SAVING THE COUNTRY: Helping “Sheriff Joe”

Sheriff Joey B. Image via Wikipedia

I’m on The President’s email list, and while I’m offended at how they use it most of the time for empty propaganda, it does occasionally give me some interesting food for thought. This email came today “from the VP”:

Good morning,

Did you know that the government spends millions to maintain buildings that have sat vacant for years? Or that your tax dollars pay to needlessly ship copies of the Federal Register to thousands of government offices across the country even though the same information is available online?

And I bet you didn’t know that your tax dollars pay for a website dedicated to the Desert Tortoise. I’m sure it’s a wonderful species, but we can’t afford to have a standalone site devoted to every member of the animal kingdom. It’s just one of hundreds of government websites that should be consolidated or eliminated.

This kind of waste is just unacceptable. Particularly at a time when we’re facing tough decisions about reducing our deficit, it’s a no-brainer to stop spending taxpayer dollars on things that benefit nobody.

That’s why President Obama asked me to head up the Campaign to Cut Waste—a new effort to root out wasteful spending at every agency and department in the Federal Government.

Like millions of American families, the Federal Government has to take a hard look at spending and live within its means…

…And that’s exactly what I intend to do with the help of a new Government Accountability and Transparency Board, a group composed of independent inspectors general and high-level agency officials who will help me root out waste, fraud and abuse across the government. Helping me ensure that your tax dollars are being spent on things that matter, like investments in education, innovation and improving our infrastructure.

Sincerely,
Vice President Joe Biden

P.S. If you’re interested in keeping up with our progress in hunting down wasteful spending, you can sign up for regular email updates.

Here’s the reply I sent back that he’ll never see:

Dear VP/Sherriff Joe:

Put me on the committee and mail me a copy of the accounts. I’ll be happy to red-line until I run out of ink. For starters, how about we combine resources and scale back the 10+ levels of law enforcement we have watching over every American?

Maybe we could get rid of lifelong pensions for senators that only serve for a couple years as well. That job was never intended to be lucrative, it was intended to be a service. The burden that paying for elderly statesmen that spent their tenure gouging their constituency puts on the US income is gross and borderline treasonous.

Seriously, I’d be happy to help, just give me a ring.

Mat Weller

Reading, PA

matweller.com

My question to you is this: what programs or other government funded ventures do you know of that we could do without? I’m not talking about the urban legend-y $5 Million study to find out why kids fall off bikes, I mean things you actually know about.

My favorite part of the movie Dave is when the fake President and his friend stay up all night red-lining useless waste from the budget. I have often fantasized at how different this world would be if I could do that.

I’m going to keep this post open and add more things I think about as they come to me, and I welcome you to do the same.