Name:	Casey -	Reply
Subject:	To my fellow fiscal conservatives....
Date:	3/27/2018 6:31:42 PM

....how do we justify this? Trump's billionaire-filled Cabinet has been unbelievable. Mnuchin has squandered almost $1 milllion on 8 trips on military aircraft. Carson attempted to spend $31,000 on a dining room set (and, as an aside, figuratively threw his wife 'under the bus'. Would not have wanted to be in the room with them after his lame excuse!) Pruitt has been flying first class with a squandron of bodyguards. Zinke, who insists that a ceremonial flag be raised whenever he's in headquarters, spent $139,000 on a 'Secretary's Door' for his office. I don't think Trump is 'draining the swamp' at all! Imagine the outcry from the Republicans (and my fellow forum posters) if Obama's Cabinet had done such.

Name:	architect -	Reply
Subject:	To my fellow fiscal conservatives....
Date:	3/27/2018 6:54:04 PM

Good comments and questions Casey.  Don't hold your breath expecting any reasonable answers from this bunch of hypocrits...almost all have taken another big swig of KoolAide, adjusted their blinders and then stuck their heads back in the hole!

Name:	lakngulf -	Reply
Subject:	To my fellow fiscal conservatives....
Date:	3/27/2018 9:27:26 PM

Glad to know I have fellow fiscal conservatives on board...

Don't like it one bit, don't like the $4000 potties for military,

Don't like the billions that get lost during a war

(Did you view all the waste that Greta uncovered when she had her show on TV?)  sad

Don't like the millions spent on crazy "green" projects

Don't like the 1.3 T budget just passed, with all the PMBIWPYB spending.

It will be difficult to clear this slime from the swamp, but China will make us do it one of these days.

What do you think?

Name:	Talullahhound -	Reply
Subject:	To my fellow fiscal conservatives....
Date:	3/28/2018 8:18:48 AM

I happen to agree that these expenses are an outrageous waste of the taxpayers money.  And people in government are supposed to be good stewards of the taxpayers money.  I guess they didn't get their ethics briefings.  

I do understand that Carson has cancelled the dining room set.  And the other guy has agreed to reimbursed the government for his air travel.  

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	To hypocritical liberals
Date:	3/28/2018 8:52:51 AM

Never heard much about Michelle Obama flying her own 757 to vacation so she can get there a day earlier than Obama.  So putting the hyporcisy and sudden fiscal conservativism of liberals aside, it is indeed disgraceful and one of many reasons why I am for limited federal government. 

There is something corrupting about government that causes people to lose all sense of fiscal restraint and why I believe we should shrink the size of government dramatically.  I would also be remiss if I didn't point out that these expenses, while outrageous, is a literal drop in the bucket when it comes to government spending.  We literally waste billions each year on welfare, medicade and social security fraud every year.  So if some politician were to have the courage to address the real issue of government profligacy and waste I would be more than happy to have them fly first class and buy expensive doors and dining sets.  They will have earned it!  But alas, given the current situation these guys deserve all the abuse they are getting. 

I just wish the media and liberals were as fiscally conservative when Obama added $9 trillion to our national debt in 8 years.  But given their lack of silence then and their whining about these pittances today leads me to believe this is all about politics and they could give a rats behind about government spending.  At little intellectual honesty and consistency would be nice but I long ago gave up on liberals having any sense of the irony of the positions they are taking today.

Name:	phil -	Reply
Subject:	To my fellow fiscal conservatives....
Date:	3/28/2018 8:56:54 AM

Agree - highly disappointed with the bipartisian budget monster.

Name:	Casey -	Reply
Subject:	To hypocritical liberals
Date:	3/28/2018 9:58:58 AM

I must respond to you, MartiniMan. Your first sentence is just NOT TRUE. No taxpayer money went for that. The Obamas paid for the additional days and flight home. Check the fact-checking sites if you think I am wrong. I could get snarky here and also ask you to fact-check the cost to the taxpayers of Trump's golf trips to Mara Lago ($61,742,867 at last count). Also, Obama did add the most to our debt but partly in response to the worst recession since the Great Depression and some of the debt was attributable to bills passed by his predecessor. The President that added the second greatest amount was George W Bush, but he had to deal with the 9/11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina. I don't agree that, for liberals only, it's all about politics and party as to what is acceptable and what is not. I think many things that Trump and administration are doing would not have been acceptable to many Conservatives if those same things had been done by a President that was a Democrat. So maybe the subject of this posting should not just include liberals, eh?

Name:	CRD -	Reply
Subject:	To hypocritical liberals
Date:	3/28/2018 10:33:20 AM

Fact check this Casey....

