Trenton NJ, Senator Kristin Corrado, vice-chair of the Legislative Select Oversight Committee, responded to allegations by Senator Richard Codey that the purpose of the special committee was to embarrass Governor Phil Murphy.
Sen. Kristin Corrado responded to allegations by Sen. Richard Codey that the purpose of the Legislative Select Oversight Committee
was to embarrass Governor Phil Murphy, saying we shouldn’t be content with a 1970s mentality towards sexual harassment and assault. (SenateNJ.com)
Ridgewood NJ, Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ-05), Chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises, released the following statement after the Federal Housing Finance Authority (FHFA) issued an alert that Fannie Mae increased the projected budget for their new Washington, D.C. headquarters by over 50 percent. Fannie Mae is one of the government-sponsored enterprises that was put in conservatorship after taking a $200 billion taxpayer bailout in 2008.
“Like a child with a credit card in a toy store, the bureaucrats at Fannie Mae just couldn’t help themselves. After being forced to bail out the GSE’s to the tune of nearly $200 billion, American taxpayers now get the news that they are underwriting lavish spending at Fannie Mae’s new downtown Washington, D.C. headquarters. So while Americans around the country are living paycheck to paycheck, Washington insiders are blowing through budgets by designing glass enclosed bridges and rooftop decks.
“Even more troubling, the Federal Housing Finance Authority—the entity whose sole job it is to oversee the GSE’s—appears to have been asleep at the wheel as costs spiraled out of control. This is the same FHFA that just last year thought it was a good idea to give GSE executives a pay raise to nearly $4 million. This complete failure by FHFA and the excess displayed by Fannie Mae are the exact reasons why the American people are disgusted by business as usual in Washington, D.C.”
By REBECCA KAPLAN FACE THE NATION August 2, 2015, 10:49 AM
Presidential candidate Donald Trump said Sunday that he pays as little in taxes as possible just like every other taxpayer in America.
“I fight like hell to pay as little as possible for two reasons. Number one, I’m a businessman. And that’s the way you’re supposed to do it,” Trump said in an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “The other reason is that I hate the way our government spends our taxes. I hate the way they waste our money. Trillions and trillions of dollars of waste and abuse. And I hate it.”
Trump has not yet released his tax returns, but said he has “no major problem” with doing it. And he said he may tie a release of his tax returns to a release of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s emails from her time as secretary of state.
Trump: Patience for the presidency?
The State Department is in the process ofreviewing and releasing more than 55,000 pages of emails Clinton sent and received while in the Obama administration. Clinton has come under fire for using a private email server to conduct business rather than her official government account, and fresh questions emerged last month about whether Clinton used her personal email account to send classified information.
Trump predicted the questions over Clinton’s email practices will “be a devastating blow for Hillary,” and said she would be “in big trouble” if there is “an honorable prosecution” (something he said is unlikely because the prosecutors “are all Democrats”). He compared Clinton’s troubles as a far worse version of the scandal that engulfed former CIA Director David Petraeus, who pled guilty earlier this yearto giving classified information to his mistress and biographer.
Senate urged to approve $1.1 trillion spending bill to keep government running
DECEMBER 12, 2014, 4:03 PM LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2014, 11:48 PM
BY DAVID ESPO AND ANDREW TAYLOR
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — President Obama on Friday urged the Senate to ratify a $1.1 trillion, House-passed spending bill that has roiled his Democratic Party, judging it an imperfect measure that stems from “the divided government that the American people voted for.”
What’s in the bill
The $1.1 trillion, 1,603-page bill awaiting a Senate vote is mostly spending choices, such as adding $5.4 billion to fight the Ebola virus or trimming the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by $60 million. But it’s also packed with a mishmash of “riders,” many of which couldn’t get through Congress on their own.
Here are some things the bill would affect:
SCHOOL LUNCHES: Eases rules requiring more whole grains in school lunches and suspends the lower sodium standards due to take effect in 2017, while keeping other healthy-eating rules. Some school nutrition directors — and some students complaining of yucky lunches — lobbied for a break from the standards championed by first lady Michelle Obama.
TRUCK SAFETY: Rolls back safety rules that were supposed to keep sleepy truckers from causing wrecks. The government’s rules had effectively shortened truckers’ maximum workweek from 82 hours to 70. The trucking industry fought back.
