Our government is full of crooks, and dumbasses...

Remember the super committee? Remember how they couldn't accomplish anything? Remember how before the super committee the congress was trying to figure out how to reduce the debt and couldn't? You know all those people that talk about how congress refuses to stop spending more money that the government takes in?

The Feral Irishman touched on this yesterday, but every American should read the Wastebook by Senator Tom Coburn. Be forewarned, it's going to piss you off. It's hard to believe what kinds of CRAP our tax dollars get spent on. Read Coburn's report and you will see that our elected representatives don't care one tiny little bit about us or that we actually have to WORK for the money we send to them in the form of our tax dollars.

One example, our government spends $120 MILLION dollars A YEAR sending  retirement and disability payments to DEAD federal employees. WHAT? How stupid are these people, really? They continued to pay one dead guy for 37 YEARS! They only figured it out when his son, who was cashing the checks illegally, died. Holy crap! These are the people we trust to be good stewards of our tax dollars.

Another example, the U.S. Agency for International Development spent $10 MILLION dollars to create a remake of Sesame Street for Pakistan. Umm. Pakistan. Ok, couple this with another program from the U.S. Agency for International Development that spent $12 MILLION dollars to help industries in Pakistan develop plans on how to use less energy because there are daily power blackouts that last from 4 to 16 hours. The $12 MILLION dollar program was a total waste, so the power problems still exist. So with no power, how are the little children supposed to watch the $10 MILLION dollars Sesame Street?

And this one may be my personal favorite. Children, prisoners and other non-home owning people have earned a whopping $1 BILLION dollars in Energy Efficient Home Improvement Tax Credits. So, how exactly does that work?

You know, most of the things on this list a small in the grand scheme of things, a few MILLION here, a couple of BILLION there. But these clowns NEED TO START SOMEWHERE. This crap added up to $6.9 BILLION dollars in 2011 alone. Everything on Coburn's list would be easy to do away with and it would show us, the people who actually have to earn these wasted dollars, that congress is at least trying to make an effort. They won't do it. They are addicted to spending, and that addiction is worse than any drug...

Cost, need questioned in $433-million smallpox drug deal

So, obama and his gang of thugs blocked other companies from competing for this contract, awarded the contract to a major democrat donor, and the price is much higer per dose than what we should be paying? That sounds pretty typical from this bunch of criminals. It's shocking how much of this stuff we have let this crook get away with. Where are the checks and balances? Where is congress?

By David Willman - Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Washington— Over the last year, the Obama administration has aggressively pushed a $433-million plan to buy an experimental smallpox drug, despite uncertainty over whether it is needed or will work.

Senior officials have taken unusual steps to secure the contract for New York-based Siga Technologies Inc., whose controlling shareholder is billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, one of the world's richest men and a longtime Democratic Party donor.

When Siga complained that contracting specialists at the Department of Health and Human Services were resisting the company's financial demands, senior officials replaced the government's lead negotiator for the deal, interviews and documents show.

When Siga was in danger of losing its grip on the contract a year ago, the officials blocked other firms from competing.

Siga was awarded the final contract in May through a "sole-source" procurement in which it was the only company asked to submit a proposal. The contract calls for Siga to deliver 1.7 million doses of the drug for the nation's biodefense stockpile. The price of approximately $255 per dose is well above what the government's specialists had earlier said was reasonable, according to internal documents and interviews.

Once feared for its grotesque pustules and 30% death rate, smallpox was eradicated worldwide as of 1978 and is known to exist only in the locked freezers of a Russian scientific institute and the U.S. government. There is no credible evidence that any other country or a terrorist group possesses smallpox.

If there were an attack, the government could draw on $1 billion worth of smallpox vaccine it already owns to inoculate the entire U.S. population and quickly treat people exposed to the virus. The vaccine, which costs the government $3 per dose, can reliably prevent death when given within four days of exposure.

Siga's drug, an antiviral pill called ST-246, would be used to treat people who were diagnosed with smallpox too late for the vaccine to help. Yet the new drug cannot be tested for effectiveness in people because of ethical constraints — and no one knows whether animal testing could prove it would work in humans.

The government's pursuit of Siga's product raises the question: Should the U.S. buy an unproven drug for such a nebulous threat?

"We've got a vaccine that I hope we never have to use — how much more do we need?" said Dr. Donald A. "D.A." Henderson, the epidemiologist who led the global eradication of smallpox for the World Health Organization and later helped organize U.S. biodefense efforts under President George W. Bush. "The bottom line is, we've got a limited amount of money."

Read the rest at the link above...