Dr. John-Juan urges you to take action on these issues.  It's quick and easy--a few mouse clicks and you can sign a petition and/or send an email that's already written for you.  Thank you for your help with issues of concern to you!  Items and links from Citizens Against Government Waste and I think we are all, conservatives and liberals, against government waste.

 

 

From the American Conservative Union, but don't let that stop moderates and liberals from taking action.  Government waste concerns all of us.  Thanks for your support.  Dr. J-J

 

In a recent review of the federal budget, the Republican Study Committee (a group of over 100 House Republicans who are committed to fiscal and social conservatism) has identified $1,213,902,000,000.00 (yes, over 1.2 TRILLION DOLLARS) in Congressional pork projects, which can and should be cut.

 

One place to start cutting is the FY06 Highway Bill.  This is a bill that has more than 6,000 earmarks, worth nearly $25 billion.  These “earmarks”, or special projects, include a $200 million bridge to an island in Alaska with only 50 residents.   Since the island has a small airport, at $4 million per person it would be less expensive to buy each person his own airplane.  But as the Congressman in whose district the island is located explained, “This is the time to take advantage of the position I’m in.” 

Another earmark in the Highway Bill is $2.5 million for the Blue Ridge Music Center.  I would love to hear the explanation as to how funding a music center is properly a transportation expense!  But you get the picture.  Just a few short years ago, this bill had only 1,850 earmarks but was considered a major budget buster.  Now, Congress has added more than 4,000 new earmarks, all of which could be cut without most people noticing, thereby saving $25 billion.

Or how about we focus our tax dollars on helping our citizens, rather than sending it all over the world?  If we were to eliminate several programs and keep our funding level in others, we would be able to save over 37.8 billion dollars over the next ten years.  Do we really need to keep sending foreign aid to Egypt?  Egypt has not been able to spend all of the money we have given them.  They have made very little progress in economic and democratic development and have a very poor human rights record.  Is this where our tax dollars should go?

But there are plenty of wasteful programs here in the United States.  If you or I operated a business that sold products for less than they cost, we would not be in business too long.  Not so with the U.S. government.  Program costs for timber sales in the National Forest System are more than twice the revenue.  Let’s close this money losing business and save taxpayers $1.6 billion over ten years! 

Speaking of tax savings, there are a few deficiencies identified by the Republican Study Committee that need to be fixed!  For example, the IRS has been depositing certain fees that it charges taxpayers into its own account, providing a nice little petty cash fund.  But Congress already appropriates money to the IRS to perform its duties, so this money should properly go to the general Treasury.  Requiring the IRS to deposit these fees in the Treasury would save $989 million over ten years.

That $989 million pales in comparison to what the IRS wastes every year with the Earned Income Tax Credit program.  According to the IRS itself, more than $8.5 billion every year should not have been paid.  If Congress were simply to require better verification for participation in this program, a savings of over $85 billion over ten years would result.  This should be a no-brainer: why would Congress come to you and me for more money when they can simply keep better track of their own money?

Another case in point: the Pentagon failed to collect refunds on unused, refundable airline tickets totaling $100 million, purchased from 1997-2003.  To ensure that the Pentagon collects the refunds, its administrative account should be reduced by $10 million annually over the next five years to encourage the Pentagon to impose more stringent controls.  What a novel approach, you must be accountable for the tax dollars you are given!!
 
Or, perhaps, as a show of good faith to the beleaguered taxpayers, Congress could agree to forego its automatic pay raise.  That pay raise is scheduled to cost taxpayers an additional $2 million in 2006!  Some Members of Congress are likely to argue that that number is so small that it wouldn’t make a difference in the overall budget.  I think you will agree with me that $2 million, while a small percent of the budget, is still a lot of money.  Besides, don’t you find that when you’re trying to cut costs, eliminating the $3 cup of coffee or the $10 movie ticket really adds up?  Congress should cut waste wherever it is, regardless of the amount.  A few million here, a few million there, pretty soon you are up to trillions of dollars!
 
There are trillions of dollars of wasteful spending in the federal budget that could easily be cut.  Unfortunately, our elected officials do not always understand that the money they are playing with is real money, OUR money.    But if you and I do not join together in holding their feet to the fire by demanding that they stop wasting OUR money, nothing will change! 

