Another tough night of storms and tornadoes but no one was killed. On Monday night in Arkansas eight people were killed. I did hear that three 18 wheeler trucks were turned over by the wind though.
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:
Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Here are a few more I just emailed to him myself at 6:59 am CST on April 27, 2011.
Bradley R. Gitz wrote an excellent article about lawmakers that are not taking the debt serious. Here is a portion of the article “Heads in the sand,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, April 24, 2011:
The American public seems to have finally become alert to the fact that the nation’s finances are slipping over the edge.
Paul Ryan’s “roadmap” has performed a useful public service in this regard. Taken together with the recommendations of the Simpson-Bowles Commission, we now have, at least on paper, a vision of how we can get out of the mess we’re in. Along these lines, the columnist Charles Krauthammer has suggested a “grand compromise” which essentially merges the ideas of Wisconsin Congressman Ryan with Simpson-Bowles by combining Ryan’s $6 trillion in cuts over the next 10 years with a nudge of the top marginal rate to 28 percent, producing a closing of the deficit gap with a federal budget at about the average post-World War II level of 20 percent of GDP.
Except that liberals aren’t interested, at least not in the part about cutting spending and reforming entitlements and cleaning up the tax code (which are all of a piece). What they are interested in, and displaying plenty of, beginning with President Obama himself, is demagogy.
Free-lance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.
In my past posts I could have been accused of giving just general ideas of where to cut. Now I am starting in with specifics that are taken from the article “Federal Spending by the numbers, Heritage Foundation, June 1, 2010 by Brian Riedl. He notes:
- The State Department will spend $450,000 on art shows in Venice, Italy.
- During a recent three-day conference, NASA spent $62,611 on “light refreshments” for its 317 attendees—$66 per day per person. NASA officials said such expensive snacks were needed to keep its officials from wandering away from the conference.
- NASA spent $500 million constructing a 355-foot steel tower to launch a rocket that is now unlikely to ever be built.
- The Congressional Research Service has confirmed that the new health care law may subsidize Viagra and other sexual performance drugs for convicted rapists and sex offenders.
- Federal agencies are delinquent on nearly 20 percent of employee travel charge cards, costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
- The Securities and Exchange Commission spent $3.9 million rearranging desks and offices at its Washington, D.C., headquarters.
- Over half of all farm subsidies go to commercial farms, which report average household incomes of $200,000.
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Light Blue Dress
The Princess of Wales arrives at St David’s Hall in Cardiff, for a charity concert, October 1982. She wears a gown by the Emmanuels. (Photo by Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images)Part 8
Associated PressJULY 29, 1981: Prince Charles looks at his beaming bride, the Princess of Wales, at the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral steps after their marriage in London July 29, 1981.
The Daily Hatch 