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Parks and Recreation, Obama Style

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Photo Credit: APSen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) sent a letter to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Thursday asking the administration to terminate its “Connecting Your Community” campaign in which federal officials meet with leaders in 100 cities across the country to discuss ways the federal government can better assist local governments. The campaign began last week.

“Much is being made about the possible impact of sequestration on government programs for the poor and middle class, food safety, and the defense of our nation,” Coburn wrote in the letter.

“It is somewhat surprising, therefore, for the White House to be headlining a 100 city government spending tour, transporting representatives from multiple departments and various agencies around the country to promote federal largesse,” he continued.

Mandatory, across the board spending cuts totaling more than $1 trillion will occur on March 1 unless Congress and the president act to prevent the so-called “sequestration.”

Coburn is the ranking member on the Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. The letter is addressed to Jeffrey Zients, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget. Coburn asks in the letter that the White House “cancel the 100 city government spending tour” even though it is “well intentioned.” He also requests spending and personnel information for the tour.

Read more from this story HERE.

Tom Coburn To White House: With Cuts On Way, Why A 100-City Spending Tour?

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Photo Credit: Medill DCWith sequestration budget cuts set to take effect in less than a week, Republican Sen. Tom Coburn has sent a letter to the White House asking for more information about a new initiative to help cities receive federal grants and other aid. The initiative involves White House and administration officials traveling to 100 cities around the country, helping local governments apply for federal money.

Given the president’s warning about dire effects from the coming cuts, Coburn wrote to Office of Management and Budget Deputy Director Jeffrey Zients, “It is somewhat surprising, therefore, for the White House to be headlining a 100 city government spending tour, transporting representatives from multiple departments and various agencies around the country to promote federal largess. If Washington is truly cutting spending on missions many consider vital, how can we at the same time promise and promote more financial assistance, much less afford this mammoth 100 city cross country tour?”

The White House has not announced the tour. Coburn relied on a news report from the first stop, February 14 in Beaverton, Oregon. “The city will host the feds at a daylong symposium to discuss how government agencies, nonprofits and businesses can help the city,” the Oregonian reported. “The event is the first in a new White House ‘Connecting Your Community’ program, in which national leaders plan to meet with representatives of 100 cities to pair federal programs with local needs.”

The Oregonian reported that officials from the White House, Environmental Protection Agency, Housing Department, Highway Administration, and other agencies traveled to Oregon for the event. The city of Beaverton has hired a consultant to help it win more federal grants, the paper said, looking for more federal dollars to add to millions in current grants from HUD, the CDC, the EPA, and others. The paper said the remaining 99 cities on the federal spending tour have not been announced.

“If Washington is truly cutting spending on missions many consider vital, how can we at the same time promise and promote more financial assistance, much less afford this mammoth 100 city cross country tour?” wrote Coburn. “While well intentioned, I urge you to cancel the 100 city government spending tour.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Senator Coburn Says ‘Whole Government’s Out of Control!’

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photo credit: senate democrats

Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn recently authored a book entitled ‘The Debt Bomb,’ and is known as a fiscal hawk in the United States Senate. He also releases an annual report on government waste, this year outlining $68 Billion in wasteful spending that could be cut from the Defense Department’s budget.

In an appearance on The Blaze TV, Coburn talked about Congresses spending problem, stating that it is ‘usurping the power of the States’ . . . and ‘undermining . . . liberty of the people of this country.’

His conclusion? ‘The whole government’s out of control.’

See the interview below:

Read more from The Blaze HERE.

Heritage Releases Top 10 Examples of Wasteful Government Spending in 2012

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The Heritage Foundation along with Senator Tom Coburn, who just slammed his Senate colleagues for being part of the waste problem, created the following list of the top ten examples of government waste in 2012:

• A reality TV show in India. The Department of Agriculture’s Market Access Program spends $200 million a year to help U.S. agricultural trade associations and cooperatives advertise their products in foreign markets. In 2011, it funded a reality TV show in India that advertised U.S. cotton.

• Studying pig poop. The Environmental Protection Agency awarded a $141,450 grant under the Clean Air Act to fund a Chinese study on swine manure and a $1.2 million grant to the United Nations for clean fuel promotion.

• Amtrak snacks. Federally subsidized Amtrak lost $84.5 million on its food and beverage services in 2011 and $833.8 million over the past 10 years. It has never broken even on these services.

• Using military exercises to boost biofuels. The U.S. Navy bought 450,000 gallons of biofuels for $12 million—or almost $27 per gallon—to conduct exercises to showcase the fuel and bring it closer toward commercialization. It is the largest biofuel purchase ever made by the government.

• Conferences for government employees. In 2008 and 2009 alone, the Department of Justice spent $121 million to host or participate in 1,832 conferences.

• “RoboSquirrel.” $325,000 was spent on a robotic squirrel named “RoboSquirrel.” This National Science Foundation grant was used to create a realistic-looking robotic squirrel for the purpose of studying how a rattlesnake would react to it.

• Cupcakes. In Washington, D.C., and elsewhere across the country, cupcake shops are trending. The 10 cupcake shop owners who received $2 million in Small Business Administration loan guarantees, however, can only boast so much of their entrepreneurial ingenuity, since taxpayers are backing them up.

