February 5, 2009 – Just the other day, Oprah Winfrey aired a show where she offered suggestions for people to deal with the worsening economy. During the short time I happened to be in the room watching, Oprah must have said that America must again learn to live within its means about a dozen times. That is quite easy for Oprah to say, seeing as how Forbes lists her net worth at over $2.5 billion.

I don’t think Oprah has any of the day to day problems most Americans face when it comes to making ends meet. However, the net worth of Oprah is not the reason I am writing this commentary. My purpose for writing is her comment that America must again learn to live within its means.

It is a well known fact that Oprah is a devoted supporter of Barack Obama. It could well be said that she was the one who planted the idea of running for President in Obama’s mind.

In October of 2006, Oprah aired a show in which Barack Obama was a guest, promoting his new book, The Audacity of Hope. Oprah made it clear to Obama that Americans, “who want to feel that America can be a better place” are hoping that he would, in fact, decide to run for president. Winfrey went on to say “I’m going to have this show for five more years, would you announce on this show?” Oprah also appeared at numerous speeches supporting Obama while he was on the campaign trail.

So, since Oprah is so dead set that America again learns to live within its means, I would like to ask, why doesn’t she tell her good buddy, Barack Obama, to make sure the government does so as well?

Since Oprah is so conscious of people living within their means, I wonder how she feels about a government that is overdrawn to the tune of $10.6 trillion? You would think that she would be on the phone to her good buddy and recommend that he reign in our governments spending. Of course I don’t think Oprah, or Obama care about how much our government spends, that whole living within your means only applies to us common people who have to go out and work a nine to five job.

While Oprah, and her good buddy Barack Obama, may not care whether our government lives within its means, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t. In discussing the affairs of our government, I often have to resort to using the word politicians, even though I hate doing so.

The dictionary defines politician as, 1: a person experienced in the art or science of government ; especially : one actively engaged in conducting the business of a government 2 a: a person engaged in party politics as a profession b: a person primarily interested in political office for selfish or other narrow usually short-sighted reasons.

While those definitions may apply to those who currently hold office, it was not the intent of our founders when they drafted the Constitution. Those whom we elect are our representatives, or public servants. Therefore, they are our employees, and it is our duty to ensure they do their job according to the guidelines we established for them, as contained in the Constitution.

That being the case, and since I am discussing living within our means, it would seem prudent to take a look at just how much money our government is spending. I am not going to go over the entire federal budget, as that would take far too much time. However, I have compiled a bit of information that you might find interesting.

Our government is comprised of so many agencies and departments that it is mind boggling. So I decided to pick out a few that may sound familiar to you. The first of which is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the BATF.

From the BATF website, their mission is stated as being, The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is a principal law enforcement agency within the United States Department of Justice dedicated to preventing terrorism, reducing violent crime, and protecting our Nation. The men and women of ATF perform the dual responsibilities of enforcing Federal criminal laws and regulating the firearms and explosives industries. We are committed to working directly, and through partnerships, to investigate and reduce crime involving firearms and explosives, acts of arson, and illegal trafficking of alcohol and tobacco products.

The requested budget for the BATF for 2008 was, $1,013,980,000, that is just over a billion dollars.

Since we are discussing law enforcement agencies of the federal government, let’s take a look at the FBI. The mission statement of the FBI says, To protect and defend the United States against terrorist and foreign intelligence threats, to uphold and enforce the criminal laws of the United States, and to provide leadership and criminal justice services to federal, state, municipal, and international agencies and partners.

That certainly sounds very similar to the mission statement of the BATF. This redundant agency is costing us $6,040,000,000 a year.

Let’s move on from law enforcement now and take a look at the Department of Health and Human Services. According to their website the mission of the HHS is, THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES (HHS) is the United States government’s principal agency for protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services, especially for those who are least able to help themselves.

The Dept. of Health and Human Services encompasses numerous sub-agencies, and therefore they have a huge annual budget, totaling over $700 billion. In fact, according to their webpage, HHS REPRESENTS ALMOST A QUARTER OF ALL FEDERAL OUTLAYS.

