Brownsville Tea Party Association

Archive for the ‘Gov’t Waste’ Category

By Christopher Smith Gonzalez

The system is meant kill legislation: That’s the old line often heard around the Capitol. And now, as the session’s end slams the coffin door on a slew of bills, more than a few lawmakers are taking solace in the fact that their dead legislation has plenty of company.

Top on the list of bills that didn’t make it across the finish line is, of course, Senate Bill 1811, a broad fiscal matters proposal that had public school financing tacked on to it. Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, killed it with a filibuster, but school financing has to be addressed and will be taken up in a special session.

Read the rest of this entry »

Received this as an email. Made a lot of sense to me, so I’m passing it along.

Chris

Earlier this decade, Michael Barone wrote a book entitled “Hard America, Soft America: Competition vs. Coddling and the Battle for America’s Future”. His premise was that we are becoming an America of Soft people demanding entitlements at other people’s expense, unwilling or unable to stand on our own and looking to the government instead of ourselves to provide our every need.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Austin TEA Party Patriots

The Obama Administration is now acknowledging what we have warned about all along – the national healthcare takeover bill is a terrible job-killer. 

The Health and Human Resources arm of the White House has been very busy granting waivers to companies who have said, “Give me waivers or give me layoffs!”  Check out the websites below for a Fox News You Tube on the issue and a list of over 100 companies who have recently received waivers from the requirement of providing expanded healthcare coverage to their employees.
 
We’re still waiting on the Administration to admit that the national healthcare takeover is also an unconstitutional restriction on our liberties and one of the most, if not the most, ill-advised bills ever rammed down the throats of the American people.
 
Fox News Report:
 

U. S. Department of Health and Human Services list of companies who have received waiver of Obamacare requirements:

http://www.hhs.gov/ociio/regulations/approved_applications_for_waiver.html

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

Contributed by Hugh Goldberg

1. Americans spend $36,000,000 at Wal-Mart Every hour of every day.
 
2. This works out to $20,928 profit every minute!

3. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St. Patrick’s Day (March 17th) than Target sells all year.

4. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target +Sears + Costco + K-Mart combined.

5. Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people, is the world’s largest private employer, and most speak English.

6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the world.

7. Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger and Safeway combined, and keep in mind they did this in only fifteen years.

8. During this same period, 31 big supermarket chains sought bankruptcy.

9. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the world.

10. Wal-Mart has approx 3,900 stores in the USA of which 1,906 are Super Centers; this is 1,000 more than it had five years ago.

11. This year 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences will occur at Wal-Mart stores. (Earth’s population is approximately 6.5 Billion.)

12. 90% of all Americans live within fifteen miles of a Wal-Mart.

You may think that I am complaining, but I am really laying the ground work for suggesting that MAYBE we should hire the guys who run Wal-Mart to fix the economy.

This should be read and understood by all Americans Democrats, Republicans, EVERYONE!!

To President Obama and all 535 voting members of the Legislature: It is now official you are ALL corrupt morons:

a. The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775. You have had 234 years to get it right and it is broke.
 
b. Social Security was established in 1935. You have had 74 years to get it right and it is broke.

c. Fannie Mae was established in 1938. You have had 71 years to get it right and it is broke.
  
d. War on Poverty started in 1964. You have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to “the poor” and they only want more.
  
e. Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. You have had 44 years to get it right and they are broke.
  
f. Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You have had 39 years to get it right and it is broke.
   
g. The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before. You had 32 years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.
 
  
You have FAILED in every”government service” you have shoved down our throats while overspending our tax dollars.
  
AND  YOU WANT AMERICANS TO BELIEVE YOU CAN BE TRUSTED WITH A GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM ??
 
MAYBE WE OUGHT TO KICK OBAMA AND HIS EGG-HEAD BUDDY BUMS OUT OF OFFICE AND HIRE WAL MART TO RUN THE GOVERNMENT???
 
WAL MART SEEMS TO KNOW HOW TO RUN A BUSINESS. WHY DON’T YOU GUYS JUST ADMIT IT’S WAY BEYOND YOUR PAY GRADE, AND QUIT?

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

Obama bails out a failed auto manufacturer with BILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars that we don’t have, saddling our children and their children with massive debt, and for WHAT?  So union workers can get hammered before lunch?

