TRUMPING ZIKA

[Originally published at:http://www.newsmax.com/ScotFaulkner/budget/2016/09/14/id/748321/ ]

How do you spell fiscal fiasco? “Z-I-K-A”.

The battle over funding necessary research to combat the spreading Zika Virus has ground Congress to a halt.

The Obama Administration has plead poverty and asked for $1.9 billion in additional funds. Congress decided to exploit this urgency and necessity by loading up the legislation with politically charged amendments. Votes on such amendments are used by both parties to fuel fund-raising appeals.

Once again, the Washington, DC Establishment is putting partisan fund-raising ahead of the health and safety of Americans.

It gets worse – $21 billion in unspent unobligated funds are already laying around the very programs and agencies charged with fighting Zika.

On August 26, Senators Charles Grassley (R-IA) and James Lankford (R-OK) sent a letter to the Secretary Burwell of Health and Human Services (HHS) calling her out on these unexpended balances. She responded back on September 1, asserting she had already “repurposed” $374 million and could not do anything more.

Unfortunately, Burwell’s response contradicts President Obama’s declaration that $589 million has been “repurposed”, and the fact that only $180 million has actually been spent.

Washington’s budgetary “hide and seek” needs to stop.

Every Federal Department and Agency ends the fiscal year with unspent funds. Former Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) exposed this in his ground breaking report “Money for Nothing” issued in June 2012. Since his report, the amount of federal funds sitting doing nothing, and because they are unobligated will continue to do nothing, has soared to $909 billion.

This nearly $1 trillion in tax dollars are hiding in plain site. Go to the Office of Management and Budget website. Look up “budget” and “assets”. Every penny of federal spending is reported and categorized. Accounting code “1941” is for “unexpired unobligated balances”. Fiscal years 2015 (actual) and 2016 & 2017 (projected) are listed.

It does not take a certified accountant to realize there are a lot of “1941” line items in every part of the federal budget, each totaling millions of dollars. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) uncovered 7,500 expired grant accounts spread through HHS’s Payment Management System, all with funds that will never be used.

The two front line agencies charged with researching and fighting Zika are the Center for Disease Control (CDC), with $1.27 billion in unobligated funds, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), with $722 million in unobligated funds. Both program directors have testified that they are completely out of money.

It is unseemly to play bureaucratic and partisan games with peoples’ lives.

16,000 Americans have become infected by Zika, mostly in Puerto Rico. So far 17 American babies have been born with birth defects and another 5 died in miscarriages. This is just the beginning. Zika has substantially impacted Brazil, with approximately 1.5 million cases. Encephalitis type illnesses are causing memory loss and depression in adults, while neurological birth defects (such as smaller frontal lobes) have risen 400% since 2014.

Congress is racing the clock on funding the federal government past September 30, 2016. Members spent more time this year in Republican and Democrat fund-raising call centers than doing their job.

This Congressional negligence means yet another fiscal cliff, with the usual government shutdown hysteria ending in a Continuing Resolution (CR). This year’s battleground is already strewn with political explosives. Conservatives want to ban Planned Parenthood from using federal funds to screen pregnant women for Zika. Liberals somehow think banning Confederate Flags has something to do with public health.

Washington, DC is infested with political parasites and infected with arrogant opportunism.

It is time to consider a revolutionary cure, which includes stopping the budget games and spending tax dollars wisely.

Both sides should listen to Trump’s call for putting America, and Americans, first.

TRILLIONS HIIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT

Originally published on Newsmax: http://www.newsmax.com/ScotFaulkner/democrats-dollars-zika/2016/06/20/id/734683/

Congressional Republicans and Democrats are lying to Americans.

Congress is barely halfway through approving the 2017 Appropriations.  It has only thirty legislative days before the start of the next fiscal year.  This all but guarantees a battle over a continuing resolution or omnibus spending bill.

Recently, a Republican Congressman let slip that there are billions in “unobligated balances” that could be reallocated for fighting the Zika Virus.  It was a lightning bolt of real information that everyone ignored. This was an unintended glimpse at one of the biggest lies in Washington, DC.

Members from both parties appear on cable news hand wringing about how it is impossible to stop federal spending from devouring the country.  Liberals and Democrats assert the government is underfunded and understaffed for meeting pressing needs.  Raising taxes and expanding hiring are their only solutions.  What now passes for conservatives and Republicans express helplessness because of Obama’s veto pen and their concern that any confrontation may lead to another government shutdown.

Republicans and Democrats wail over no funds to combat the Zika Virus, terrorism, and other possible crises.  Their machinery for endlessly taxing, spending, and borrowing incessantly rolls on.

The result of this united capitulation is the perpetual growth in government spending and borrowing.  Federal spending has risen from $3.517 trillion in 2009 to $4.147 trillion for 2017.  During this same period, government debt has soared from $11.875 trillion to over $20.149 trillion, with annual increases of nearly a trillion in borrowing projected every year thereafter.

Every year funds are allocated for federal projects and programs based on estimates.  Congress adds money when those estimates fall short, even if caused by waste and fraud.  Funds sit idle when spending is less than expected.

Since President Obama took office, $914.8 billion in unexpended, unobligated, funds have piled up across the federal government.  It is dutifully reported under “Assets and Balance Sheets” on page ten of the budget released each year by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). 

You read that correctly, nearly a trillion of your tax dollars is sitting unused in plain sight. 

Another $1.028 trillion remains unexpended among general accounts and $461 billion remains unspent in trust funds.  While these funds are technically obligated, the fact that they languish raises questions about their use and their management.

That is over $2.405 trillion sitting doing nothing.  It is available right now.  It only takes the push of a button to instantly shift these funds to fighting Zika, bolstering our military and homeland security, repairing our infrastructure, debt payments, or tax relief. 

This is how the Establishment from both parties plays Americans for fools.  The funds are hiding in plain sight.  No one talks about it, because it would reveal the lie behind the Washington elites claiming helplessness.  On rare instances, someone lets slip their knowledge of this money.  In June 2012, to his eternal credit, Senator Tom Coburn issued a blistering report, “Money for Nothing” that exposed these funds in detail.  Not even conservative media covered it.

The budget debate would be very different if Americans called out Washington politicians on their dirty little secret.