Page 368 – Taxpayers Protection Alliance

Taxpayers Can’t Afford Natural Gas Subsidies

Post author:David Williams
Post published:May 11, 2012
Post category:David Williams Energy Natural Gas Taxpayers Protection Alliance

Usually when the government offers your hard-earned tax dollars to an energy company, the money goes to a start-up company in a “promising” industry. The logic, albeit flawed, is that the company requires only a minuscule amount of seed money to catapult it beyond the valley of death and make it commercially competitive in the marketplace. The fact of the matter is this sort of subsidy rarely works. Either the industry is hooked for life on government dollars or it fails and your tax dollars go down the drain with it. If subsidies were truly successful, the country would be filled with cars running on hydrogen. Even though Solyndra has received all the attention lately, don’t be fooled into thinking that the government only distributes subsidies to nascent industries. When it comes to distributing your tax dollars to pet interests, the government is an equal opportunity dispenser. And, by no means does it discriminate against those sectors that are already very profitable and have no need for government funds. Rest assured that the government spreads your wealth – that is rightly yours – among many industries. One of its favorites du jour is the natural gas industry.

Playland Amusement Park Takes Taxpayers for a Ride

Post author:Taxpayers Protection Alliance
Post published:May 11, 2012
Post category:Drew Johnson Taxpayers Protection Alliance

(Drew Johnson is a Senior Fellow at the Taxpayers Protection Alliance) Local governments across America own and operate a ridiculous array of recreational venues at the expense of taxpayers. Golf courses, waterparks, concert venues, museums and movie theaters are frequently purchased or built on the taxpayers’ dime and run (poorly) by government bureaucrats, resulting in billions of wasted tax dollars every year. But only one local government – Westchester County, New York – is careless enough with taxpayers’ hard-earned money to waste it on a failing amusement park. Playland, located in the Westchester County shorefront community of Rye, is scheduled to open for its 2012 season this Saturday, May 12. The 84-year-old amusement park, as it turns out, is not very amusing to the county taxpayers who have to shell out seven-figure subsidies every year to keep the park in business. In 2011 alone, bailing out the insolvent park cost county taxpayers $3.4 million.

Taxpayers Can’t Afford Natural Gas Subsidies

Post author:David Williams
Post published:May 11, 2012
Post category:David Williams Energy Natural Gas

Usually when the government offers your hard-earned tax dollars to an energy company, the money goes to a start-up company in a “promising” industry. The logic, albeit flawed, is that the company requires only a minuscule amount of seed money to catapult it beyond the valley of death and make it commercially competitive in the marketplace. The fact of the matter is this sort of subsidy rarely works. Either the industry is hooked for life on government dollars or it fails and your tax dollars go down the drain with it. If subsidies were truly successful, the country would be filled with cars running on hydrogen. Even though Solyndra has received all the attention lately, don’t be fooled into thinking that the government only distributes subsidies to nascent industries. When it comes to distributing your tax dollars to pet interests, the government is an equal opportunity dispenser. And, by no means does it discriminate against those sectors that are already very profitable and have no need for government funds. Rest assured that the government spreads your wealth – that is rightly yours – among many industries. One of its favorites du jour is the natural gas industry.

No More Excuses or Taxpayer Money for the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS)

Post author:David Williams
Post published:May 9, 2012
Post category:Appropriations David Williams Defense Taxpayers Protection Alliance

The Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) is running out of time, excuses, and hopefully taxpayer funding. This is happening while the evidence supporting the elimination of funding for Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 for the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) keeps growing. Originally conceived as the replacement to the Patriot missile system, MEADS is being jointly built by the United States, Italy, and Germany with the Americans shouldering more than 50 percent of the cost. Even though the Army doesn’t want the project, there was an additional $800 million allocated for MEADS through 2013 (including $400 million in President Obama’s latest budget). One of the biggest roadblocks to halting the program was the potential termination costs to be incurred by American taxpayers. However, a new report by the Pentagon shows Congress that they can defund the program without the fear of termination costs. According to a letter from Frank Kendall (Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics) to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, if Congress cuts off funding for MEADS now, not only will there will be no termination costs, the government will actually save money.

TPAPB: TPA Urges a “NO” Vote on the Reauthorization of the Bloated, Bureaucratic, and Ineffective Export-Import Bank

Post author:David Williams
Post published:May 8, 2012
Post category:Corporate Welfare David Williams Ex-Im Bank Taxpayers Protection Alliance

Tomorrow (May 9), the House of Representatives is slated to vote on the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank. The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) is urging a “NO” vote on the bill. Congress is looking to reauthorize the bank for three years that expands the bank’s borrowing authority by $40 billion. Billions of dollars per year are wasted in risky loans, atrocious business deals and the mishandling of taxpayer's money. In 1934, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt established the Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank. The original purpose of the bank was to protect American companies by providing them loans in hopes of leveling the playing field against state-subsidized foreign competitors. As time passed, it grew, eventually becoming a bloated government agency with no oversight and little semblance to the bank established by Roosevelt and a classic example of corporate welfare. (click here to see full TPAPB).