This is what happens when ideology trumps common sense.  There is no such thing as a business that is “too big to fail.”  That is just nonsense.  Chrysler and GM should have gone into bankruptcy so they could reorganize and renegotiate their labor contracts, re-emerging leaner and more competitive in the global marketplace.

But that’s not the way Chairman Obama rolls.  He couldn’t allow a favored constituency like the UAW to lose their cushy jobs!  So, by bailing them out, Obama rewards failure.  Expect to see more and more of this in the near future.  If a union worker knows that he won’t be fired, no matter what he does or doesn’t do, then why the hell NOT get stoned before lunch?

The city wants: 

no more than 20% cash transfer from PUB; 
customer service charge raised from $3 to $5.53; 
increase in energy charge to $.04708; 
increase late monthly penalty charge to 7.5%; and 
PUB authority to increase rates without city approval every fiscal year!

Please be there and let your voice be heard. 
 
There is also a sports park public workshop on Tuesday, Sept. 21st, beginning at 5:30 pm. The regular city commission meeting will follow, beginning at 6:00 pm.
 
Please attend if you are able.

Eight citizens sued the city of Brownsville and members of the city commission earlier this week. They demand a declaratory judgment on whether or not our city charter supersedes the Texas Certificates of Obligation Act. They call themselves the Brownsville 8 in homage to the Friendswood 5

Part-time city attorney Mark Sossi, Esquire sent a letter to the Brownsville 8 after the filing of the suit. He threatened the city would countersue. Sossi further believed this state law trumped our home-rule city charter. For that, the Brownsville 8′s lawsuit was essentially frivolous.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Precedent was set when a state district judge ruled, in fact, that the city of Friendswood was incorrect in it’s interpretation. Their interpretation was also similar to Sossi’s argument because the Texas Attorney General consistently disregarded home-rule city charters in favor of the state law. The judge ruled in favor of the arguments of the Friendswood 5. Brownsville 8 on the whole uses a similar argument their brethren, the Friendswood 5.

Read the rest of this entry »

The city commission will hold their first regular meeting for the month of August on Tuesday, August 3. 

On tap for tomorrow’s meeting is a public hearing and ACTION on the city’s Fiscal Year Budget. This means anyone who is interested may speak on the issue without signing up. August is traditionally a busy month for the city commission as they prepare the city’s budget for the next fiscal year. They will hold at least three if not more meetings this month. If you are interested in the budget process, you should make plans to attend or watch live on cable channel 12. 

There will also be action on the potential tax rate for next year and the appraisals for the entire city.

In other new business, part time city attorney Mark Sossi, Esquire will propose a $250 annual license fee for massage parlors. There will be a public hearing and action on the first reading of this new ordinance. The city is creating a law to fight human trafficking and prostitution that apparently occurs in some massage parlors. Don’t liberals argue that local government should not fight illegal immigration and human trafficking because it is a federal issue?

Read the rest of this entry »

By Duane Rasmussen

Glory be! It seems as though our Socialist Democrat U.S. Rep. Solomon P. Ortiz has suddenly seen the light. He just recently cast his vote in the House to cut government waste! We are overwhelmed. “The Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act will help identify, reduce and eliminate improper payments, as well as recover lost funds that federal agencies have spent improperly,” his press release reads. Ortiz says he stands behind it. We wonder how far behind it? Some $98 billion was spent in 2009 on improper payments. That’s just what the OMB can identify.

It looks as though Ortiz is trying to give his more conservative constituency something to chew on before the November election. But that vote is a long way from convincing any of us that Ortiz has seen the light. The waste he helps perpetuate is still there.

Saturday, Oct. 2, there will be a public debate among the candidates for the 27th District Congressional seat. Promoters are hoping the esteemed Cong. Ortiz will show up to do his part. To date, he has yet to show up at any debate or opportunity to meet and greet his constituents. We cannot see how he can go on year after year avoiding contact with his bosses. All we get are his very occasional “reports” on what he writes that he has been doing. We should never vote for anyone we have not had the chance to meet, to discuss and, if necessary, to just plain cuss.

Where is Ortiz on our growing problems with illegals entering our country hourly across his Dist. 27 border with Mexico? As is often said in regard to Ortiz, “he is conspicuous with his absence.” One of the greatest threats to our nation’s security exists right here in his (and our) district, and he is not front and center doing something about it. It must be the votes he expects to garner from some of his constituents. But he will lose as will the rest of us, if we lose our security.

