Senators Jealous Of Outrageous Salaries And Travel Perks Of Executives.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100313/ap_on_bi_ge/us_charity_expenses
Senators question $1 million pay for charity's CEO

A group of Republican senators is questioning high salaries and expensive travel bills for executives at the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, raising issues that could jeopardize millions in federal funding for the national charity.

The four senators said they were concerned that the chief executive of a charity that has been closing local clubs for lack of funding was compensated nearly $1 million in 2008. They also questioned why in the same year officials spent $4.3 million on travel, $1.6 million on conferences, conventions and meetings, and $544,000 in lobbying fees.

This news story almost makes sense. In a hypocritical kind of way.

Some senators are questioning excessive salaries and excessive travel expenses. Now this is something that ALL senators have personal experience with. ALL senators get paid excessive salaries and ALL senators spend lavishly on travel. ALL senators do even less work than executives of any private organization. ALL senators waste way more money than any private organization could even hope to dream about. ALL senators have extensive staffs to do all their work for them, so the senators don't have to do anything other than show up for their junkets and photo opportunities.

Greece Will Do Everything In It's Power To Avoid Declaring Bankruptcy. Again.

http://www.ana-mpa.gr/anaweb/user/showplain?maindoc=8494520&maindocimg=8493114&service=142
PM: we cannot allow Greece to go bankrupt

Isn't any government claiming it will do everything in it's power to avoid bankruptcy,
- like a pedophile claiming not to molest a child again
- like a rapist claiming not to rape again
- like a serial killer claiming not to kill again
- like a politician claiming not to accept a bribe again
- like a blind man claiming he will do everything in his power to see again

While I do believe that it is possible for any government to avoid bankruptcy, I don't believe any government will EVER do anything to avoid bankruptcy.

What is the first thing any politician does upon being elected? Payoff all the people who paid for his campaign and helped him get elected.

How does a politician manage the payoff? He passes new laws and funds new pork barrel projects targeted for all the people who helped him get elected.

Is there a way to reduce this kind of corruption?

I think one way to reduce the amount of criminal activity engaged in by politicians, is for ALL laws to have a stale (expiration) date. The stale (expiration) date would mean that the law is automatically repealed when the politician who wrote the law comes up for reelection or when he leaves office.

In this way, the evil that men do would not live beyond their time.

If a law is good, then other politicians would work to pass it again. And again. Any law that was bad, would die quickly. Even if a bad law got passed, there would be many continuing chances for it to die.

This might also keep the politicians too busy trying to keep the good laws going to have time to write and pass bad laws.

Overthrow The Government For Five Dollars.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-6263224-503544.html
Fee to Overthrow the Government: Five Dollars

Since 1951, South Carolina has had a law on its books requiring anyone looking to overthrow the government to, well, register with the government.

Evidently, the State of South Carolina, which isn't embarrassed by having a governor disappear to South America for sex, and isn't embarrassed by having a congressman complain when he spots Barack Hussein Obama telling a lie, is embarrassed by some of the stupid legislation they have enacted in the past.

If you live in South Carolina and want to overthrow the government (federal, state or local), you need to register your organization with the state. The registration fee is $5.00. Failure to register yourself or your organization and you are subject to a fine of up to $25,000 and subject to jail time of up to 10 years.

So I am not clear. Is the State of South Carolina embarrassed because the filing fee for subversive organizations has not kept up with inflation? Or is the State of South Carolina embarrassed because the penalty for not filing is not stiff enough?

Your Tax Dollars Hard At Work.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/02/02/sec-workers-investigated-porn-surfing/
SEC Workers Investigated for Porn-Surfing

More than two dozen SEC employees and contractors over roughly the past two years have faced internal investigations after they were caught viewing pornography on their government computers.

Silly me, I thought the employees at the S.E.C. were supposed to be investigating Wall Street. I guess they were busy investigating. But it wasn't Wall Street. Shows you how much I know about how the government works.

The work computer of one regional supervisor for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission showed more than 1,800 attempts to look up pornography in a 17-day span: "It was kind of distraction per se," he later told investigators.

Kind of a distraction? Sounds more like a full time job to me.

Now I understand why nobody at the S.E.C. noticed the ponzi scheme Bernard Lawrence "Bernie" Madoff had been running for decades. Even after multiple investigations, the S.E.C. was never able to find anything wrong with the way Bernard Lawrence "Bernie" Madoff was doing business. If it wasn't for Bernard Lawrence "Bernie" Madoff's sons who turned him in, he would likely still be running his ponzi scheme. And the cracked S.E.C. investigative team would still be investigating Bernard Lawrence "Bernie" Madoff and still not finding anything wrong with his business.

It is not a lack of regulation that caused the S.E.C. to fail. It is a lack of staff. All the staff at the S.E.C. who were supposed to be watching Bernard Lawrence "Bernie" Madoff, were watching internet porn instead. If this is the best that the government can do, then why bother having the S.E.C. at all.

This brings new meaning to the phrase "hard at work".

Iraq Is Too Important To Pay Attention To What It Is Costing The United States.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-01-25-iraq-state-department-audit_N.htm
State Department hit on failures to monitor Iraq work

In a recent audit of more than $2.5 billion paid to a contractor in Iraq, the government claims that 1 individual is more that adequate to oversee that contract. Assistant Secretary of State David Johnson agreed and claims that 1 person overseeing a contract of that size is more than adequate. The audit thought otherwise.

Unfortunately, the audit disclosed numerous problems with the contract. Including, but not limited to:
- spending $450,000 on renting 2 generators that would have cost $78,000 to buy.
- renting housing costs increased from $12,000 to $20,000.
- spending $4.5 million to protect 6 men who already had their own guards.

Aren't you glad the government is so carful with the money they steal (tax) from the slaves (citizens)?