BANKING: Loosens rules imposed after the 2008 financial crisis. The change relaxes regulation of high-risk investments known as “derivatives” — rules that were imposed to reduce risk to depositors’ federally insured money and prevent more taxpayer bailouts. Banks said the crackdown stifled the competitiveness of the U.S. financial industry.
MARIJUANA: Offers a mixed bag for pot smokers. The bill blocks the Justice Department from raiding medical marijuana dispensaries in states that permit them. But it also blocks federal and local spending to legalize marijuana in Washington, D.C., where voters approved recreational use in a November referendum. It’s unclear what the practical effect of the spending ban will be.
PENSIONS: Allows some pension plans to cut benefits promised to current and future retirees. The change is designed to save some financially strapped plans from going broke. It applies to multiemployer plans, which cover more than 10 million people mostly at small, unionized employers, often in the construction business.
CAMPAIGN MONEY: Allows more money to flow into political parties. Under the new rules, each superrich donor could give almost $1.6 million per election cycle to political parties and their campaign committees. The comparable limit for 2014’s elections was $194,400.
THE SAGE GRO– USE: Says “no” to putting the greater sage grouse and three related birds on the endangered species list. Environmentalists say time to save them is running out as their sagebrush habitat disappears. But oil and gas companies and other businesses argued that protecting the chicken-sized birds on Western lands would hurt business and local economies.
LIGHT BULBS: Attempts to switch off federal rules that are making it harder to find old-fashioned incandescent bulbs. The bill extends a ban on the government spending money to enforce the ongoing phase-out of incandescent bulbs. It may not have much effect, since manufacturers and stores are already well-along in the switch to spiral bulbs and other energy-saving alternatives.
HUNTING AND FISHING: Prohibits the EPA from regulating lead in ammunition or fishing tackle. Lead in fishing sinkers and bullet fragments are being blamed for poisoning birds, such as loons and the endangered California condor. Republicans said EPA regulation would be overreach and just the threat of it was making it hard to find bullets in stores.
OFFICIAL PORTRAITS: Continues a ban on spending money on portraits of Cabinet secretaries, Congress members and other big shots, a Washington tradition that some lawmakers felt had gotten out of hand.
THE CAPITOL DOME: Spends $21 million to continue restoration of the leaky, cracked U.S. Capitol dome.
One day after House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi publicly chastised him for supporting the bill, the president said there were provisions “I really do not like.” At the same time, he said there were other portions that “fund health insurance, early childhood education, the fight against climate change, and expand manufacturing hubs to grow jobs.”
He offered his assessment as Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid also announced support for the legislation, further underscoring the split inside the party. The Democrats will lose control of the Senate in January because of heavy losses in midterm elections last month and will go deeper into a House minority than at any time since 1928.
Sen. Tom Coburn’s annual “Wastebook” chronicles the most outrageous government waste—spending that is so frightening that it taxpayers ought to be scared.
Halloween is upon us, so what better way to document some of the wackiest examples than with the short horror flick above. https://dailysign.al/1sMxeNT
“Only someone with too much of someone else’s money and not enough accountability for how it was being spent could come up some of these projects,” the Oklahoma Republican said when releasing the book earlier this month.
Are You Out There, Stimulus? It’s Me, The Taxpayer. Nick Gillespie|Mar. 28, 2013 8:39 am
Columnist Ron Hart asks a question that’s answered by the cover story of the current issue of Reason (and perfectly summarized by the cover image of same): Where did all that sweet stimulus money go?
Of the money spent in swing state Wisconsin, 80 percent went to public sector unions – those with already locked-in jobs. In fact, right-to-work states got $266 less per person in stimulus money than heavily unionized states. Where Democrats had a vast majority of representatives, their states got $460 per person more.
More pointedly, Hart writes,
Remember when Obama got his trillion-odd dollars of “stimulus money” which he and the Democrats breathlessly said we needed for “shovel ready” jobs to re-build roads and infrastructure? Please e-mail me if anything of the sort got built in your town. Nothing got built in the cities where I spend time….
Peter Suderman’s article in the May issue – which you’d be reading right now if you subscribed for just $14.63 under our special Sequestration Offer – lays out exactly where stimulus spending went and why it didn’t work as advertised.
Yes, tens of millions of dollars literally went to install new toilets in parks Alaska, New Mexico, Washington state, and elsewhere. If only we could have flushed our way to recovery.
More important, Suderman writes (and this can’t be underscored enough), “The economy’s performance continues to be far worse than the White House’s worst-case projections for what might happen if there had been no stimulus at all.”
