Tag: government waste

Defend and Declare Tea Party this afternoon/evening at Chesapeake City Park

Many people are feeling ignored by government. This gives them a very visual way to show their outrage at the stimulus bills, excessive pork and earmarks, and the various bailout bills. Congress and Richmond are deaf these days. We need a strong showing to get their attention, and remind them who’s boss (the U.S. voter/taxpayer).

When: Friday, June 26 from 3-8 p.m.

Where: Chesapeake City Park, 500 Greenbrier Parkway

Fun-Food-Fellow Patriots Taking ACTION!

Music:
Ed Kelleher
Electric Current

Sign interpretation for the deaf

Our soon-to-be world famous “message johns”. Portajohns with attitude. Send a message every time you….
(See the growing list of nominees here)

Speakers:

Steve Elliot- Grassfire and Resistnet.com
Karen Miner Hurd – Founder Hampton Roads Tea Party
Carlos Taylor- Marine Veteran, Patriot
French Mackes, Constitution Party
Terri Kurkowski, Realtor, Norfolk, VA
Reid Greenmum, Patriot 912 Project Leader
Thom Ayers, Norfolk
William (Mike) Finley, Patriot, from Bowling Brook , IL
JoAn Barnes- Red Skelton’s Pledge of Allegiance
Charles Fuller, Invocation
Marshall Smith- Emcee

Signing of a NEW Declaration of Independence

For more information visit:

http://hrteaparty.com

http://www.grassfire.net/r.asp?U=19980&RID=18428221

The USPS Rate Hike Hustle

January 1999 33¢
January 2001 34¢
June 2002 37¢
January 2006 39¢
May 2007 41¢
May 2008 42¢
May 2009 44¢

That’s 11¢ in the past 10 years.

That’s a 33% increase!!!

And that’s just on the basic first class stamp.

We’re paying much more, and I can’t tell you how many people have commented to me on how much the service has deteriorated.

I guess we should be “happy” with the 4.76% increase this year. Keep in mind the Postmaster General was asking Congress if they could reduce delivery days just a few months ago. The rates are supposed to be tied into the Consumer Price Index, but a quick glance at the percent changes (from the Bureau of Labor Statistics) for the past 12 months (ending March 2009, shows the CPI is DOWN 0.4% (includes food & energy). Considering the post office just announced the rate increase in February, I’d really like to know where their numbers came from that justified an increase.

I also wonder if the brains behind the numbers at the USPS have figured out that the more they raise rates, the less people will mail. They could easily price themselves out of business.

There was a lot of bitching by the post office about their loss necessitating the increase, but their loss was a result of congress requiring them to put $5.6 billion into the Retiree Health Benefits Fund created by the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA). Without that required payment, the post office’s actual profit would have been $2.8 billion.

Postage price history data from: http://www.akdart.com/postrate.html (which as of 3/27/17 no longer works).

When is enough enough?

$30,000 for a research report on prairie dogs?

http://www07.grants.gov/search/search.do?&mode=VIEW&flag2006=false&oppId=47282

Must be for the vast suburban development going on in Montana.

In the grand scheme of things, $30,000 out of the federal budget doesn’t seem like a lot of money, but I want accountability! Is this expense REALLY necessary? Montana is just about as rustic and undeveloped of an area as can be, so what’s this information REALLY going to be used for? Are they just testing the satellite images for quality? Or was this just a way to funnel some money to someone in the Big Sky state?