Some of the areas funded by HHS are, $507 million for preparing for an influenza pandemic, $4.4 billion for protection from a bioterrorist attack, $19.7 billion for health care coverage for the children of low income families, $56 million to integrate screening, intervention and referral to treatment of drug abuse, $20 million for adoption incentives, $204 million to educate youth about abstinence, prevent teen pregnancy and pre-marital sexual activity and the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases, and $75 million to help grassroots faith-based and community-based organizations to expand their capacity to provide social services for the poor.

Then there is the Dept of Agriculture, whose mission statement says, We provide leadership on food, agriculture, natural resources, and related issues based on sound public policy, the best available science, and efficient management. Their annual budget is $95 billion.

While most people assume that the Dept of Agriculture deals strictly with our nations agricultural system, they also fund Women, Infants and Children, (WIC) at a cost of $6.1 billion annually. They also help provide more efficient and effective housing assistance for rural residents by providing guaranteed loans of $4.8 billion, as well as providing $997 million in rental assistance grants.

Then there is the Dept of Commerce whose job is to “to foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce” of the United States. They do their job by spending $981 million to improve weather forecasting and climate monitoring, $154 million to protect oceans, natural resources such as fisheries.

We all know about the Dept of Defense. Their budget request for 2009 was $515 billion, $70 billion of which is an emergency allowance for the global war on terror. Of course the military has to expand its global reach, so they also created AFRICOM, to establish a new command to strengthen ties with African governments, at a cost of $398 million. They also set aside $750 million for, what they call, building partnership capacity, which supports allies as they develop and improve their capability to provide for their own defense and contribute to the global fight against terrorism.

Then there is something even I had never heard of, the National Intelligence Program, who fund intelligence activities in several departments. However, according to the data found on their webpage, the NIP budget is classified, so the 2009 Budget does not publicly disclose funding requests for intelligence activities. So who knows how much money the government is spending to fund the spooks and spies?

While we are on the subject of terrorism and spying, we can’t forget of the Dept of Homeland Security, whose annual budget is $44.3 billion. Who knows what they are doing, other than making the lines move slower at the airports.

Then there is the Dept of Education, who are doing such a fine job of making sure our children know the limits imposed upon our government by our Constitution. They currently operate on a budget of $68.6 billion per year. From their webpage they provide extra assistance for students at most risk of being left behind, including students with disabilities, migrant students, students in State-run institutions, and limited English proficient students. Maybe if we required that English be spoken before coming to this country the Dept of Education wouldn’t have to spend so much bringing kids up to speed on our nations language, but that isn’t politically correct to say, is it?

Finally there is everyone’s favorite agency, the Internal Revenue system, the tax collectors.

The IRS budget for 2009 is $11.4 billion so that they can, Provide America’s taxpayers top quality service by helping them understand and meet their tax responsibilities and by applying the tax law with integrity and fairness to all.

This mission statement describes our role and the public’s expectation about how we should perform that role.

In the United States, the Congress passes tax laws and requires taxpayers to comply.

The taxpayer’s role is to understand and meet his or her tax obligations.

The IRS role is to help the large majority of compliant taxpayers with the tax law, while ensuring that the minority who are unwilling to comply pay their fair share.

While it may seem like I have overwhelmed you with all these agencies and departments, they are but a fraction of the monstrosity that is our government. I did not mention the following agencies, Department of State and Other International Programs, Department of Transportation, Department of the Treasury, Department of Veterans Affairs, Corps of Engineers – Civil Works, Environmental Protection Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Science Foundation, and the Small Business Administration just to name a few more.

These, and many others can all be found, along with their budgets at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy09/browse.html.

Almost to a one, each of these agencies had an increase in operating expenses from the previous year. That means that our government is going to have to borrow more money just to fund it’s day to day operations, and I didn’t even begin to discuss how much money is going to have to be borrowed for any kind of economic recovery programs Barack Obama intends to force us to pay for.

So, if Ms. Winfrey is so intent on making sure we live within our means, maybe she, and her good buddy Barack, ought to get together and dig out a copy of the Constitution. Then they ought to go through the federal budget and see which agencies and departments the Constitution actually authorizes, and which ones it prohibits. Those that are not authorized could be done away with, saving the taxpayers untold billions of dollars. That is of course unless Ms. Winfrey’s talk about living within our means only applies to us common folk, and not to our government.

It appears that you just can’t fix stupid.

~ The Author ~
Neal Ross can be reached for comments at bonsai@syix.com. Visit Neal’s Blog at http://www.zombie-slayer.com/neal

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