While Wall Street continues to writhe as its money belt grows tighter and tighter, and homeowners who “over-extended” are getting ready to join hands with ACORN and sing kumbya while they break back into foreclosed and sold homes, and tax cheats continue to come pouring out of the nomination woodwork like so many earwigs who’ve gotten a whiff of the pesticide, the President continues to blithely campaign on with his platform of fiscal responsibility.
So, of course, Congress is now hard at work on the Omnibus Spending Bill. A $410 billion dollar lump of lard to be tossed onto that pork pile affectionately referred to as bullshit. Errr…the stimulus bill.
So just what will Congress do with $410 billion of our tax dollars? Well, for one snicker, here’s a snippet of what is proposed in the “Financial Services and General Governmental Appropriations” section, under the heading “IMPROVING SERVICES FOR TAXPAYERS AND CATCHING TAX CHEATS”:
- Closing the Tax Gap: An estimated $290 billion in taxes owed go unpaid every year, leaving responsible taxpayers stuck paying for tax cheats.
- Enforcement: $5.1 billion, $337 million above 2008, to catch tax cheats through audits, collection efforts, and improved technology.
- Business Systems Modernization: $230 million to improve IRS efficiency and accuracy by updating outdated computer systems.
Seems to me that a hefty chunk would be readily collected just by auditing everyone in Congress. It’s worked really well so far with cabinet nominees.
But the big kicker, included here in its entirety for your reading pleasure, is the section that includes the monies we send to other countries.
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Press Contact: Kirstin Brost, Full Committee, 202-225-2771
Matthew Dennis, Chairman Lowey, 202-225-6506
SUMMARY: 2009 STATE AND FOREIGN OPERATIONS APPROPRIATIONS
CONSOLIDATED APPROPRIATIONS BILL
Bill Total
2008 Enacted: $32.8 billion
President’s Request: $38.2 billion
Final Bill: $36.6 billion
KEY INVESTMENTS
State Department and USAID Operations, Staff and Security:
- Diplomatic and Consular Programs: $4.2 billion, $464 million above 2008 for diplomatic operations and to hire an estimated 500 additional positions to fill existing vacancies in the Foreign and Civil Service.
- World Wide Embassy Security Protection: $1.1 billion for ongoing security protection to ensure that U.S. embassy personnel are safe and secure.
Operating Expenses for USAID: $808.5 million, $178 million above 2008, to allow USAID to hire 300 additional foreign service officers as part of the Development Leadership Initiative.
Global Health: $7.1 billion to strengthen the global public health infrastructure and surveillance network in order to save lives overseas and to protect the health of Americans.
- HIV/AIDS: $5.5 billion for international HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care programs including $600 million for multilateral programs through the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
- Global Health and Child Survival: $1.6 billion for other global health programs including increases of nearly $50 million for maternal and child health programs, $35 million to fight malaria, $11 million to fight tuberculosis, and $82 million for international family planning.
Humanitarian Assistance:
- Refugee Assistance: $971 million, $104 million above 2008 (not including $350 million in emergency appropriations), to help displaced people around the world with food, water, shelter and other basic needs– including humanitarian assistance for Gaza.
- Disaster Assistance: $350 million, $30 million above 2008, (not including $200 million in emergency appropriations) to avert famines and provide life-saving assistance during natural disasters and for internally displaced people in Iraq and elsewhere around the world.
Basic Education: $700 million for grants to organizations that support basic education. This includes $240 million to help countries that have national education plans as part of the Fast Track Initiative – the international commitment to provide all children with access to a quality education.
Improving Access to Safe Drinking Water: $300 million for safe water programs, including help to increase access to safe drinking water (such as pumps and wells); build water systems; and expand safe hygiene programs.
Energy and the Environment: $424 million for clean energy and biodiversity programs worldwide, including funding for the Global Environmental Facility and international conservation programs to work with developing nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, preserve parks, and protect wildlife.
Middle East Security Assistance: $2.4 billion for Israel (not including $170 million in emergency appropriations) fulfilling the 10-year Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and Israel, $1.5 billion in economic and security assistance for Egypt, and $498.5 million in economic and security assistance for Jordan.
Sudan: $762 million for critical humanitarian, development and peacekeeping programs. Of this amount, $414 million supports the UN Mission in Darfur. (SIDENOTE: None of the resolutions passed by the Security Council regarding Darfur have been implemented.)
Merida Initiative: $405 million for counter-narcotics and law enforcement programs in Mexico and Central America (not including $465 million in emergency appropriations).
International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement: $875 million, $318.6 million above 2008, to strengthen law enforcement, support counternarcotics efforts, combat transnational crime, terrorist networks and other illicit enterprises worldwide.
Peacekeeping Activities
- UN Peacekeeping Missions: $1.5 billion, for Contributions for International Peacekeeping Activities. These funds support UN peacekeeping missions around the world including in Sudan, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kosovo and Lebanon.
- Targeted Peacekeeping Operations: $250.2 million for Peacekeeping Operations, to advance international support for voluntary multi-national peacekeeping and stabilization efforts, including support for international missions not supported by the UN but of particular interest to the United States.
Educational and Cultural Exchanges: $538 million, $37 million above 2008, to fund educational, cultural and professional exchange programs worldwide.
Broadcasting: $709 million, $40 million above 2008, for radio programs critical to the nation’s overall public diplomacy efforts.
Peace Corps: $340 million, $9 million above 2008, for the program which has over 7,800 volunteers in 70 posts serving 76 countries.
Democracy Fund: $116 million to the Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, and to the USAID, Office of Democracy and Governance to promote democracy, including support for human rights, media, and the rule of law.
SIGNIFICANT CUTS
Millennium Challenge Corporation: $875 million, $669 million below 2008 and $1.35 billion below President Bush’s request. This program has been cut because of slow program implementation, making funds provided in this bill sufficient to move forward on new compacts.
Andean Counterdrug Program: $315 million, $4.8 million below 2008 and $91.8 million below President Bush’s request. Additional funds were provided for Andean programs through other accounts to support core interdiction, eradication and economic development programs in the Andean region.
As I’ve noted before, Americans are an incredibly generous people, regularly and freely sending more money to help relief efforts in other countries than what is provided by our government. So you would think that right here, right now, with a deficit quickly heading to for a makeup of as many zeros as Congress, our government would put all this money to work to help those very same Americans. Not in some protectionist forever-fantasy, but just for a little while. Instead of continuing to spend us deeper and deeper into debt. Especially when that debt goes to help those who do not have America’s best interests at heart.
One example among many buried in this budget document is the tangled mess surrounding Darfur. As noted above, the so-called major players of the UN have done little except murmur sympathetically, while China (or Russia, depending upon who you read) is reportedly supplying Sudan weapons being used against civilians; meantime Egypt and Saudi Arabia go about poo-pooing the whole mess as being a cover-up intended to distract the world from – can you guess? – Israel’s “atrocities”.
Of course it’s a disaster and though there is little enough we can do, it is even less when we are struggling to simply survive, too.