Wednesday, November 10, 1999
Wednesday, November 10, 1999 |
| President
surely could find 1% to cut somewhere in these
departments If the President can't accept a 1 percent cut in government funding to avoid dipping into Social Security and Medicare funds, he could look to Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for the extra savings. The award of a contract to a convicted felon has reportedly “cost taxpayers millions of dollars.” This revelation was proceeded by another report of an internal tiff with HUD's own inspector-general who threatened to blow the whistle on fraud in HUD programs. The HUD brain-trust hired outside lawyers, at a cost of $400,000, to “get” their own IG on (what else) an equal opportunity inquiry. Atlanta's HUD budget alone is $91.8 million, an increase of more than $9.5 million over last year. You don't think 1 percent of that could be saved? How about the $200,000 that Clinton-Gore gave to the U.N. as seed money to mobilize a worldwide standby army for peacekeeping operations? This item was “buried” in a State Department appropriation and may not ever earn us credit on our “overdue” payments. Will we also subtract the cost of all our own peacekeeping operations for UN from that bill? Could certainly save 1 percent here! Don't overlook the Department of Education. They have lost $120 billion in “inauditable” funds, according to a private auditing firm. A separate audit at the Interior Department found $2.4 billion missing and a department lawyer swore that he was ordered to shred documents regarding the funds disposition. Surely, one could find a 1 percent savings here! No wonder the President proposed $90 billion in tax increases in his last budget — he needed to cover all the lost, misappropriated and (who knows?) stolen taxpayer money. (Maybe it's in the Democratic National Committee coffers along with all those Loral, Hughes, and Red Chinese funds.) We taxpayers will remember HUD, State, Interior, Education, DNC, the tax cut we didn't get, and the Clinton-Gore Administration's “decade of deceit” next November. How many more days? William H. Fielder
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