Missouri’s 5th Congressional District Representative Emanuel Cleaver posts the area’s earmarks. The good news, he’s sticking to the transparency commitment and a giving heart. The bad news, the country has a twelve trillion dollar debt and we’re hading out money.
Is this buying votes or doing his job? A good question I think. He is bringing federal dollars to the district, but it’s really being paid by a “you owe me” as opposed to an I owe you. The money that is being sent to Washington is not enough to cover all the earmarks and other spending.
This shows that Representative Cleaver, as most Democrats, does not truly understand the plight of the United States. We spend money like we had it. We don’t! We owe $12,000,000,000,000 dollars. Expenditures are expected to be $3,550,000,000,000. Revenues for 2010 are estimated to be $2,381,000,000,000. That leaves us in a deficit just before we get started, $1,169,000,000,000 to add to the current debt. If you and I ran our home like this, we’d call it BROKE. The USA is broke.
So, if you’re broke, why are we spending more money on things like:
$500,000,000 to Jackson County for a regional transit system
$ 24,000,000 to Mid America Regional Council for the acquit ion of the Rock Island Corridor.
There are many more in the list (http://www.house.gov/cleaver/pdf/earmarks.pdf) take a look at it for yourself. As this one question as you read it:
If I were broke, where I owe more than 5 full years of revenue (you and I would call it income), and I have a budget for this immediate year that is more than 1.5 years worth on income would I feel good about putting these earmarks in place?
You may say, “Well, everyone is doing it, and it’s a good thing Representative Cleaver is bring home our taxes.” To that I’d ask you this question: Is it right to dig a deeper hole when we’re all ready bankrupt?
Lee’s Summit is tightening its belt and controlling expenses (April 6, 2010 we will vote for those who are the best at containing our expenditures, and investing wisely in our future).
The Missouri House or Representatives have voted on significant cost cutting measures for 2011 Budget:
- MO 2011 Budget trimmed by more than $224 million, the deficit at the start was over $220 million. The House is concerned about the $900 million dollars of proposed expenditures finance by the Federal stimulus funds.
- MO House of Representatives Operational Budget Cut by $500,000.00
- MO Hose of Representative Monthly Expense Accounts cut by $390,000
If the MO House of Representatives can find a way to balance the budget, shouldn’t Emanuel Cleaver take a hint, cut costs, cut spending, and demand that the budget be reined in? In my opinion to spend 1 penny that’s not in our coffers, is stealing from the tax payers.
We need fiscally conservative people in Lee’s Summit, in Missouri and in Washington. Emanuel Cleaver spends too freely. A good heart and a good intention has to be backed with a bank account. Not with “I owe you’s” that are truly you owe me. Congress and Emanuel Cleaver gets the credit, we get the bill. That’s not what we need in Washington.
Respectfully Submitted
The Lee’s Summit Conservative.
April 19, 2010 at 4:18 pm
More than earmarks and back scratching on the hill, what concerns me is the attitude of “Let them eat cake” by some of our representatives; people elected to bring the concerns of their constituents to the Hill but instead are showing by their internal spending records that they are out of step with the people they represent.
Here in California, while 22,000 teachers are waiting on tenterhooks to find out if they will have a job we have an assemblyman giving out raises to his staff to the tune of $65,000 – just one example and there are many many other government offices that are still handing out raises while in the private sector they are handing out pink slips.
It’s time we, the people, started handing out pink slips based upon performance, but this requires work on our parts to educate ourselves on the workings of our government and to keep ourselves informed as to the activities of our representatives and not be content to know only what is spoon-fed to us at election time. You are very right when you say that if we ran our homes the way the government runs the country, we’d be broke. Let’s take that a step further – if we maintained hiring and firing practices in our places of business the way we select our representatives, our businesses would fold.
Performance, not rhetoric. Facts, not scare tactics. And its OUR responsibility as citizens to make the changes needed.
Amber