LETTER: Airing of grievances about federal government spending

In the spirit of Festivus for you “Seinfeld” aficionados, I need to air my grievances against the federal government for the totally irresponsible manner in which it spends our money.

One can only assume that our elected officials handle their personal finances more responsibly — or perhaps they leave it up to their spouses since their track record isn’t so good. Otherwise, they too would be broke like our country is.

While volumes could be written about the way our leaders have buried us in debt exceeding $30 trillion … whether you are a Democrat or a Republican you should be outraged at the package your elected officials laid under your tree just before Christmas. Unfortunately, you are probably unaware of this unless you tune into Fox News or some other conservative news outlet. Since we no longer have a functional press corps in America that reports the news in a fair, balanced, and objective manner, you really need to search for any news that casts a disparaging light on the Democratic Party.

On Dec. 23, the day known as Festivus, our elected officials in Washington saddled the American people with a $1.7 trillion Omnibus spending bill. Despite the fact that Congress had 3 months to hammer out a budget for fiscal year 2023, this 4,155-page monstrosity was given to the Senate for their cursory view at 1:30 a.m. on Dec. 20th. This gave the American people no time to weigh in on it — yet alone for our legislators to read it. Oh, and the expectation was that it be passed before they went home for Christmas on Dec. 23rd.

Of course, the Senate dutifully obliged, thanks to 19 Republican senators who easily had the power to kill it. But they inexplicitly helped forward it to the House where nine other Republican legislators put a bow on it, ensuring that it passed before they went home to enjoy the holidays with their families.

This last-minute crisis was purposely manufactured in the waning days of 2022 to use the media to promote it as “must-pass legislation,” dare any conservative to vote against it and risk shutting down the government ahead of Christmas, and allow congressional leaders to put through their pet projects which they wanted to hide from the American people.

While we have come to expect these kinds of shenanigans from Democrats, the GOP “emasculated itself” as Sen. Rand Paul said by depriving their own party control of the purse strings for the first nine months of 2023. For that, you can thank Mitch McConnell and his fellow RINO Republicans. But worse than sabotaging their own party, they betrayed their constituents who gave them control of Congress for at least the next two years.

Among the most outrageous provisions of the bill was the $1.5 million for U.S. Customs and Border Protection that cannot be used to enforce our own border — yet $410 million will go to secure the borders of Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia and Oman. Or how about the $1.2 million for LGBTQ Pride Centers, a million dollars for anti-racism training for Rhode Island teachers; or my favorite, $3.6 million for a Michelle Obama Trail in Georgia?

But the most egregious of these was the $45 billion that was appropriated to Ukraine which is in addition to the unaccounted-for $68 billion we have already sent there. All of this was done behind our backs while Americans were struggling to feed their family and buy them Christmas presents.

This massive government spending, which is the driving force behind our inflation woes, brings the total to around $5 trillion since Biden took office. It will leave the Federal Reserve with no choice but to continue to raise interest rates to offset these inflationary acts, which will negatively impact our financial markets, our economy, and prolong the attack on the middle class by continuing to exacerbate our financial difficulties.

Joe Biden made it all official by signing this bill from his cozy little spot in the Virgin Islands — totally out of touch with the plight of the American people and what we are dealing with every day. Try to imagine if you will the outrage had Donald Trump taken a Caribbean vacation during a countrywide winter storm, and then had a $1.7 trillion boondoggle flown to him to sign because he couldn’t be bothered to adjust his vacation schedule. The wailing and gnashing of teeth from the mainstream media would have been deafening. Yet here we are in the midst of the worst financial crisis we have seen in decades, and the news media remains oblivious to the deeds of the “Great Divider.”

—Greg Levengood
Boyertown