More In Two Weeks
Ad Paid For By Duane A. Rasmussen

The Brownsville City Commission will hold a public hearing and a vote on the first reading of the 11.3 million dollar debt called Certificates of Obligation.
 
The meeting will take place at 6 PM on Tuesday, July 20, 2010 in the Commission Chambers, on the Second Floor of the Brownsville City Hall – Federal Building, located at 1001 East Elizabeth Street, Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas, 78520. You do not have to sign up to speak.
 
We encourage those of you concerned over mounting debt at the local level to ATTEND the public hearing voice your concerns. Our city leaders plan to use a state law to circumvent our city charter, our local governing document, which calls for a vote of the citizens before the city incurs long-term debt. If this displeases you, then you are encouraged to attend.

They claim our taxes will not be affected by this, but that is highly suspect. Remember we are the Taxed Enough Already Party.

If you would like more information about the proposed Certificates of Obligation, you review the commission’s back up material at http://www.cob.us/government/agendas/10/Binder07_20_2010.pdf#page=81

The paper edition of the Brownsville Herald also points to changes in the legal public notices and what appears in today’s agenda. You can read that only in the paper edition, not the online version.

PLEASE SHOW UP – YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

While some heavy, premature chest-beating is occurring in other media, we here at the Tip of Texas Tea Party website commend Moses Sorola and others for their petition drive to stop government waste. After alterations made by the city commission with regard to their attempted Certificates of Obligation offering at Tuesday’s regular meeting, the formerly active petition drive was made irrelevant. The potential petition motion before the city commission would be deemed defective.

Many people signed the petition, or would have signed the petition, over their anger at spending more borrowed money on the Brownsville Sports Park, which some have dubbed the Charlie Atkinson Sports Park. The majority on the city commission knew that and probably wanted to prevent the petition drive from succeeding. Manipulating the system to target streets, what people complained most about, would at least seem palatable and less offensive than continued splurging of our precious tax dollars.

Read the rest of this entry »

Foulmouthed City Commissioner Charlie Atkinson skipped out of Tuesday’s city commission meeting in a manly fury of fireworks and slamming of doors. Oh but before that, the story should have been Commissioner Rose Gowen iterating the need to attract free money and grants. That seemed to be her idea for funding the Sports Park.

Did somebody forget to take a macro-economics class in college? Commissioner, grants and federal subsidies are not free money. There is no such thing as a free lunch either. There is no crying in baseball.

Read the rest of this entry »

Did Brownsville city commission Just Raise Our Gas Bills?

At Tuesday’s city commission meeting, Commissioner Edward C. Camarillo thanked part-time city attorney Mark Sossi, Esq.for doing a “great” job. This was said after the lawyer’s presentation on a new franchise agreement between the city and Texas Gas Service. If you remember, Sossi is the same Esquire who earns $120,000 just from the city commission alone.

According to Sossi’s sly presentation, three changes occurred in the franchise agreement and all to the city’s benefit. One, this franchise agreement will last twenty-five years instead of sixty. A franchise agreement is another word for monopoly, right? I thought progressives who fight for social justice were against monopolies, or was that just a fad?

Read the rest of this entry »

Congressman Won’t Meet With Constituents But Wants Them To See Him On Television

CORPUS CHRISTI – Taxpayers are footing the bill for Congressman Solomon Ortiz to push his liberal political agenda through an “Ortiz On Demand” TV program and Republican Blake Farenthold called it a colossal waste of taxpayer money.

Ortiz is one of four Congressmen who signed up to air prerecorded videos through MiCongress  On Demand at a startling cost that can range between $500 to $2,000 a month  — and it’s all coming from his taxpayer-funded office account.

In addition to the cost of the programming, there is also more money associated with filming the program to be aired “on demand.”

“This is a perfect example of how Congressman Ortiz has lost touch with the people of South Texas. He has forgotten the value of a dollar,“ said Farenthold a small businessman and owner of a computer consulting firm. “This is typical of Ortiz and the liberals in Washington DC, paying thousands of dollars to put a video on cable instead of uploading for free to YouTube.” 

Read the rest of this entry »