The B12 (XII) Forum, home of the 'Front Porch, y'all' at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

I'd much rather have a beer with someone on welfare and pay for their suds than someone living in a house 4 times the size of mine that cheats the tax code and defaults on the loan for the fancy vehicles, toys and house, even if they were picking up the tab at the bar.

I never thought about prioritizing moochers.

The worst case of government waste and bureaucracy I've ever personally witnessed was in the military.  There is a staggering level of "make work" and "justifying one's existence" going on in there, and frankly just a lot of globe trotting and partying at the US taxpayers' expense.

My little window on this:  

I was a C-130 crew member in the USMC, and flew all over the globe on "training missions" for three years (the first year in was all about making it through boot camp, then avionics school, then navigation school, and the attrition rate was high so to be fair being a C130 nav wasn't an easy MOS, i.e. military occupational specialty, to achieve).  To stay current, we each had to log at least 4 hours a month in the air, and take at least one overseas trip every (can't remember, maybe every quarter).  In addition to getting us to where we had to go as a navigator (which wasn't easy as this was pre-GPS days, and so the over ocean nav was done with a sextant and absolute altimeter), one of my main tasks when we landed at a base somewhere was to go to the barracks, declare them unfit for aircrew and then secure posh hotel accommodations out in "the ville."  Sometimes I had to sweet talk the barracks folks, but I always came back with the "unfit for aircrew" stamp on our flight orders.  Folks were happy with me as part of the crew.

Once we flew from Okinawa down to Singapore for an electronics upgrade, and stayed there a week in a four-star hotel, acting like tourists, eating out like kings on government per diem (in a high rate city) and doing a lot of sight seeing etc.  The hotel was the turn down your covers, chocolate on the pillow variety, and we each had our own room.  This trip was memorable because we visited a zoo with an extensive crocodile exhibit that would have made even the late Steve Irwin nervous, news came via the newspaper at my hotel door that Anwar Sadat was assassinated, and I spent a lot of time one night trying to pick up a transvestite before I realized that good looking "girl" had more "features" than I was up for: my own Carl Pilkington moment!

I'm sure in my four years alone I probably accounted for easily half a million in government tax dollars spent, and more probably more than that really, if you include all the airplane fuel, maintenance, etc, and just portion it out as my fraction of the aircrew and accumulate it over time.  Never saw combat, although we were always ready, just like the other 2 million or whatever troops we have on call every day to "defend" American interests on nearly every corner of this planet.

Anyway, I just want to say to anyone who was paying taxes during 1978-1982, thanks man!

I was a supply specialist (MOS 76Y) in Heidelberg, Germany in 1984-1986.   At the end of each fiscal year we had to go spend all of our allocated funds.  So we would go buy 2500 bottles of WhiteOut so we would get our full allocation next year.  Pissing away tax money to maintain leverage was just dispiriting. Nevertheless I am a hardcore Democrat who believes in Keynesian economics as opposed to the supply-side idiocy which has never worked, ever, except to enrich Republican donors

I hate face filters.   I particularly hate face filters that make people look like animals.  I particularly despise people who never post pictures without those stupid animal-looking face filter.

I have a 40 year old niece who posts ten pictures of herself to Facebook a day and I feel like I haven't seen her in years because she looks like a damn puppy in single picture she posts.

There ought to be a law.  Or at least a limit.  Jeez.

on this same line....... there's obviously the credit card debt deal
but then,
commercial on the local radio here selling death insurance - they pay for the funeral/burial when you die.
the commercial states that the most anyone can expect the government to pay for a burial is $500 or so.
I suppose it falls to the government, but I don't like the idea of the government paying for funerals.

They should have carts running down city streets with criers yelling, "Bring out your dead."
Ever notice how murder victims are almost always found in "shallow" graves.   Obviously it's a whole lot harder to dig a decent grave than to kill somebody.
That would be especially true in central Texas where we sometime have to blast to plant trees.

perhaps a mobile crematorium????

complete with recycled Folger's cans

The Big Lebowski - Donny's ashes - YouTube

so you could have dual crematorium with a wood chipper where you could choose between dry or wet fertilizer 

cant wait for the next Fargo series to come out

I really liked the Billy Bob Thornton one