Father Ted...The Great Alaska Benefactor

No wonder that Sen. Stevens keeps getting re-elected. He gives more money per capita than any Senator. I hope this guy gets hammered. Alaska was suppose to join the Union and not cost tax payers a dime. I guess they decided to change their policy up North. From Citizens Against Government Waste.

CAGW has brought widespread attention to Sen. Ted Stevens’ (R-Alaska) lengthy record of securing special interest, pork-barrel projects following his indictment by the Justice Department at the end of last month on seven counts of failing to disclose $250,000 worth of gifts from a corporate benefactor. Sen. Stevens helped take home a total of 1,452 pork-barrel projects worth $3.4 billion between 1995 and 2008, and Alaska has been the number one state in pork per capita every year since 1999. Some of Sen. Stevens’ more infamous earmarks include $25 million for a supercomputer to study how to trap energy from the aurora borealis; $750,000 for grasshopper research; $500,000 for the Alaska Spruce Bark Beetle Task Force; $200,000 for the city of North Pole for recreation improvements; and $176,000 for the Reindeer Herder’s Association. Sen. Stevens also defended the $223 million earmark for Alaska’s notorious “Bridge to Nowhere” on the Senate floor in 2005, threatening to resign his seat if Congress removed funding for the bridge. “The incarceration of two members of Congress and the conviction or confession of numerous staff members in relation to earmarks has done nothing to rein in the proliferation of pork on Capitol Hill. This latest allegation about the abuse of power will be ignored at members’ peril,” warned CAGW President Tom Schatz. Read more about Sen. Stevens' indictment. See his "Pork Tally."

View some of the media coverage of CAGW's statistics and comments on Sen. Stevens' pork barreling in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Scotsman, USA Today and The Washington Times.

Porkers Of The Month Honors

From Citizens Against Goverment Waste today....

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has named Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) Porkers of the Month for leading a do-nothing Congress into a five-week recess. Of the 106 bills enacted since January, 94 -- or 89 percent -- were to name government buildings or lands, extend or make technical corrections to existing laws, or passed either by unanimous consent or with less than 10 dissenting votes. The dubious accomplishments include “Frank Sinatra Day,” “National Plumbing Industry Week,” and “National Day of the Cowboy.” In addition, the congressional leaders have deliberately ignored the October 1 deadline for passing the 12 annual appropriations bills. Only one of the bills has passed the House, and the House Appropriations Committee has approved only four others. In the Senate, the Appropriations Committee has approved nine, but none has reached the floor. The Speaker and Majority Leader appear to be awaiting the presidential election, hoping that the winner will favor higher spending and more earmarks. They had also wanted to avoid a vote on the moratorium on offshore oil drilling, which is typically renewed through the appropriations process, though they reversed course last week and said they would allow a vote. For leaving town after Congress has spent nearly all of its time on frivolous legislation and failing to address critical issues, CAGW names Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid the August 2008 Porkers of the Month. Read more about the Porker of the Month.

Irresponsible Government

A recent story in the New York Times details how the Federal government has found fraud in over $6B in credit card transactions. My guess is none of these people have been fired or have had their cards confiscated. In the private sector people get terminated for these issues. Why? Because business has to be profitable to survive. Wasting $6B makes it very hard to be profitable. The Feds do not have to worry about this small inconvenience, they just tax the citizens more.

I have had to fire someone over credit card fraud. It is no fun firing someone, but it has to be done. It is stealing. These people that commited fraud have stolen money from all Americans.

It should not surprise anyone that a problem was found. This article from Washington Post in 2001 (Government Credit Cards Growing) gave clues to the problem years ago. Government is not made up entirely of employees that are concerned about the general welfare of all people. It is made up of people that apparently have no problem stealing from their neighbors.

This is just how much fraud was uncovered. My guess is this is just the beginning.