Tay Payer Articles

After 9/11: A Decade of Watching War on Terror Spending
http://www.taxpayer.net/resources.php?action=issues&proj_id=4832&category=National Security&type=Project
1. The wartime defense budget has more than doubled, and the new Department of Homeland Security grown dramatically.
2. At least one-sixth of the $200 billion spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—between $30 to $60 billion dollars--was lost to waste, fraud, and abuse.
3. The first appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was $29.4 billion, while the FY2011 bill gave the agency $41.7 billion—an increase of 40 percent.
4. Earmarks in were almost nonexistent in the early the homeland security spending bills, but 196 earmarks worth $296 million peppered the FY2010 bill.
5.  There's plenty of money in a more than $700 billion budget for the military to buy what it really needs, as long as it sets priorities and spends its money efficiently.


Taxpayers Plowed Under
http://www.taxpayer.net/resources.php?action=issues&proj_id=3184&category=Agriculture&type=Project
1. An even more bloated version of agriculture disaster relief hopped onboard the Senate Finance Committee’s proposed draft jobs bill. T
2. Tucked amongst the various tax cuts and spending provisions was $1.5 billion for everything from farmers facing drought or flood loss, to fish farmers facing rising feed costs, to poultry producers who suffered from the bankruptcy of chicken producer Pilgrim's Pride Company.
3. More emergency funding bills to address natural disasters, or rising feed costs, or other unforeseen needs for agriculture are rising.
4. In the 2008 Farm Bill, Senate negotiators added a provision creating a permanent agricultural assistance disaster title. It estimatedto cost $3.8 billion.
5. Modest attempts by the President to shave direct agriculture subsidies—by decreasing eligibility to those with less than $500,000 adjusted gross income instead of $750,000—are likely to be blown away