200 Billion goes overseas every year to third world s**t hole countries and yet people complain about a dining room set.  

Name:	MartiniMan -	Reply
Subject:	To hypocritical liberals
Date:	3/28/2018 10:49:48 AM

I don't disagree that some conservatives can be hypocrites, but I am responding to your post calling out conservatives and claiming to be a fellow fiscal hawk.  I defy you to find any liberal complaints about the Obama's travel costs.  I would also love to hear how she reimbursed the government for her travel expenses from something other than alleged "fact checkers", which are nothing more than liberal rags pretending to be objective.  What they did was pay for their "personal" expenses like fish and chips and seeing a Harry Potter movie while in London.  But I can assure you the government paid for her 757 travel.  A 757 costs around $14,000 per hour to operate.  When she and the girls flew home from London separate from Obama that cost the taxpayers around $130,000 for the plane alone.  Please provde me with the proof that they cut a check to the federal goverment for that amount.  They could have traveled with the President but they didn't.  And that happened all the time.  Here is an article about Michelle Obama's travel at taxpayer cost over a very short period of time.

https://www.investors.com/politics/columnists/michelle-obama-travel-expenses/

The point is not the tit for tat about who spent how much but to demonstrate that liberals have zero crediibility complaining about these costs.  I resent the spending by the federal and state governments because they come at the expense of hard working, taxpaying Americans.  And I don't care whether its a Republican or a Democrat.  I only vote for Republicans because they are the slightly lesser of the two evils.

As for the trillions Obama added, most of it was wasted responding to a recession that ended about the time he took office.  Check out the revenue to the treasury during his 8 years and you will see record after record.  And all that despite his anti-business, anti-growth policies that gave him another record as the only U.S. President to never see 3% GDP growth.  During his first 90 months as President the feds took close to $20 trillion out of the economy (a record) but managed to spend almost $29 trillion (another record).  Compare to W's first 90 months when the Feds collected less than $17 trillion and managed to spend around $20 trillion which added around $3.7 trillion to the national debt.  And all this despite having to deal with 9/11 and the economic mess that followed, which actually happened while he was President and not before like the 2008 recession which was over by 2009.  The fact is we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.  And the latest budget deal is more dung on the heap.  But if you think it would be better with Democrats in control you must have slept through the Obama years.  Either way, until you can demonstrate by previous posts all your angst about the Obama's spending habits you have zero basis for complaining now about the stupidity of Trump nominees.

Name:	phil -	Reply
Subject:	To hypocritical liberals
Date:	3/28/2018 1:56:03 PM

I like how included in the bill was 2.2 billion in border security for Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Tunisia.  

Walls are only racist if the US does it.

Name:	lakngulf -	Reply
Subject:	To hypocritical liberals
Date:	3/28/2018 3:34:18 PM

MM, don't confuse the matter with facts.  I plan to do a Fact Check and see how many times FiscalConservativeCasey has forumed about govt overspending.  I fully expect to find him/her as a member of the Wetumpka Tea Party!

Name:	Talullahhound -	Reply
Subject:	Come on Guys
Date:	3/28/2018 3:41:57 PM

This is not about being liberal or conservative - this is about good stewardship of the taxpayers dollar.  I don't know what kind or who Ben Carson would be entertaining, but I am pretty sure it does not call for a $31000 dining set.  He blamed his wife, which may or may not be true, but he is the official and is responsible.  

And the guy that claims he has to fly on private aircraft because it is too dangerous for him to fly commercial?  What makes him different from anyone else that has held the job before him?  

And the guy that arranged for he and his wife to use taxpayers money for their trip to Europe?  

A lot of these guys are weathy in their own right.  Maybe they've held jobs where the company picked up their every expense.  But that his not how it is in the government and there is really no excuse, whether you are liberal or conservative.  

Yeah, we may give away millions and billions to projects and causes and programs that make this spending look like chicken feed.  But the point is that when you are a public servant, you are held to a higher standard of ethics.  Each one of these guys should have gotten an ethics briefing when they entered office, unless they postponed it and eventually blew it off.  You can't blame it on your staff or your wife or anyone but yourself when the taxpayers money is squandered.  

The actually ethics standard is that anything that even gives the appearance to the general public you are getting or asking for or taking advantage of your position or the taxpayers dollar is unethical.  This is one of the reasons why the general public has such a poor impression of the government workforce - because they see their money being squandered (inept, unhelpful employees; special air flight; toilet seats, perculators, etc) and blame the govenrment, when it is those particular people that are not acting ethically.  

I remember a number of years ago, the Chief of Staff of the Army was gigged for taking an Army helicopter from the Pentagon to Andrews AFB, because of the cost to the taxpayers.  

This should not be the concern of just liberals or just conservatives but all of the tax paying public.  

Name:	Casey -	Reply
Subject:	To hypocritical liberals
Date:	3/28/2018 6:54:09 PM

I'm going to reply but don't need the last word, although I'm done with my responses. The fact-checking sites that I check are not liberal rags, pretending to be objective. However, you'll likely not agree. I don't have PROOF that it was not covered by taxpayer money, but I do believe the sites that I read. And I totally agreee that we don't need to do a tit-for-tat, but Judicial Watch, which is a conservative watchdog group, put the cost of the 8 years of Obama's travels at 96.9 million. However, Trump's travel of only his first 88 days was 21 million. At this rate, Trump's travel expenses will be close to $700 million. Obama was so criticized for the amount of time he played golf. At one point, Obama had not played at all in the same point of his Presidency as Trump and Trump had played 14 times. I'm sure it's more now.

But Talullahhound's post really hits the nail on the head. We should all be appalled!