WTH???????????
On March 26, Vice President Joe Biden got political heat after it was revealed that his two-day visit to London and Paris cost taxpayers more than $1 million. His one-night stay at Hotel Intercontinental Paris Le Grande had a bill for $585,000.
What did Joe Biden order for room service that night? A truckload of caviar?
A March 29 study conducted by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) shows that the federal government forks over $42.6 billion dollars in reckless spending at a time when the United States borrows 40 percent of what it spends. Additionally, the staggering waste occurs during a recessionary period of 8 percent unemployment and nearly 47 million Americans (or 15 percent of the population) now relying on food stamps.
Obama lies compilation
The $42.6 billion in government waste is enough to fund up to 45,000 years of White House tours. Here is the complete waste list.
Related: Is Barack Obama a pathological liar?
Let's explore some of the reckless items being spent by Barack Obama and his administration in Washington:
"Part of a $547,430 grant from the National Science Foundation went to the development of a dancing robot that connects to an iPhone."
$939,771 for a fruit fly sexual attractiveness study
$700,000: A Pentagon project has shifted weapons funds to go toward developing beef jerky
$1 million in book club funding for ghost tours, fishing lessons, and movie screenings
"$520,000 was spent in Greene County, Ohio to restore a bridge that’s never used"
$947,000 for NASA to to put together a food menu for a future mission to Mars
$90,750 for arcade-style floor mats for gym class
"Federal funds were used to purchase 400 anti-drunk driving talking urinal cakes."
"$106,000 was spent on a YouTube video contest to promote eating fruits and vegetables."
"10 cupcake stores received $2 million in taxpayer-funded loans."
"$32 million was spent to increase access to healthy foods in low-income communities with no measurable result."
"Researchers received part of a grant to construct robotic squirrels to test if they are attacked by rattlesnakes the same way real squirrels are."
In Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. spends more than $1 million annually per detainee. It's the most expensive prison program in America or any of its territories.
Congress gave $75 million to the Pentagon to ensure that military bases around the world have voter access offices. Obama never installed such offices anywhere during the 2012 elections.
Had enough?
When Barack Obama was campaigning for the White House back in 2008, the candidate made televised promises on how he would eliminate wasteful spending in government. Let's revisit some of his speeches between 2006 and 2008 to compare Obama's prior rhetoric with what has transpired over the past five years:
“As president, I’m going to make it impossible for congressman and lobbyists to slip pork barrel projects or corporate welfare into law when no one’s looking . . . . No more secrecy.”
“When there’s a bill on my desk as president, you – the public – will have five days to look at it online and find out what’s in it before I sign it.”
“When there’s a tax bill being debated in congress, you would know the names of the corporations that would benefit and how much money they would get.”
“We would put every corporate tax break and every pork barrel spending on the online for every American to see, and you will know who asked for them. And you can decide whether your representatives are actually representing you.”
We will be “. . . broadcasting [health care] negotiations on C-SPAN so the American people can see what the choices are. Because what we have to do is enlist the American people in this process.”
“I’m in this race to tell the lobbyists in Washington that their days of setting the agenda are over.”
“Lobbyists won’t drown out your voice when I am president of the United States of America.”
“We need to focus on what we need to move the American economy forward, not on what’s nice to have.”
“ . . . we’re gonna go through our books page by page, line by line, to eliminate waste and inefficiency.”
“We have already identified over $2 trillion dollars in deficit reductions that will help us cut our deficit in half by the end of my first term.
“I’m proud of our campaign because it’s based on telling the truth.”
In 2008, Obama said that “adding $4 trillion to the national debt is unpatriotic” in a campaign event in North Dakota.
“Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.”
How times have changed.
In 1799, Thomas Jefferson wrote the following in a letter which shows the founding father's concerns about government fiscal responsibility: "I am for a government rigorously frugal and simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt, and not for a multiplication of officers and salaries merely to make partisans, and for increasing, by every device, the public debt on the principle of its being a public blessing."