Export Import Bank: New Deal Program Needs a Makeover

Post author:David Williams
Post published:May 4, 2012
Post category:Congress David Williams Ex-Im Bank Taxpayers Protection Alliance

Back in 1934, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6581, effectively establishing the Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank. The original purpose of Roosevelt’s Ex-Im Bank was to protect American companies by providing them loans with the hope that they would put domestic companies on a level playing field with foreign competitors, who were also subsidized by their respective governments. For years, Ex-Im played its proper role, but as time passed, it grew, eventually becoming a bloated government agency with no oversight and little semblance to the bank established by Roosevelt and a classic example of corporate welfare. Now there is a move to re-evaluate the necessity of the Ex-Im Bank. According to The Hill, “House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) are close to striking a deal on reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank, sources said Thursday [May 3]….The Ex-Im Bank reauthorization in past years has been largely non-controversial, but with the rise of Tea Party conservatives in the House it has been difficult this year. Conservative groups like the Club for Growth oppose the bank on principle as a government subsidy, even though technically the bank pays for its own activities through fees charged to customers.” The reason for this re-evaluation is partly due to the bank being shrouded in controversy. It has consistently exercised inexcusably poor judgment. It has given risky loans to companies are like Air India, which is billions of dollars in debt and is in the process of being bailed out by its government. Going further, Ex-Im has subsidized corrupt and now bankrupt companies such as Enron and Solyndra. Ex-Im’s failures are alarming, but what is more disturbing is the fact that the government has failed to diligently oversee and reign in the Bank’s risky expenditures.

Taxpayers on the Hook with New Catfish Regulation

Post author:David Williams
Post published:May 2, 2012
Post category:Agriculture Catfish Food and Drug Administration Regulation Taxpayers Protection Alliance

Hillbilly Handfishin’ and River Monsters are two television reality programs that show the struggle of catching catfish. At the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and in the halls of Congress there is another catfish struggle. This one is between those that want to save an unnecessary bureaucracy and those that want to downsize government and save taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. According to an April 29, 2012 article in The Hill, “As the 2012 farm bill moves to the Senate floor, a scuffle has intensified over the inspection of catfish. The battle pits the southern catfish industry and its supporters against a wider coalition of agriculture groups and fiscal conservatives.’ Last year Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) led the fight against the new regulation. This year, they continue the battle joined by a group of 17 senators from both sides of the political aisle. Even though seafood is inspected by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), there is a move to have foreign catfish put under the purview of the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) inspection regime. While this may sound benign, it is a move that could drive up prices, add layers of bureaucracy to an industry that doesn’t need it and burden taxpayers with yet another expensive bureaucracy which could cost up to $30 million.

TPA Joins Opposition to Black Box Mandate

Post author:David Williams
Post published:April 30, 2012
Post category:Congress David Williams Taxpayers Protection Alliance

The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) joined the effort to oppose the Black Box Mandate. The proposed law would require all cars sold in the United States from 2015 forward to be equipped with a black box data recording device, similar to those currently found on airplanes. The Black Box Mandate would give the government huge amounts of personal data regarding the habits and movements of private citizens. This legislation not only violates Americans’ protected rights, but burdens manufacturers with an onerous new regulation whose cost will eventually be passed down to the consumer. Visit http://www.blackboxmandate.org to view the pledge and read the full text of the Black Box Mandate.

Defending the Country and Tax Dollars Becoming Non-Partisan

Post author:David Williams
Post published:April 27, 2012
Post category:David Williams Defense Taxpayers Protection Alliance

In our current environment of hyper-partisan politics, it's rare that Republicans and Democrats publicly agree on anything (particularly moving into the heat of a presidential election). However, on March 12, 2012, a bipartisan group of senators, including John Cornyn (R-TX), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY) penned an unexpected, yet necessary, letter (read here) to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. The letter outlined grave concerns over a recent disturbing pattern by the Department of Defense (DOD) to use American tax dollars to procure military weaponry and aircraft from corrupt foreign countries hostile to U.S. national security interests, and from foreign companies supplying these corrupt nations (including Syria) with weapons used to commit mass atrocities against their own people. The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) supports these senators and calls on the Obama administration to explain to the American people its reasons for taking such actions, which threaten the safety and security of thousands of men and women currently serving in the United States military.

Expensive and Unnecessary Missile System Needs to be Terminated

Post author:David Williams
Post published:April 24, 2012
Post category:David Williams Defense Senate Taxpayers Protection Alliance

The Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) is a case study in a weapons system that is both not needed and expensive. The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) has written about the many problems with MEADS, including the cost overruns and congressional shenanigans, for the past year (read previous posts here and here). But, terminating a weapons system is herculean work since there are usually congressional supporters that keep the program on life support system despite evidence that it should be terminated. The fiscal year (FY) 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) even states that this year’s funds of $400 million would be the last of the obligations, yet the Army requested $400 million for FY 2013. Nearly $2 billion has already been spent by the U.S. on the design and development phase, and yet the program will never be built or used by the military. A recent bi-partisan letter spearheaded by Senate Armed Services Committee members Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Mark Begich (D-Alaska) to the leadership of the Senate Armed Services and Appropriations committees gets to the heart of why funding for MEADS should terminated immediately. According to the letter (read full letter with all the signatories and press release here), “The Department of Defense has stated that it does not intend to procure MEADS. Facing a serious fiscal crisis, we cannot afford to spend a single additional dollar on a weapons system such as MEADS that our warfighters will never use.”