Look at a couple of news articles that came out today. 

Seventeen of the nation's 50 largest cities had high school graduation rates lower than 50 percent....(news article here:   http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,344190,00.html)

and

The Pentagon is $295 billion over budget on dozens of key programs and taking more time to deliver the systems to the front lines, according to a report released by a government watchdog agency.

(article here:  http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/01/pentagon.overspending/index.html)

Isn't it a pity we taxpayers can't check boxes to indicate where we would like our tax money to go?  Personally, I'd like to see this country spend more of its money on US CITIZENS and less on foreign wars and policies.  I'd like to see a President who stops facing across the Atlantic with his back to his own people struggling to make a living, teach their kids, and take care of their parents.  I'd like to see Congressional leaders who stop cherry-picking money and back-stabbing each other and start helping the average person/family in their state or district. 

Do you know how much MORE money we spend on foreign policy and war, than we do on our own citizens?

If I can quote from my previous blog on Federal Budget numbers:

How big is the federal budget allocation for the Department of Defense? In 2007, it is (requested) 439.3 billion dollars.

Or in other words, the Defense budget is 8.07 times larger than the Education budget.

The Defense budget is 6.50 times larger than the Health and Human Services budget.

The Defense budget is 43.50 times larger that the Department of the Interior budget.

The Defense budget is 60.18 times larger that the Environmental Protection Agency budget (a "cabinet-level"federal department).

I have a cousin who is a principal of an elementary school in the Bay Area.  Talking to her sister, I hear that she is tired and frustrated and out of money and working her a** off to try and get the basic necessities for her kids.  Her school doesn't have enough money for toilet paper.  Don't you think we should be spending more of our money on our schools?

Would you like to see what your money could buy? 

Check out:  http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home

The site lets you pick a geographic area in the United States.  Then, you can see what the trade-off is of the cost of the war in Iraq versus things like elementary school teachers, public safety officers, or people with health care.

I can't vouch for the accuracy, but I think it is an interesting exercise.  A sad and futile exercise perhaps.  But interesting.

For example, if I pick the state of Hawai'i, and pick "total Iraq war spending approved to date" and pick "public safety officers" - I am told that - for the $1.7 billion that Hawai'i taxpayers have shelled out for the war, we could have had 38,760 public safety officers. 

Here in Maui, the news is that the police department is so backlogged with reports, they are still working to investiage automobile deaths (and possible criminal negligence) from 2006.  2006.  They are two years behind.  Not to mention how many crazy drivers are never pulled over around here.  How many police do we have patrolling?  In my opinion, not enough.

Can I have my money back?

In 2007, President Bush and the U.S. Department of the Treasury Secretary Paulson announced the project Hope Now.  They were trying to help mortgage holders who are facing bankruptcy.   Paulson's statements about the project in December 2007 are HERE. 

Oddly enough, this do-nothing Congress that can't seem to find their way out of a paper bag have managed to push through an approximately 170-BILLION dollar "economic stimulus project."  Taxpayers may get $300 to $600 in the mail (plus $300 for kids).  Add that all together, and it will cost about $170,000,000,000.  How does this country pay for that?  Oh wait.  We don't ask those questions.

And today, Paulson announces Project Lifeline, which is supposed to give some homeowners an extra 30 days hold on foreclosure.  But, as the national news showed this evening with some real-life homeowners, a 30-day stall won't help a lot of people.  Paulson's latest statement is HERE. 

I suppose the big question is - Will these efforts help? 

Project Hope Now maybe has and will help.  Project Lifeline seems kind of lame.  From what I've heard, rebate checks will come too late to stave off a recession that economists feel has already started.  I for one probably will not go out and spend my tax rebate, if I get one.  I know that is what the federal government wants me to do to stimulate the economy.  Not save it.  Not use it to pay off debt.  But go out and buy more widgets, so that Widget Company can hire more widget makers, and so on and so forth and things of that nature.  Well, too bad.  I'm not a huge conspicuous consumer to begin with.

The other, though perhaps irrelevant question, is - Should these efforts be made at all? 

I'll admit I only took three economics classes in college.  I'm sure there are some sound arguments for the Federal government to bail out homeowners who took risky loans, or jumped at the chance to buy a home with no down payment.  But I don't know what those arguments are.  Maybe there is a chance a stimulus package will help.  But what does this teach the American consumer?  Go ahead and get in over your head? 

What lesson should consumers learn?  How about - don't get in over your heads, no matter the temptation and lures.  What efforts should the Federal Government make?  I think preventative action is better than reactive action any day of the week.  The Feds let the predator lenders hunt and catch.  They were too greedy, I think, to work to protect borrowers to begin with.  Now they are trying to save their behinds.  Is that worth spending $170 billion?  What example are they setting?  Ha!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was doing some personal research on the Federal Budget. Why? That's me.

OK, let's start off with a few budget numbers. Let's look at the proposed Federal Budget of the United States for 2007. The 2007 budget covers the time from October 1, 2007 to September 31, 2008. So you know I am not making these up, these numbers can be found at the Federal Office of Management and Budget located here:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2007/budget.html

It's an interesting read, the rest of the report. I encourage people to check it out. After I present some numbers, I am going to explain where I got those numbers from, so keep reading if you want the boring explanation.

How do these numbers possibly affect YOU?

Here's one possibility - Perhaps the federal budget allocations can affect how much tainted food ends up in local grocery stores across the nation.

How?

