Tag Archives: Government waste

Commentary

How the irrational left prefers intentions over actual results

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Post from Red State. (H/T Babalu Blog via ECM)

Excerpt:

A clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year at 15 mpg uses 800 gallons of gas a year.

A vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year at 25 mpg uses 480 gallons a  year.

So, the average Cash for Clunkers transaction will reduce US gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year.

They claim 700,000 vehicles, so that’s 224 million gallons saved per year.

That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil.

Five million barrels is about 5 hours worth of US consumption.

More importantly, 5 million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel costs about $350 million dollars.

So, the government paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million.

We spent $8.57 to for every dollar saved.

How good a deal was that ???

They’ll probably do a great job with health care though!!

But at least they’re nice people, and so generous with other people’s money.

News

John Murtha’s airport to nowhere: is it worth the money?

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Story here in the WSJ. (H/T John Stossel via ECM)

Excerpt:

If you hate the hubbub of crowded airports, you might want to consider flying out of Johnstown, Pa. The airport sees an average of fewer than 30 people per day, there is never a wait for security, you can park for free right outside the gate, and you are almost guaranteed a row to yourself on any flight.

You might wonder how the region ever had the air traffic demand to justify such a facility. It didn’t. But it is located in the district of one of Congress’s most unapologetic earmarkers: Democrat John Murtha.

More Democrat waste.

News

Obama awards billions of taxpayer dollars to British liquor producer

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The article is from the Chicago Tribune. (H/T ECM via The Weekly Standard)

Excerpt:

With little fanfare, a deal is moving forward to direct billions in U.S. tax dollars to an unlikely beneficiary — the giant British liquor producer that makes Captain Morgan rum.

Under the agreement, London-based Diageo PLC will receive tax credits and other benefits worth $2.7 billion over 30 years, including the entire $165-million cost of building a state-of-the-art distillery on the island of St. Croix in the Virgin Islands, a U.S. territory….

“The U.S. taxpayer is basically being asked to line the pockets of the world’s largest liquor producer,” says Steve Ellis, the vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog organization.

With the exception of Ellis and a handful of lawmakers, however, the deal has attracted little opposition in Congress or elsewhere.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said he does not have authority to block or investigate the project. Criticism on the Hill has been confined to a small group that includes Republican Congressmen Dan Burton of Indiana and Darrel Issa of California, plus a handful of Democrats with large Puerto Rican constituencies.

Remember, Obama won’t allow drilling at home, but he has lots of money to give Brazilian companies to drill in Brazil. We didn’t really need those jobs, anyway. And besides, George Soros needs to make some money, too.