Excuses wearing thin for Obama, media pals

Have you heard the news? President Obama inherited an economic mess from the Bush administration.

You say that’s hardly news? But it’s been the message sounded over and over by the White House. Top Obama adviser David Axelrod said on one of the Sunday news shows, “He walked in the door, we had the worst economy since the Great Depression.” In San Francisco, Obama talked of being “busy with our mop.” White House heavy hitter Rahm Emanuel used the worst-economy-since-the-Depression line on a public TV news show.

You’d think it’s October 2008, the final month in the Obama presidential candidacy, rather than October 2009, nine months into the Obama presidency. Yet the Obama White House is in full campaign mode — maybe because it needs to mask the shortcomings of the Obama presidency.

Take, for example, all the talk of inheriting the worst economy since the 1930s crisis. That came in response to the news that the federal deficit hit $1.4 trillion.

Yet just a few months ago, the Obama camp was singing a little different tune. It was under criticism for the $787 billion stimulus package it bulldozed through Congress on grounds that massive spending was needed to keep the unemployment rate from breaching 8 percent. When joblessness hit 9.5 percent in June, Vice President Joe Biden said, “We misread how bad the economy was.”

They inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression, or the economy turned out to be worse than they thought. Which is it? It can’t be both — unless your brain is completely addled by the Obama charisma.

Obama is still popular, but polls show the public losing faith in his policies. Another indicator was a ”Saturday Night Live” skit lampooning Obama for the major accomplishments of his administration — “jack and squat.” If the honeymoon is ending with the American voter, it isn’t for obsequious elements of the mainstream media. CNN prostrated itself by fact-checking the ”SNL” comedy skit.

But that’s harmless compared to the virulent campaign against Obama critics carried out by the denizens of MSNBC. Its Obama acolytes seek to demonize opponents of Obama’s policies by focusing on most marginal corners of right-wing politics like, for example, the “birthers” who deny Obama is a natural born citizen. The larger scheme is to imply Obama critics are racists.

That’s the backdrop to the story of Rush Limbaugh getting booted from a group bidding to buy the St. Louis Rams. He was smeared on CNN and MSNBC with false accusations of making two racist comments. He is an abrasive critic of Obama, so he must be racist, or so goes the left-wing story line. I wouldn’t defend everything Limbaugh has ever said, but lies were used to blacklist him from professional football for his political views.

Recently an MSNBC personality accused the U.S. Chamber of Commerce of lobbying for policies that amount to being “treasonous to this country.” Remember how liberals roared in outrage at any hint of their patriotism being questioned for criticizing the Iraq War? Well, it’s the left that doesn’t shy from attacking the patriotism of those it dislikes. Recall the repulsive Moveon.org “General Betray-us” ad against Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus. Recent opposition to Chicago’s Olympic bid was cast as a sign of a lack of patriotism among Obama critics.

The MSNBC blast against the chamber appears to dovetail with what the Politico newspaper reports is a White House and Democratic effort “to marginalize” the business organization. That echoes the administration assault on the Fox News Channel: It says Fox isn’t a news organization.

The White House trying to dictate who’s a news organization. Democrats out to gut a business group. Obama media allies damning Americans as racist, unpatriotic and treasonous. Is this the America Obama promised when he campaigned to end the cynical and divisive politics of the past?

What say YOU, dear BZ readers?

