When it comes to federal spending, the system is Broke² :

• Broke:  No longer functioning correctly
• Broke:  Out of money

As a family, we have been through tough times financially.  We have learned that in order to get the family budget under control you have to ruthlessly control those things you can control such as discretionary spending, borrowing, luxuries, etc. 

As a country, we will never get our financial house in order as long as earmarks are allowed in the legislative process.  You would think that our elected officials would be tightening the federal government’s belt just like our families are doing.  But that is far from reality.  Here are some examples for the latest list of earmarks for the 2010 budget:

• $12 million to monitor sea turtles and monk seals.
• $5 million for a supercomputer to help study planets and fruit flies.
• $8 million for a cultural exchange between villages that once made a living killing whales.
• $24 million for the East West Center, a private think tank even President Obama wants to cut.
• $500,000 for music enrichment programs for Native Hawaiian children — part of $59 million for health and education programs targeted to Native Alaskans or Hawaiians.
• $201 million to his alma mater, the University of Mississippi, including $10 million for programs at the Thad Cochran Research Center (the Senator who earmarked the funds).
• $750,000 Mississippi Biotechnology Association building — an organization that has no members and doesn’t exist, and that got $450,000 last year.
• $4.4 million to build fire stations, $14 million to improve drinking water in local communities (responsibilities typically left to the states).
• $1.6 million for a mobile music lab.
• $650,000 to a private Christian school (Piney Woods) on 2,000 wooded acres where student tuition is $31,400.
• $400,000 to pay overtime for the Jackson Police Department to combat drug use.
• $950,000 for the local Audubon Society, despite national Audubon assets topping $18 million.
• $1 million for a trolley museum.

     (Source:  Fox News )

These are just a handful of earmarks from a three senators; Inouye D-Hawaii, Cochran R-Mississippi, and Murtha D-Pennsylvania.

I find that this kind of “back-door-budget” process violates the trust of the American people.  It demonstrates the kind of aristocratic thinking that led to the American Revolution.  The attitude in Washington is that it’s their money to spend as they like.  If they need more, well they will just come and take it from you and me.

Of course today politicians know that raising taxes on the middle-class is tantamount to political suicide.  So instead they say they are going to tax corporations and other businesses.  Former Fed. Reserve Chairmen Allen Greenspan said it best, “Corporations don’t pay taxes; people pay taxes.”  Some have misunderstood that statement to mean that corporations used loop-holes to get out of paying taxes.  But that is not what he meant.  What he meant was simply this:  Raise a tax on a corporation and the corporation has no choice but to pass that increased cost onto you and me – the consumer – in the form of increased prices.  These cost increases are known as “Hidden Taxes” and they cost you and me plenty every year. 

Tonight, President Obama is going to use the “bully-pulpit” of his office to try to convince us that the Federal Government can do the best job in providing healthcare insurance.  Frankly, I don’t see how that is possible when our elected officials cannot control themselves when it comes to spending our money and our children’s money.

Take a positive step Mr. President and demand a Federal Law that will put an end to earmark spending once and for all.  You claim that you are for transparency – well, let’s get transparent in the budget process before you try to re-engineer our society any further.