Well, who is in charge of food safety? A big part of that is the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) (there are also groups within the Department of Agriculture that inspect food). The FDA is one agency in the U.S Department of Health and Human Services. The Health and Human Service's 2006 discretionary budget was 69.2 billion dollars. The requested 2007 discretionary budget is 67.6 billion dollars. That is a decrease of 2.3 percent. Think they had enough manpower last year to inspect food and food products coming in from foreign countries? No? Think it will get better this fiscal year? Not without more budget (or a lot of shuffling of money).

Worried about your kids' education? School districts rely on local, state, and federal money to help run schools. Money comes down from the U.S. Department of Education. Their 2006 discretionary budget was 56.5 billion dollars. The requested 2007 discretionary budget is 54.4 billion dollars. That is a decrease of 3.8 percent.

In fact, if you look at the requested federal budget amounts for the 15 cabinet departments of the United States (how many can you name?), most of them either go down (9 of them) or go up by less than one-half of one percent (2 of them).

The other four?

Those would be Veterans Affairs (up by 8 percent), Department of State (up by 12.2 percent), Homeland Security (up by 1.3 percent), and the Department of Defense (up by 6.9 percent).

How big is the federal budget allocation for the Department of Defense? In 2007, it is (requested) 439.3 billion dollars.

Or in other words, the Defense budget is 8.07 times larger than the Education budget.

The Defense budget is 6.50 times larger than the Health and Human Services budget.

The Defense budget is 43.50 times larger that the Department of the Interior budget.

The Defense budget is 60.18 times larger that the Environmental Protection Agency budget (a "cabinet-level" federal department).

For this post, I'm not going to add a lot of editorial. I speculated about how these numbers could affect everyday citizens. For now, I just want to throw those numbers out there. I'll be much more opinionated in follow-up posts.

Food for thought.

(now the boring stuff.........I used the budget amounts from the discretionary budget summary. If you look at each department, there is a budget summary at the end of every report. There are many items that make up the Discretionary Budget amount. Those totals match up with numbers in Table S-3. Then, there are more numbers. Some of them are supplements and some of them are mandatory outlays. These numbers are not included in the Table S-3 summary, and I am not including them here. I haven't done calculation on those totals yet because they are spread around, but they may show different results than I am relaying. So be warned. If you don't agree, DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH!)

I jumped over to Onodowahgah's blog tonight, and was distressed to read about the federal government's on-going attempts to weaken the Endangered Species Act. It used to be a legislative-led fight when the champion anti-ESA man, Congressman Richard Pombo was in office. But he's gone now.

And thank goodness for that. No joke. Of all the election news I listened to last November, the only thing that made me do a spontaneous happy dance in my living room was hearing that Pombo's re-election efforts had failed. His links to Abramoff may have been his most publicized problems but, for me, having him as the Chair of the House Resources Committee was the most distasteful thing in the world. A happy dance, I tell you. You can ask my mom, she was visiting at the time. I don't think she quite understood the reason for the happy dance. That man was toxic.

So, he is out. And now it seems the push to weaken the Act is coming from the federal agency itself. The federal agency and the Department of the Interior. The Department with a Secretary of the Interior appointed by President Bush. And, as Onodowahgah states, former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles became the highest ranking Bush administration official to be convicted of a crime in the Abramoff corruption scandal.

Onodowahgah has a link to a Seattle Times piece. And that article links to another one at Salon.

This is not the time to be weakening our nation's environmental legislation. And it seems like a majority of the public agrees with that.

And it's not like the Fish and Wildlife Service has been able to list a ton of new species every year anyway. They would need huge increases in their federal budget allocation to employ enough staff to do the work it takes to list species and draft recovery plans in the first place. And they are not going to get that! How many federal departments got huge increases in their budget this year? Besides the Department of Defense? (I actually have those numbers printed out back home and was working on that blog topic. So, I'll have specific numbers for you when I get back home) Anyway, the point is, if there is not enough staff to do the work, it doesn't matter what their legislative mandate is. I've heard Army Corps of Engineers staff tell a room full of public officials and private consultants not to expect timely processing of their wetland delineation verifications and permits. Not because they didn't want to do their job. Not because they didn't want to protect wetlands. But simply because they did not have the staff to do the work. The ESA doesn't need to be gutted, the way this administration is (not) handing out money to agencies to do their job.

Regardless, if there are officials and staff people who honestly believe the new draft regulations are not scientifically sound, or are politically motivated, let's hope they will speak up publicly.

And, in the spirit of being even-minded, here is my chide to environmentalists - STOP SUING EVERYTHING! Not only is the Fish and Wildlife Service hindered by lack of funds from the federal budget, their money is draining away by fighting lawsuit after lawsuit. Now, I don't know each and every lawsuit that is being filed. Some may be of the utmost necessity. But I've worked in a field where the environmental work I have labored on has been legally challenged (or threatened with legal challenge). Sometimes, they are challenged in the name of the environment. And that is a joke. They have been challenged for labor reasons, for monetary reasons, and for racist reasons. I can tell when someone who speaks against something is really sincere about the actual physical environmental consequences. And I can tell when they are not. It's not rocket science, it's human nature. I can't believe that every single lawsuit brought against the Fish and Wildlife Service is truly pure of earthly heart. So, think about that long and hard, Sierra Club, when you suit up to sue. I'm a card-carrying member, but I don't like supporting non-vital litigation.

There are ways to respect property-owners rights without gutting this Act. There are ways to leave some decisions up to the States without gutting this Act. There are less ways to protect vanishing species that are vital to the ecological well-being of this country if you gut this Act.