A Truth Journal: Cool WTF? Government Officials Are Voluntarily Giving Up Salaries Back to Taxpayers?

Tired dogs (Photo credit: jimbob!)

A Truth Journal: Cool WTF? Government Officials Are Voluntarily Giving Up Salaries Back to Taxpayers?: From Denny:  Just when we are all so furiously angered at the selfishness of our government officials for the usual screw-ups, pure laziness and lack of will to make positive corrections, there happens to be two of them that rose above and beyond the call of duty.  Yes, there are two federal officials that have landed in the Admiration Corner today.  These two men are class acts.

Turns out the sequestration mess caused high levels of Pentagon civilian employee furloughs - to the tune of 750,000 people.  The plan was to lay off these unhappy folks for 22 days but that has been cut back to 14 days.  Still, it isn't easy to lose one of your paychecks - even though it's spread out over many months through September.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced that huge block of civilian furloughs will save $2.5 billion for the Pentagon budget.  The sequestration across-the-board budget cuts went into effect on 1 March which amounts to $41 billion.  This $2.5 billion employee furlough will be tacked to that reduction.

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Dennys Global Politics: Afghanistan: Soldier Killed Civilians. Defund The Army, End The War Now

Capitol Hill (Photo credit: The U.S. Army)

Dennys Global Politics: Afghanistan: Soldier Killed Civilians. Defund The Army, End The War Now: From Denny:  With Republicans so fond of pleasing their puppeteer war profiteers, they now find themselves in a quandary.  You see, the Republicans have boxed themselves into a corner, and, with it being an election year, they are cooked.

Republicans are big on deficit plans no matter how unrealistic.  Now they are faced with reducing the size of the active Army troops to the point the military can no longer run a two-front - or soon to be multi-front - war.  Another 100,000 ground troops will have to be slashed to meet the criteria of the $1.2 trillion budget cuts.

Chief of Staff General Ray Odierno whined to members of the Senate Armed Services Committee about his situation.  However can he secure his status to retire at a high pension and then acquire that all-coveted position of newly found wealth with his handler lobbyists and crappy think tanks?

Supposedly, it is the failure of the lawmaker supercommittee to agree on a deficit-reduction plan that caused this hardship for the Army.  But is it really?

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The Social Poets: Heated Politics and Summer Heatwave Kill The Vulnerable

Photo by saturnism @ flickr

The Social Poets: Heated Politics and Summer Heatwave Kill The Vulnerable: "From Denny: Congress and President Obama have so slashed the federal budget on the backs of the low-income and retired Americans that many are dying in this heatwave. What has happened?

Federal weather assistance fund broke

About $5 billion from a federal fund is spread around the states every year to help subsidize those households in need of covering their heating and cooling bills. The usual gamesmanship in Washington is now wrecking havoc on the most personal level.

Our federal government generally reserves several hundred million dollars to distribute during weather emergencies. We have certainly seen our fair share of weather emergencies for several years now.

America has the most violent and extreme weather of any nation on the planet. Just this one year we have experienced monster hurricanes, tornados wiping out whole towns, raging floods from the Spring snow melt, fires from drought-striken areas of the country, extreme cold in the winter and now extreme heat this summer.

That emergency weather fund used to be $590 million but recently Congress slashed it by almost two-thirds to only $200 million. Why is that significant? Before the heatwave began the fund went dry, completely empty of assistance monies."