We are reviewing the $1.7 trillion US government spending bill which is 4000 pages – designed carefully not to be read- !
It was passed in December 2022. We wanted to make sure you don’t quickly forget about it – because it is a gigantic foolish spending with YOUR taxpayer dollars.
$153.8 billion on food stamps
$2.2 billion for international food aid
$1.92 billion for farm programs
…and many more…
Read on to find out.
Good morning, I’m Austerity Jones. You are calling this episode the cesspool of fools, that can’t be good.
C Thomas: Good morning. It isn’t good, but sometimes we have to hear things we don’t want to hear and that are unpopular.
Austerity: You aren’t going to tell everyone to go away again are you?
C Thomas: No, I want them to all listen to the end today. Do you like to go shopping?
Austerity: Yes.
C Thomas: Well, you would love the American government because when they go shopping they spend $1.7 trillion 😉
Let’s review just some of what and who they bought for $1.7 trillion. The bill is about 4,000 pages long and no one had the time to read it before it was voted on, this is done by design so everyone in that cesspool of fools known as congress can spend money to ensure that their people get “something” for voting for them. Let’s take a short trip down the summary of appropriations, a quick 53-page recap if you will of the 4,000 page bill big enchilada.
Let’s start with food:
The cesspool of fools spent $153.8 billion on the SNAP program which is food stamps by the fancy name. This includes the language “This fully funds participation, as well as the SNAP enhanced allotments authorized by the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.” That was the huge 25% increase to the permanent monthly spend in October 2021. Remember the last time you could afford a steak, that was October 2021. I’m not sure why this increase was in a coronavirus bill, but I do understand that when 43 million people are receiving food stamps that the politicians love spending other people’s money to get those votes.
The cesspool of fools spent $2.2 billion for international food aid including $1.75 billion for Food for Peace grants providing food assistance across six continents. Well, gee that is really sweet of you, but the United States doesn’t reside on six continents, it resides on one. I don’t think we need to be spending US tax dollars to support another government’s failures around the globe until we have taken care of our own kitchen.
The cesspool of fools spent $1.92 billion for farm programs. Farmers need to drive new pick-up trucks and farming the government has proven to be far more lucrative than tilling the soil. Animal and plant health programs’ final bill was $1.174 billion going to eradicate plant and animal pests and diseases to US rural producers. Another $1.034 in farming conservation collars were given to farmers, ranchers, and private landowners to do nothing with their land. Do nothing and get a check, that is the American way. The good news is that this was the most fiscally conservative program in the government, the Agriculture, Rural development, FDA, and related agencies only getting a 3% increase YoY for a total spend of $25.5 billion. I guess Congress doesn’t care about the flyover states, there just aren’t enough votes.
The cesspool of fools used the Commerce, Justice, Science and related agencies to spend $84.2 billion an increase of 7.8%. I didn’t even know what this included, but here are some of my favourites. The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) got $191 million, a 35% increase to advance US national security through effective export control. I don’t even know what this word salad means. The MBDA got $70 million, the Minority Business Development Agency, that is. The cesspool of fools give money for business development if you aren’t a straight white male I presume. I will keep looking for how much money they will receive in this budget since we are taught to not see race, color, or gender.
The cesspool of fools spent $38.7 billion in the Department of Justice for an increase of 10% YoY. This fully funds the First Step Act, signed by President Trump, which allows for early release of federal prisoners and costs $409.5 million. The first result of this legislation was judges began sentencing people to shorter sentences getting these offenders back on our streets more quickly, one highlight was all pre- 2010 crack cocaine offenders became immediately eligible for this program according to the Brennan Center. In 2020, the national murder rate rose nearly 30%, the largest single year uptick in US history, and we have defunded the police since then which ironically is a reduction in government spending haha! Let’s just save this $409 million and let criminals do the time they were sentenced to do. The cesspool of fools also gave US Attorneys $2.63 billion, a 8.8% increase, to further support prosecutions related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and domestic terrorism cases. Listen if you want to give rich attorneys that want to become tomorrow’s politicians a raise above the inflation rate that can be debated and I won’t like it, but just do it and stop insulting my intelligence with this window dressing.
The cesspool of fools spent $797.7 billion on defense, a 9.5% increase. This includes $27.9 billion as part of the fourth instalment to Ukraine. If you want to spend money on defense please spend it on US citizens. The cesspool of fools spent $2B to confront the climate crisis. Not overall, but in the Defense budget. Are the bullets made of lead and affecting native geese populations? The cesspool of fools spent $8.6 for gender advisor programs in the defense budget. I uggh, what? Uggh? Finally, there was $1 million for the renaming of installations, facilities, roads, and streets that bear the name of confederate leaders and officers. Let the rewashing of history continue if you like, but please stop using my taxpayer money to do so. The cesspool of fools spent $170 million on foreign disaster relief, humanitarian assistance and humanitarian mine action program, which and this is not a typo, was $57 million higher than the budget request or 50% higher than the budget request! Not last year, above what was asked? Now who is this money going to? No one even asked for it? This is reprehensible. $1.51 billion for International Security Cooperation Programs including $350 million for US allies facing Russian aggression, $500 million to Jordan for enhanced border security, and $485.4 million which is also $6 million higher than the request.
