Nov 11, 2004 15:55
YOU WANNA KNOW WHERE YOUR TAX MONEY ENDS UP........ READ THIS!!!!!
Your tax bill has included…
On Capitol Hill, "pork" is more than just the other white meat-it's your cash, rolled up and smoked.
$15 billion…for Boston's "Big Dig," the most expensive public works project in American history and a construction boondoggle of great importance-if you happen to live in eastern Massachusetts.
$6.9 billion…to design the Army's Comanche helicopter. The project was canceled in 2004 without building a single usable chopper-generating an additional $2 billion in termination fees.
$400 million…each year to subsidize public broadcasting, like PBS. Sesame Street alone would be a commercial gold mine…if taxpayers didn't underwrite it already.
$3.5 million…to refurbish Alabama's Vulcan monument. This 100-year-old Birmingham statue is a depiction of the Roman god of fire and metalworking, not Spock.
$1.5 billion…to projects at the 2002 Winter Olympics, including the Olympic tree program ($500,000), adopting an Olympic horse ($70,000), and "resolving racial tensions" in honky-happy Utah ($55,000).
$835 million…to build a single amphibious assault ship the Pentagon never asked for. The project was "requested" by Mississippi senator Trent Lott…who happens to live within view of the shipyard hired to build it.
$9 billion…for the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository in Nevada, a dumping site for radioactive waste. Unfortunately, the toxic waste dump offers protection for only 10,000 years, when uranium has a half-life of billions.
$50 million…to The Environmental Project in Iowa, which features a 4.5-acre indoor jungle, an IMAX-style movie theater, and outdoor exhibits of indigenous ecosystems (a.k.a. cornfields).
$950,000…to erect a bronze memorial to Dr. Seuss in his hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts.
$300,000…to keep America rocking. This includes $200,000 for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland and an extra $100,000 for the Kids Rock Free Educational Program. Sadly, there are no classes on setting guitars on fire, trashing motel rooms, or cornholing groupies.
Passing the Buck
Time to pay up! Where your tax dollar evaporates, one misspent penny at a time.
Social Security ($476.6 billion, 21.03%)*
Defense ($456.2 billion, 20.13%)
$1 million for the Young Patriots Program, including "a video that promotes the significance of National Patriotic Holidays."
$1 million for theater groups to perform Shakespeare in American military communities.
$6.46 billion for Halliburton's troop support effort in Iraq; this money includes $45 cases of soda, $85,000 "oil filters," and $100 per bag of laundry. Meanwhile, a new private earns only $13,248 a year-but he gets an extra $225 a month for taking fire in combat!
$9.1 billion was spent this year alone on missile defense research, a.k.a. "Star Wars." Since 1983, more than $90 billion has been spent on a program meant to defend us against the ever-threatening (and currently nonexistent) Soviet Union.
$4.1 million a year to pay off Ahmad Chalabi, the traitorous Iraqi exile accused of passing U.S. secrets to Iran. Pentagon brass spent $27 million on Chalabi's political aspirations.
Unemployment/Welfare ($329.5 billion, 14.54%)
Medicare ($250 billion, 11.03%)
$600,000 to sail a Medicare-branded blimp around the country-that's just part of Medicare's $30 million annual advertising budget: "Can't afford health care? Medicare is here to help…as long as you don't have cancer!"
Health ($231.7 billion, 10.22%)
$2.9 million for 32 programs that teach kids abstinence rather than sex ed.
$5 million for the Strom Thurmond Fitness and Wellness Center in South Carolina. (Our calls asking whether this includes day care for illegitimate mixed-race children went unreturned.)
Interest On The National Debt ($153.2 billion, 6.76%)
Your personal share? $25,062
Education And Social Services ($87.6 billion, 3.87%)
$20 million to bail out Pennsylvania's struggling school districts. Yes, taxpayers nationwide are footing the bill because Pennsylvania can't solve its own education crisis.
Transportation ($68.7 billion, 3.03%)
$1.2 billion this year alone to prop up Amtrak-on top of more than $25 billion since 1971. The horribly inefficient, heavily subsidized railroad incurs two dollars in costs for every dollar sold in tickets.
Veterans Affairs ($59.1 billion, 2.61%)
$231 million for AmeriCorps, the domestic Peace Corps. Rather than investing in, say, veterans affairs, the U.S. spends $27,000 per "volunteer" for what amounts to little more than political stump speech fodder.
Administration Of Justice ($39.7 billion, 1.75%)
Natural Resources And Environment ($31.8 billion, 1.4%)
$375,000 for the restoration of the Homestake Opera House in the opera hotbed of Lead, South Dakota.
$300,000 for Utah forestry education. "See all these trees, Senator? We call this a ‘forest.' Senator! Don't make business in your hand!"
International Affairs ($31.7 billion, 1.4%)
General Government ($25 billion, 1.1%)
$3.6 million for team-building exercises to keep those wacky U.S. Postal Service employees from breaking down and shooting each other. This included singing, treasure hunts, and dressing in cat costumes. No, we're not joking.
Agriculture ($24.7 billion, 1.09%)
$17 billion for U.S. farm subsidies. Sorry, John Mellencamp, but it ain't going to your stereotypical starving small farmer. Huge-and hugely profitable-corporate farms, which make up only seven percent of the two million farms in America, snort up more than half of that money.
$6.1 million for "wood utilization research." Since 1985, a total of $79 million has been spent investigating the various commercial uses for the miracle mystery substance known as "lumber."
$3.8 million for shrimp aquaculture research. Since 1985, $61 million has been spent studying these sea cockroaches.
General Science, Space, And Technology ($23.1 billion, 1.02%)
Community And Regional Development ($16.7 billion, .74%)
Commerce ($14.9 billion, .66%)
$1 million to pay for South Carolina "oyster recovery"-because no shellfish should be left behind.
$2 million for the First Tee initiative in St. Augustine, Florida, which teaches honesty, integrity, and sportsmanship through, um, "golf education."
Energy ($548 million, .02%)
$1.2 billion (from several departments) for the FreedomCAR-an initiative started by President Bush to create cars powered by hydrogen-fuel cells, which would supposedly one day replace autos that run on "Freedom Juice."