Example of wasteful government spending

[mikekerstetter]

dailyitem.com/0100_news/x20216650....esky-stink-bugs


October 14, 2011
$5.7 million federal grant targets solution for those pesky stink bugs

The Daily Item

HAGERSTOWN, Md. — The federal government is committing $5.7 million toward non-chemical defenses against the brown marmorated stink bug.

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett announced the grant today to the Agriculture Department. The Maryland Republican has taken a leading role in pursuing solutions to what he calls "the bug from hell."

Bartlett says the money will fund research on pheromone-based traps, predatory insects and other alternatives to chemical insecticides.

Environmental regulators granted fruit growers in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia an emergency exemption to use the insecticide dinotefuran (dy-noh-TEF'-yur-ahn) in their orchards this year.

Bartlett says the compound helped reduce crop damage but increased production costs sharply.

He says an integrated approach to pest management would allow growers to use fewer chemicals and more natural controls.

[Ritty77]

Whether it's a few million spent on little intrusive nonsense, or billions "invested" in pie-in-the-sky alternative energy scams, those in power know the debt is huge yet continue to spend.

The spenders are either convinced that huge debts are not an issue. Or they are purposely trying to cause a catastrophic, U.S.-led global economic failure.

Whichever the case, it's no accident. If a dramatic change in thinking doesn't come in November 2012, we're in very deep sh*t.

[philunderwood]

www.qando.net/?tag=immoral

Who is robbing whom here?

Published October 25, 2011 | By Bruce McQuain

We’ve been treated to stories of “greed” and supposed corporate misbehavior by the OWS crowd, but here’s a story that ought to make you furious, especially if you’re an Illinois taxpayer:


Two lobbyists with no prior teaching experience were allowed to count their years as union employees toward a state teacher pension once they served a single day of subbing in 2007, a Tribune/WGN-TV investigation has found.

Steven Preckwinkle, the political director for the Illinois Federation of Teachers, and fellow union lobbyist David Piccioli were the only people who took advantage of a small window opened by lawmakers a few months earlier.

Obviously any number of people are culpable. The lawmakers, of course. But the two who took advantage of this legal loophole are simply morally reprehensible people who took advantage of the system for personal gain without earning what they will receive.


The legislation enabled union officials to get into the state teachers pension fund and count their previous years as union employees after quickly obtaining teaching certificates and working in a classroom. They just had to do it before the bill was signed into law.

So seeing an opportunity to cash in without actually having to do any real teaching, they quickly got teaching certificates and substitute taught for one day. One day. They were paid $93 for the day.

The result from that day? Probably over $100,000 a year in pension payments:


Preckwinkle’s one day of subbing qualified him to become a participant in the state teachers pension fund, allowing him to pick up 16 years of previous union work and nearly five more years since he joined. He’s 59, and at age 60 he’ll be eligible for a state pension based on the four-highest consecutive years of his last 10 years of work.

His paycheck fluctuates as a union lobbyist, but pension records show his earnings in the last school year were at least $245,000. Based on his salary history so far, he could earn a pension of about $108,000 a year, more than double what the average teacher receives.

Meanwhile, as you might guess, the pension fund is horribly underfunded and teachers who’ve spent a career in the classroom stand to get less than half what these two will get.

The union finds no real problem with what its two paid lobbyists did:


A spokesman for the Illinois Federation of Teachers emphasized that the lobbyists’ actions were legal and that they made "individual decisions."

Even so, union President Dan Montgomery said the deal Preckwinkle and Piccioli landed "should never be allowed again." But the union, which provides its employees with a private 401(k)-type plan, is standing by the lobbyists’ right to have access to the public pension.

"They entered TRS under the law and are participating members of TRS. As a TRS employer, the IFT is required to make the payments to TRS," the union said in a statement.

Of course we all know that legal and moral are only the same by coincidence. These two scoundrels knew precisely what they were doing and did what they did with malice aforethought. This was a bid to cash in while doing nothing. And of course, cheats like them are more than happy – along with the union – to stand behind the façade of legality.

And oh, by the way, it should never happen again because the law was changed after these two grifters cashed in.

Always looking out for the little guy and making sure he gets a square deal, those union guys.

HT: Duane Lester

~McQ