The cesspool of fools spent $54.65 billion on Energy and Water Development and this includes some doozies like The Army Corps of Engineers will spend $2.106 billion including $885 million above the request, 72% above the request! People, what are these idiots doing?
The cesspool of fools spent $324M in the department of the Treasury to help struggling businesses in underserved communities. An underserved community is one where the private market doesn’t think they will see a return on their capital investment, so when a business is struggling there, it backs up the theory that private markets will invest where they can see a return on their investment. This is where the government chooses to invest tax-payer dollars. People we will never see a return on this investment ever, it’s a great big bonfire of $324M one-dollar bills. The market has spoken and The cesspool of fools doesn’t listen.
The cesspool of fools spent $4M to help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS in Washington DC. Don’t do drugs, don’t have unprotected sex, and especially don’t have unprotected sex if it is gay sex. There, please send a check for $4M to C Thomas Printer awareness aficionado to the DC region. If you don’t hear from us next week, you will know that my check from the government has come in, people! I’m going to party with your money America, your tax dollars!
Please tell me that you, the listener, are as offended by the cesspool of fool’s nonsense as I am as I only made it through 1/3 of the summary and was picking and choosing sporadically. I would be very unhappy if this was all paid for by tax revenues, but the fact that we are going to run a $1 trillion deficit this year and seeing people like Republican senator Dr. Rand Paul release his “Festivus” report detailing $482 billion in wasteful government spending makes me think long and hard. I’m sorry Dr. Paul, but, and let me round up here, $500 billion is not enough to be considered wasteful spending. We can’t pay for $1T and probably more we shall see. That means that you have to find double that amount in your “Festivus” report.
The risk in allowing all of this financing of debt is what happens when the debt isn’t purchased? We are only able to do this through the selling of US treasuries and the fact that we have the world’s reserve currency and a great big printing press. When the world rejects those two vehicles, we won’t cut $500 billion Dr. Paul, we will be forced to cut it all. Pop quiz hot shot- Our national debt will be $32 trillion next year and our interest rate is projected to be 5% so what percent of our defense budget is the interest alone going to be on our debt?
Austerity: I don’t know, 40%?
C Thomas: Try 200%, that’s right. It is game over. I’m not saying that to be dramatic. I’m deadly serious. The game of America is over. At that level painful choices have to be made inflate or cut and raise. We pay off the debt by allowing rampant inflation for a few years or we cut spending and raise taxes. We can also do a hybrid model but let me give you a glimpse of what that might look like. We would have to cut social security in a time of high inflation, how politically feasible is that? We can cut all these pork projects and more that we just mentioned, but remember that it is someone’s living we are cutting, so how politically feasible is that? We would have to dramatically raise taxes in a time of high inflation, how politically feasible is that? OR we just keep printing dollars and continuing on with our lifestyles, that sounds pretty good and is certainly feasible, but there is one little problem with that. The rest of the world must buy our dollars as we care more and more into debt and when they realize that our dollar might not be the dependable source of trade that it once was, I repeat, it is game over.
Most countries don’t get this luxury of spending beyond their means for long without being punished by the market forces with crippling inflation. The cesspool of fools has worked their entire public lives in government without realizing this. They think they are above the market, rules don’t apply to them, and that is precisely the hubris that brings about a decline in an empire. When we look at what China, Russia, India, Venezuela, and Iran are building around the world with regards to dollar alternatives and then frame that knowing they control almost half of the world’s proven petroleum reserves, we see our future. A dilapidated hubris filled fat ass with a printing press telling hungry up and comers that we don’t want the world to change. To which these other countries reply, “unfortunately fat ass, you are no longer in a position to decide.” The reason we aren’t in a position to decide is due to the cesspool of fools. If that requires you to be outraged and you choose to direct your anger at C Thomas that’s fine, you will see the truest motives of the cooperative. Our first goal here is to make you think, and I believe the American people know this at some level and choose to ignore it, but I believe more and more people don’t even know.
When the American people realize this house of cards will fall, they will make the January 6 capital riots look like a tee ball game OR we can use the framework that our founding fathers put in place to enact non-violent change and transition the power from those with the bad ideas to the those with the good. That would require today’s uneducated and uninformed voters to vote for better candidates that would be able to bring about change. That would require the American people to put someone else’s needs in front of their own, not in a charitable way but in a way of I have enough I don’t need this covid handout, or this tax break, or this stimulus check, but you all took them and spent them didn’t you? That would require the American people to stop voting themselves handouts and easy street retirements, and set their children up for a better future. It seems a cesspool of fools has been representing a cesspool of fools all along.
Then I guess we will do as the Bible says in Galatians Chapter 6 verse 7
“for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.”
Reap it America.
Sincerely Yours,
C Thomas Printer
Resources of the episode