BZ

1. The federal government made at least $72 billion in improper payments in 2008.[1]
2. Washington spends $92 billion on corporate welfare (excluding TARP) versus $71 billion on homeland security.[2]
3. Washington spends $25 billion annually maintaining unused or vacant federal properties.[3]
4. Government auditors spent the past five years examining all federal programs and found that 22 percent of them–costing taxpayers a total of $123 billion annually–fail to show any positive impact on the populations they serve.[4]
5. The Congressional Budget Office published a “Budget Options” series identifying more than $100 billionin potential spending cuts.[5]
6. Examples from multiple Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports of wasteful duplication include342 economic development programs; 130 programs serving the disabled; 130 programs serving at-risk youth; 90 early childhood development programs; 75 programs funding international education, cultural, and training exchange activities; and 72 safe water programs.[6]
7. Washington will spend $2.6 million training Chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly on the job.[7]
8. A GAO audit classified nearly half of all purchases on government credit cards as improper, fraudulent, or embezzled. Examples of taxpayer-funded purchases include gambling, mortgage payments, liquor, lingerie, iPods, Xboxes, jewelry, Internet dating services, and Hawaiian vacations. In one extraordinary example, the Postal Service spent $13,500 on one dinner at a Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, including “over 200 appetizers and over $3,000 of alcohol, including more than 40 bottles of wine costing more than $50 each and brand-name liquor such as Courvoisier, Belvedere and Johnny Walker Gold.” The 81 guests consumed an average of $167 worth of food and drink apiece.[8]
9. Federal agencies are delinquent on nearly 20 percent of employee travel charge cards, costing taxpayershundreds of millions of dollars annually.[9]
10. The Securities and Exchange Commission spent $3.9 million rearranging desks and offices at its Washington, D.C., headquarters.[10]
11. The Pentagon recently spent $998,798 shipping two 19-cent washers from South Carolina to Texas and$293,451 sending an 89-cent washer from South Carolina to Florida.[11]
12. Over half of all farm subsidies go to commercial farms, which report average household incomes of $200,000.[12]
13. Health care fraud is estimated to cost taxpayers more than $60 billion annually.[13]
14. A GAO audit found that 95 Pentagon weapons systems suffered from a combined $295 billion in cost overruns.[14]
15. The refusal of many federal employees to fly coach costs taxpayers $146 million annually in flight upgrades.[15]
16. Washington will spend $126 million in 2009 to enhance the Kennedy family legacy in Massachusetts. Additionally, Senator John Kerry (D-MA) diverted $20 million from the 2010 defense budget to subsidize a new Edward M. Kennedy Institute.[16]
17. Federal investigators have launched more than 20 criminal fraud investigations related to the TARP financial bailout.[17]
18. Despite trillion-dollar deficits, last year’s 10,160 earmarks included $200,000 for a tattoo removal program in Mission Hills, California; $190,000 for the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming; and $75,000 for the Totally Teen Zone in Albany, Georgia.[18]
19. The federal government owns more than 50,000 vacant homes.[19]
20. The Federal Communications Commission spent $350,000 to sponsor NASCAR driver David Gilliland.[20]
21. Members of Congress have spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars supplying their offices with popcorn machines, plasma televisions, DVD equipment, ionic air fresheners, camcorders, and signature machines–plus $24,730 leasing a Lexus, $1,434 on a digital camera, and $84,000 on personalized calendars.[21]
22. More than $13 billion in Iraq aid has been classified as wasted or stolen. Another $7.8 billion cannot be accounted for.[22]
23. Fraud related to Hurricane Katrina spending is estimated to top $2 billion. In addition, debit cards provided to hurricane victims were used to pay for Caribbean vacations, NFL tickets, Dom Perignon champagne, “Girls Gone Wild” videos, and at least one sex change operation.[23]
24. Auditors discovered that 900,000 of the 2.5 million recipients of emergency Katrina assistance provided false names, addresses, or Social Security numbers or submitted multiple applications.[24]
25. Congress recently gave Alaska Airlines $500,000 to paint a Chinook salmon on a Boeing 737.[25]
26. The Transportation Department will subsidize up to $2,000 per flight for direct flights between Washington, D.C., and the small hometown of Congressman Hal Rogers (R-KY)–but only on Monday mornings and Friday evenings, when lawmakers, staff, and lobbyists usually fly. Rogers is a member of the Appropriations Committee, which writes the Transportation Department’s budget.[26]
27. Washington has spent $3 billion re-sanding beaches–even as this new sand washes back into the ocean.[27]
28. A Department of Agriculture report concedes that much of the $2.5 billion in “stimulus” funding for broadband Internet will be wasted.[28]
29. The Defense Department wasted $100 million on unused flight tickets and never bothered to collect refunds even though the tickets were refundable.[29]
30. Washington spends $60,000 per hour shooting Air Force One photo-ops in front of national landmarks.[30]
31. Over one recent 18-month period, Air Force and Navy personnel used government-funded credit cards to charge at least $102,400 on admission to entertainment events, $48,250 on gambling, $69,300 on cruises, and $73,950 on exotic dance clubs and prostitutes.[31]
32. Members of Congress are set to pay themselves $90 million to increase their franked mailings for the 2010 election year.[32]
33. Congress has ignored efficiency recommendations from the Department of Health and Human Services that would save $9 billion annually.[33]
34. Taxpayers are funding paintings of high-ranking government officials at a cost of up to $50,000 apiece.[34]
35. The state of Washington sent $1 food stamp checks to 250,000 households in order to raise state caseload figures and trigger $43 million in additional federal funds.[35]
36. Suburban families are receiving large farm subsidies for the grass in their backyards–subsidies that many of these families never requested and do not want.[36]
37. Congress appropriated $20 million for “commemoration of success” celebrations related to Iraq and Afghanistan.[37]
38. Homeland Security employee purchases include 63-inch plasma TVs, iPods, and $230 for a beer brewing kit.[38]
39. Two drafting errors in the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act resulted in a $2 billion taxpayer cost.[39]
40. North Ridgeville, Ohio, received $800,000 in “stimulus” funds for a project that its mayor described as “a long way from the top priority.”[40]
41. The National Institutes of Health spends $1.3 million per month to rent a lab that it cannot use.[41]
42. Congress recently spent $2.4 billion on 10 new jets that the Pentagon insists it does not need and will not use.[42]
43. Lawmakers diverted $13 million from Hurricane Katrina relief spending to build a museum celebrating the Army Corps of Engineers–the agency partially responsible for the failed levees that flooded New Orleans.[43]
44. Medicare officials recently mailed $50 million in erroneous refunds to 230,000 Medicare recipients.[44]
45. Audits showed $34 billion worth of Department of Homeland Security contracts contained significant waste, fraud, and abuse.[45]
46. Washington recently spent $1.8 million to help build a private golf course in Atlanta, Georgia.[46]
47. The Advanced Technology Program spends $150 million annually subsidizing private businesses; 40 percent of this funding goes to Fortune 500 companies.[47]
48. Congressional investigators were able to receive $55,000 in federal student loan funding for a fictional college they created to test the Department of Education.[48]
49. The Conservation Reserve program pays farmers $2 billion annually not to farm their land.[49]
50. The Commerce Department has lost 1,137 computers since 2001, many containing Americans’ personal data.[50]