• Food stamps for alcohol and junk food. Though they were intended to ensure hungry children received healthy meals, taxpayer-funded food stamps were instead spent on fast food at Taco Bell and Burger King; on non-nutritious foods such as candy, ice cream, and soft drinks; and on some 2,000 deceased persons in New York and Massachusetts. Food stamp recipients spent $2 billion on sugary drinks alone. Improper SNAP payments accounted for $2.5 billion in waste, including to one exotic dancer who was making $85,000 per year.

• Beer brewing in New Hampshire. Despite Smuttynose brewery’s financial success and popularity, it is still getting a $750,970 Community Development Block Grant to build a new brewery and restaurant facilities.

• A covered bridge to nowhere. What list of government waste would be complete without a notorious “bridge to nowhere”? In this case, it’s $520,000 to fix the Stevenson Road Covered Bridge in Green County, Ohio, which was last used in 2003.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ted Cruz’s Victory Foretells Conservative Takeover of GOP

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Photo credit: Gage Skidmore

Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, made the following comments yesterday about Ted Cruz’s incredible victory in Texas:

“The victory of Ted Cruz in the Texas Republican Senate runoff primary means that the torch is being passed to a new generation of principled small government constitutional conservatives and that the ‘let’s make a deal’ Republican Party of old will soon go the way of the Dodo bird.

“Ted’s nomination sent a strong signal that a new conservative Republican Party is being born and, by 2016, principled conservatives will replace most leaders in Congress and the Party at the national, state, and local levels. GOP leaders should ‘ask not for whom the bell tolls — it tolls for thee.’

“The Cruz campaign was a contest in which the people–grassroots conservatives and Tea Partiers — routed the establishment and the special interests.

“Inspired by such national conservative leaders as Sarah Palin, Phyllis Schlafly, Ed Meese, James Dobson, by Senators Jim DeMint, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and Tom Coburn, and by organizations such as The Club for Growth and FreedomWorks, the grassroots conservative and Tea Party voters of Texas took on the combined power of Governor Rick Perry, every Texas GOP state senator save one, and the good old boy network of Austin and DC lobbyists–and they won.

“By nominating Ted Cruz, the Republican voters of Texas today sent a strong message that what they want is an end to the crony capitalism, business-as-usual spending, and disregard for the Constitution that have dominated Washington no matter which party was in power.” Read more from this story HERE.

Another view:  Tea Party’s influence could reshape Senate Republicans

By Jennifer Steinhauer.  The tea party is very much alive in the drive for Republican control of the Senate, portending a potential shake-up in the mindset of the chamber.

The easy Republican primary victory in Texas on Tuesday of Ted Cruz, the 41-year-old Sarah Palin-blessed upstart, virtually assured the latest tea party candidate a seat in the chamber next year. And he will not be alone when it comes to those backed by the movement that propelled Republicans to control of the House in 2010.

Among 17 contested Senate races and in Texas, more than half a dozen of the Republican candidates — or those currently running ahead in their primaries — are tea party-embraced. The infusion of new conservative blood could alter the complexion of the Senate, increasing the sorts of conflicts between moderates and far-right Republicans disinclined toward compromise that have characterized the House for two years.

From Indiana — where Richard Mourdock recently toppled the veteran Republican Sen. Richard Lugar — to Wisconsin — where two tea party candidates are slowly unmooring the Republican front-runner, former Gov. Tommy Thompson — to Nebraska — where Deb Fischer surprisingly beat out a more established Republican candidate — tea party-backed contenders are surging. In Missouri, three Republicans are fighting to portray themselves as the candidate most strongly aligned with tea party values.

Even if Democrats maintain control, newcomers like Cruz are likely to quickly coalesce with veteran conservatives like Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and freshmen like Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, enlarging the ranks of members who stand well to the right of their party’s central platform. Read more from this story HERE.

Kincaid: Obama Poised to Win Budget Battle and Slash Defense

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Another discussion by liberal talking heads on CNN yesterday depicted House conservatives as fanatical budget-cutters standing in the way of a “deal” on federal spending and debt. But the Cut, Cap, and Balance Bill, which has been portrayed as draconian and fiscally conservative, actually raises the debt ceiling by $2.5 trillion. Nine House Republicans voted against the bill for this and other related reasons.

Coverage of the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act (H.R. 2560) has been extremely misleading. The coverage is reminiscent of how the media portray cuts in the rate of growth of federal spending as actual cuts.

In this case, however, the House Republican leadership went along with the ploy, in order to portray themselves as serious budget cutters. The liberal media were only too willing to oblige, setting up a final showdown in which Obama stands to come out the big winner and make cuts that will undermine our national defense—a constitutional obligation of the federal government.

Indeed, one of the “popular” alternatives, now being touted by some in the liberal media, is a plan by “conservative” Senator Tom Coburn to cut $1 trillion from the U.S. defense budget. His options include cancelling aircraft carriers, “reforming” the Joint Strike Fighter program, delaying production of the Army’s Ground Combat Vehicle, terminating a mobile air defense system, reducing nuclear weapons, and reducing purchases of the V-22 Osprey.

At Commentary magazine, Alana Goodman writes of the Coburn plan that “it’s far more radical than Obama’s own recommendation to slash the defense budget by $400 billion.” She adds, “Military spending is not the reason why we’re in a fiscal crisis. Getting rid of wasteful spending in the defense budget is one thing, but strangling it with cuts will endanger our troops and dangerously diminish America’s standing in the world.”

Read More at GOPUSA  By Cliff Kincaid, GOPUSA