I Think "Spendthrift," is the Word We Are Looking For
by James Glaser
June 10, 2009

Barack Obama might be the politician in Washington that wants to spend our money, but it is the members of Congress who give the money to him. It looks to me that both parties in Congress are made up of spendthrifts. That would be persons who spend improvidently or wastefully.

Right now it is the Republicans pointing their fingers at the Democrats, saying that they are over-spending. It has been that way ever since the 2006 election when the Democrats took over control of Congress. The six years before that it was the Democrats pointing their finger at the Republicans saying they spent too much.

Spending money is fun. Americans are addicted to it. Congress has it made. They get to spend billions of dollars, but it isn't their money they are spending. In fact, for every dollar spent by Congress, there is a potential kickback, either through a campaign donation, a travel junket, or as some past members have shown us, money under the table. Congressmen who take bribes for tax money spent might go to prison, but they still know how to take care of themselves as Diane Jones reports for Mother Jones magazine.

Former Congressman Duke Cunningham is in prison, which is a good thing. What isn't such a good thing is that he is collecting a $64,000-a-year pension while he is there, and the amount of the pension will increase as the cost of living goes up. Former Congressman Bob Ney, who pleaded guilty to corruption charges, will get $29,000 a year after he turns 60, and former Congressman Mark Foley, even if he is convicted of a crime, will get $32,000 a year.

Last May, the House of Representatives finally passed a bill that would take pensions away from members who are convicted of bribery or corruption. However, the bill is stalled, and is unlikely to pass before the end of the current session. At any rate, it is not retroactive, so Cunningham and Ney (and possibly Foley) can relax and put their pensions in the bank.

Those past members are in jail, but really, they were only the few who were so blatant and greedy they got caught. Some members know how to play the system and are smart enough to take campaign money and hire their wives or children for a pretty big "legal" job in their reelection committee. Remember, it is Congress that writes the rules.

Right now President Obama is trying to get Congress to put up the money so he can continue George Bush's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has a problem. Congress wants to spend way more money than the president requested.

By Jeremy Pelofsky

WASHINGTON, June 8 (Reuters)—A $100 billion bill to fund U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is rapidly accumulating extra items such as money for military aircraft the Pentagon doesn't want and possibly a scheme to jump-start sagging auto sales.

The cars and planes are not directly linked to the U.S. war effort. But they are typical of Congress' penchant for loading bills with unrelated spending in hopes the funds will sail through on the strength of the main legislation.

Congress has a hard time spending money on just one thing. You have to know that if they can fund that military aircraft, even if the Pentagon doesn't want it, the company getting the contract is going to pass kickbacks to everyone who voted for it. Also, on the slim chance that some incumbent fails to get reelected, there will be a job waiting for them or maybe one for a son or daughter if the contract runs into the billions of dollars.

Here is an example of finger-pointing.

WASHINGTON (AFP)—US House Democrats said Thursday they would not vote this week on a war supplemental spending bill after Republicans balked at funding for the International Monetary Fund.

House Republican Leader John Boehner called the plan "lunacy."

"We may be able to borrow enough money to solve America's problems, but I guarantee you, we don't have enough money to solve the rest of the world's problems. And going down this path is going to lead to more economic harm here," he told reporters.

"We're going to provide the International Monetary Fund 108 billion dollars that we don't have. So we're going to borrow 108 billion dollars from the Chinese, we're going to give it to the IMF and we're going to expect our kids and grandkids to pay for it. Americans aren't buying this."

Boehner sounds right on to me, but then you have to remember that just a few years ago he bent over backwards to give George Bush every penny he wanted, and guess what... we had to borrow that money from the Chinese, too.

So remember, Congress holds the purse strings. The media, with the help of Congress, will tell us that it was George Bush, and now Barack Obama, that got us into the massive debt we are holding today. The truth however is that our Congress wrote all the checks and kept raising our debt ceiling so we could spend more. So blame Bush and Obama if you want, but the truth is, Congress is the real spendthrift in Washington.

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