Issues
Facts That Make You Cringe – Issue 80
America to Build 725,000 Electric Vehicles Over Next 9 Days!
In 2008 President Obama set a goal of having one million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.
As of today we are short 725,000. So we have a lot of work to do before we pop that New Year’s Eve champagne cork!
Editors’ note: If JFK’s goal of putting a man on the moon in 1969 had Pres. Obama’s track record, we reckon we’d still be awaiting liftoff of Apollo 11.
Hooray! We’re Number 4!
The Tax Foundation reports that our own Beaver State was Number Four in the nation in income tax collections per capita in 2011, coming in at a cool $1,425.
Note to Guv Kitz: Come on, Guv – You can make us Number One. All you have to do is pass up Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York. And you have four more years to make it happen. We know we can count on you!
Is This a Nice Gig or What?
What if you paid for your booze or vacation on your company’s credit card? Or spent most of your time at work looking at porn? You say you’d get canned? Us too.
But we don’t work for the Federal Government. If we did we’d be put on “administrative leave”.
That means we’d sit at home for months (sometimes years) drawing full salary until our case was decided.
During a three year period ending last fall the Feds put 57,000 employees on administrative leave for a month or more.
The cost to you, the taxpayers – a cool $775,000,000.
Facts that Make You Cringe – Issue 77
Ja! Ja! Ve Yoost Luff Der Social Security! Danke und Sig Heil!
Former Auschwitz guard Jakob Denzinger goose steps to his mailbox in Osijek, Croatia every month to collect his $1,500 of your tax dollars in the form of his Social Security check.
Herr Denziger and dozens of other former Nazi and SS soldiers have received millions of dollars in Social Security payments ever since they agreed to quickly and quietly leave America and avoid deportation.
As Herr Denzinger might say, “Vat a country is dis America!”
Facts That Make You Cringe – Issue 76
The U.S. Agency for International Development plans to torch $3,350,000 of your tax dollars to “improve the quality of media content and strengthen the media’s capacity to meet professional standards” – in Armenia.
We were hoping they’d see the same need for improvement in ABC, CBS & NBC news.
And You Wonder Why Tuition Is Sky High?
“The (University of Oregon) student government president . . . now presides over a $15 million budget that runs 413 pages, with almost zero professional oversight or legal accountability.”
– wsj.com
Facts That Make You Cringe – Issue 74
According to Rep. Paul Ryan (R, WI) we spend about $800 billion a year on 92 federal anti-poverty programs.
What do we get from it? The highest poverty rate in a generation.
Don’t You Wish You Could Do This?
Courtesy of you, an Oregon taxpayer, Brenda Rocklin, former chief exec of the Oregon State Accident Insurance Fund, is more than comfortably retired with a PERS payment of $19,508 a month!
That’s a cool $234,000 a year!
How much did Lucky Brenda contribute over her 34 year career? Almost $7,000.
Oh, and did we mention that Brenda’s not even in the top 10 of PERS retirees?
So if you do wish you could do this, stop dreaming and get back to work – because you can’t.
If They Don’t Work…Just Do More of Them!
In the last issue of Lane Solutions we featured this “Fact That Makes You Cringe:”
A recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that there are 47 different federal employment and training programs, with substantial overlap among them… The report said that “little is known about the effectiveness of employment and training programs…”
– The Cato Institute
Lane Solutions says – Maybe federal program number 48 will get everyone back to work.
So They Did More of Them!
Obama Signs New Job-Training Law
– New York Times
Mr. Obama, addressing lawmakers in both parties who pushed for the legislation, said on Tuesday: “Let’s do this more often. It’s so much fun!”
What could possibly be more fun than spending money somebody else earned on a program that probably won’t work?
If They Don’t Work…Just Do More of Them!
A recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that there are 47 different federal employment and training programs, with substantial overlap among them…, the report said that “little is known about the effectiveness of employment and training programs…”
– The Cato Institute
U. S. Unemployment Rate – 6.1% – Bureau of Labor Statistics
Lane Solutions says – Maybe federal program number 48 will get everyone back to work.