRIH’s annual dinner on November 3rd, recently took note of a momentous day in the history of the Woodstock Generation:
“On the Ides of October, the first baby boomer applied for Social Security retirement. A Maryland teacher, born a second after midnight on Jan. 1, 1946, will become eligible to receive early retirement benefits next New Year’s Day.
And so begins the next crisis.
When Social Security was set up, its supporters pooh-poohed critics who warned that by not investing the collected funds, the government was setting up a major fiasco. The pooh-poohers were wrong, of course; the skeptics, right.
Now, all those baby boomers whose FICA withholding kept the system afloat for years will begin to drain funds. Soon, the money going to retirees will far exceed money coming in. Hence the crisis.
What to do?”
Read the rest here.