 

 

 Please click here to join with thousands of other Americans in signing this petition that we will deliver to the President and to the leaders of Congress, demanding that they eliminate wasteful government spending. 

In the past, government has avoided including the gambling industry in government aid programs. But the President now proposes, in his Gulf Opportunity Zone (GO Zone) package, to take that half-billion from tax payers and give it to the gambling industry.

Here is the kicker: The casinos didn't even ask for the tax credits!

"The casinos don't need this," said William F. Shughart II, an economist at the University of Mississippi. "If they (casinos) are [eligible], that would be a complete waste of money."

Please email your Representative and ask him or her to support the effort by Rep. Frank Wolf of Virginia to strip the casino tax-credits from the GO Zone legislation. The casinos on the Mississippi Gulf Coast don’t need this windfall. They were making $5,000,000 a day before Katrina!

The Republicans have been courting the gambling industry for years, and this appears to be an effort to bring that alliance even closer.

Please send your email to your Representative today. Ask him or her to support Rep. Frank Wolf's proposal to strip the half-billion dollar casino tax credit from the GO Zone legislation.

Click Here To Email Your Representative Now!

 

Dr. John-Juan thanks you for your interest and for TAKING ACTION!

Read A Line in the Sand for Fiscally Responsible Lawmakers by Edwin J. Feulner and Alison Fraser

Hurricane Job Losses: How Severe? by Tim Kane How Immigration Reform Could Help Alleviate the Teacher Shortage by Kirk Johnson

Headlines cited by the Alliance Defense Fund--visit their site and the others on the list at right.  Read, get enraged, write, take action, and help get this country back on track.

 

Senator Tom McClintock to Partner with Right to Work Foundation in Statewide Public Information Campaign to Inform Teachers of Their Right to Political Autonomy
NRTW, 10.6.2005

Oklahoma: ACLU Files A Lawsuit Over A Ten Commandment Monument In Stigler
KOTV, 10.6.2005

Kansas Supreme Court Ousts County Judge for Viewing Porn on Office Computer
How Appealing, Howard Bashman, 10.7.2005

National Porn Sunday October 9
Lifesite, 10.7.2005

Target department stores support homosexual causes and I have no problem with that.  It's their business and none of mine.  Target bans the Salvation Army from collecting charity donations on their property apparently because they don't want to support any religious affiliation.  I don't have a problem with that either.  Again, it's their business and if they want to be cold and unsympathetic to those in need that's their choice.  What troubles me is Target's prejudice, bias, lack of impartiality, over-sensitivity to the anti-religious left, and adherence to the ACLU's dogma of "separation of church and state" carried to the extreme of eliminating religion from all aspects of American public life.  They should support both causes or neither.  But that's just Dr. J-J, the King of Babylon, babbling on so check this from the American Family Association:

While Target continues to ban the Salvation Army, competitors such as Wal-Mart are increasing their donations to the Salvation Army. Wal-Mart and others continue to welcome the Army's kettles.

Please send an email asking Target to end their ban of the Salvation Army and their offering of a sex toy line of products. In addition, you can email Wal-Mart, thanking them for supporting the Salvation Army.

Send Your Email To Target and Wal-Mart Now! 

 

John W. thanks you for your support.

The ACLU really suckers people into supporting them with a deceptive tactic.  They claim to defend civil liberties and that, of course, appeals to many.  They promote, highlight, and bring media attention on the cases where they defend civil rights.  But they are involved in and try to hide many more cases where they erode civil liberties, the Bill of Rights, freedom of religion, speech, and press.  They garner support from the naive by suggesting that they and anyone who follows them are the enlightened, the intellectual, the cultural elite.  Of course, we all want to be enlightened and intellectual.  The altenative is to be dumb and following blindly.  Many liberals, Democrats, college students and professors, and wannabe smart folks buy into the ACLU's hype.  And get the irony--they are following blindly!  Don't be deceived by the ACLU's tactics; they're just using you.  Take the time to find out what the ACLU is really about and you may become a truly enlightened intellectual whether conservative or liberal.  I am particularly offended by and concerned about the statement of the executive director of the ACLU included below.  What religious minorities in a small town are offended?!  And notice the use of the buzz word, "in an unenlightned way."  See what I mean about the "enlightened intellectual" deception?  It's the ACLU's attempt to make you feel that you are not in the camp of the enlightened and the intellectual unless you denounce religious freedom, morals, values, history, and tradition.  I don't denounce those things and, pardon my lack of modesty, I consider myself far more enlightened and intellectual than these ACLU bozos.  Why?  Because I don't blindly follow what they are anyone else dictates.  I think for myself and sometimes my conclusions are conservative and sometimes they are liberal.   Dr. J-J will just Babylon so read this:

 

ADF Once Again Stands Up to the #1 Religious Censor in America…
For many years, and in our new book, The ACLU vs. America, I have called the American Civil Liberties Union “the number one religious censor in America.”  I have pointed out how its campaign of “fear, intimidation, and disinformation” – for nearly two generations with no effective response – has forced countless communities across our nation into submission when it comes to any public expression of faith, remembering our history or heritage.

Sadly, the ACLU is at it again – this time in the small village of Tijeras, New Mexico (population 474). And ADF’s legal team has shown up to help stop the costly intimidation in its tracks.  

The village logo (left) – designed years ago – depicts a conquistador’s helmet and sword, the Native American Zia religious symbol, and a small cross to reflect the village’s history and heritage.  No one ever envisioned any of this to be an “endorsement of an official Tijeras religion.”  But to the search and destroy team from the ACLU’s religious censorship division, this was just “too much” to allow to continue. 

The ACLU has threatened to sue the small village to have the “offending” cross removed.  Peter Simonson, the executive director of the ACLU said: “Religious minorities cannot be made to feel like outsiders simply because the government endorses in an unenlightened way the majority faith” .  But the small village is determined to stand up to the ACLU, and ADF attorneys will represent them in their legal battle to preserve the right for the village to have a logo that tracks its Christian roots and history.

As Tijeras Mayor Gloria Chavez said: “The Village of Tijeras has retained the services of ADF because of the strong support and numerous calls we have received – not only from our residents, but also from supporters all over New Mexico who want us to continue to keep the logo.  They feel, as we do, that this is part of the village’s culture and history brought here by settlers centuries ago.”  ADF senior counsel Gary McCaleb adds: “We have carefully reviewed the ACLU’s allegations and believe the logo is entirely constitutional...This small village has every right to express it history...To do otherwise would be flagrant historical revisionism and hostility towards faith.”

These are the types of cases that the ACLU and its allies used to win routinely – with NO OPPOSITION -- using its massive war chest and army of lawyers to intimidate public officials to squelch all references to their faith history.  But now, small villages like Tijeras know they have ADF and our allies to turn to.  You have made this possible through your prayers, your support, and with God’s grace.  We’ll keep you posted. (Read the ADF press release here.)    

To learn more about the ACLU’s agenda for America, and to learn what ADF is doing to defeat it, you can order my new book, The ACLU vs. America at www.acluvsamerica.com.

I don't need to comment on the issue of border control and illegal immigration.  It's been covered abundantly in the media.  We all know it's a major problem so just click the thing and sign the petition!!

 

 

 

American Private Charities Spend Three Times as Much Across the Globe Every Year as Our Government Does for Humanitarian Issues
NCPA, 9.27.2005

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Go to Know Absolutes, link at right, and read THE CHURCHES, THE MILITARY, AND THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF THE SOUTH.  It's a great editorial with a powerful statement.  Also check out the other entries.  Great stuff recommended by Dr. John-Juan.

Maybe it does signify a little something but much of the time I feel that I'm beating my drum and no one can hear it.  Probably for the best.  Since I have no rythm my drum beats are no doubt out of sync.  Anyway, here's a piece by one of my favorite writers, Ann Coulter:

 

 

 

a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that schools that start their day with students saying the pledge of allegiance violate the Constitution.

In his ruling, Judge Lawrence Karlton (appointed by President Jimmy Carter) ruled that "under God'' violates school children's right to be ``free from a coercive requirement to affirm God.''

As the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee holds hearings on President Bush's nomination of John Roberts to serve as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, we are reminded how important it is to have well-qualified judges on the bench who will not legislate from the bench or push their own personal agenda onto the will of the people.