The National Institute of Dental & Craniofacial Research is having a meeting on Friday this coming week. But the meeting is closed to the public.

The grant applications and the discussions could disclose confidential trade secrets or commercial property such as patentable material, and personal information concerning individuals associated with the grant applications, the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.

Grant applicants are using government funds to work on advancing their business interests, so we don’t get to know about it? And on top of that, we don’t get to know who they are?

This looks like a bunch of bunk. The meeting notice is even being published less than the 15 days prior to the meeting as required “due to the timing limitations imposed by the review and funding cycle.” Uh-huh.

But nobody pays much attention to the National Institute of Dental & Craniofacial Research, and so they get to do stuff like this. In the dark corners of the government stuff like this goes on all the time. It’s your money. You’re paying for it.

Here’s something interesting to note from the raft of bills introduced when Congress returned briefly after the election: A bunch of ‘em were about the financial services bailout. Mostly in the Senate, but with a few examples in the House, bills were introduced to manage how the bailout would work.

Here’s the problem with that: The bailout bill already passed. It’s not in Congress’ control any more. Any bills introduced to affect the bailout amount to trying to lick up spilled milk. Congress is supposed to debate legislation before it passes, not after.

So let’s take a look at the bills and the Senators and Members of Congress who introduced them.

It’s most interesting to see who voted for the bailout, but came up with ideas for how it should work later. That amounts to a confession of voting for a bill without thinking it all the way through, a big no-no when $700 billion in taxpayer money is on the line.

Here are the post-bailout bailout bills, with their sponsors:

(more…)

. . . or so some would have it.

S. 1852 is entitled the Native American Heritage Day Act of 2007. It would designate the Friday after Thanksgiving of each year as “Native American Heritage Day” in honor of the achievements and contributions of Native Americans to the United States.

Were it to pass, Native Americans would be forever associated with Christmas shopping . . . .

All the same, whether it’s official or not, Happy Native American Heritage Day!

Here’s the current vote on S. 1852, the Native American Heritage Day Act of 2007. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article about the bill.

It’s probably a little late in the day here on Thanksgiving for you to use this recipe – but it’s darn good, mainly because of the cream cheese (which is also why they call it the “sinful” mashed potatoes recipe.)

“Sinful” Mashed Potatoes
(serves 6-8)
2 C hot or cold mashed potatoes
1 large package (8 oz.) cream cheese, room temp
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 eggs
2 T flour
salt and pepper to taste
1 can 3.5 oz. French-fried onion rings

Put potatoes in a large mixing bowl. Add cream cheese, chopped onion, egg, and flour. Beat at medium speed until ingredients are blended, then high speed until light and fluffy. Taste, add salt and pepper if needed.

Spoon into greased 9-inch-square baking dish. Distribute canned onions evenly over the top. Bake, uncovered, 300 degrees, for about 35 minutes.

Delicious! But wait! Before we eat, let’s think briefly of others less fortunate than ourselves.

Members of Congress do so on your behalf, and there are several bills in Congress intended to alleviate hunger. Would they succeed? Finding solutions to hunger and poverty is obviously more easily said than done.

There’s S. 1172 and its House counterpart, H.R. 1938. Both are called the “Hunger-Free Communities Act of 2007.” The brief legislative summaries of these bills say they would “reduce hunger in the United States.” (Oy. Grand claims like that put these bills in the “and a pony” category.) Basically, the bills would make grants to various anti-hunger organizations and programs.

H.R. 206, the Anti-hunger Empowerment Act of 2007, would reduce red tape in the food stamp program and give grants to nonprofit anti-hunger groups for a “Beyond the Soup Kitchen” pilot program.

S. 3108 and H.R. 6127 are both called the “White House Conference on Food and Nutrition Act.” They would require the president to call a White House Conference on Food and Nutrition. (Well named bills, don’t you think?)

S. 1575 is the FEED Act of 2007. It would give grants to public agencies and nonprofit institutions “to encourage the use of community resources to combat hunger and the root causes of hunger by creating opportunity through food recovery and job training.”

Finally, there’s H.R. 2129, the Feeding America’s Families Act of 2007. It would “strengthen” the Food Stamp Act of 1977 in various ways. Take a look at the wiki article for the bill to see them all.

It may not be that you want to support these programs, but it is a day to be thankful and to think of those who have less bounty than we do.

And do keep in mind the old saying, amended for this day, “Give a man a turkey and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to turkey and you – no, wait . . . teach a man to fish – yeah, that’s it, fish – and you feed him for a lifetime.”

As we head into the holidays, we naturally think about charity and those less fortunate.

Well, this doesn’t have much to do with that, because I’m incredibly fortunate to live the life I do and run a site like WashingtonWatch.com. But it does cost a lot of money and it does take up a lot of time.

So the other week, I set up an Amazon tip jar on the site. It’s a nice thing to rattle if you appreciate the work we do here. There are huge improvements we plan for the site early next year, and no money to pay for them. Your donation will defray those costs, and provide real encouragement to carry on.

Go ahead and click on the Amazon tip jar. It’s always over there in the right column. You can choose to give any amount. And just to make things easy, I’ve put one right here in this post.

Of course, regardless whether you give, have a very happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

The Drudge Report linked to a very disturbing bailout news story yesterday, claiming that the “U.S. government is prepared to provide more than $7.76 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers” toward rescuing the financial services sector.

That’s about $80,000 per U.S. family, or $25,000 per person (if we’re talking about 2009 expenditures).

Except . . . the story doesn’t explain what kind of outlays these are or where these figures come from.

The unprecedented pledge of funds includes $3.18 trillion already tapped by financial institutions in the biggest response to an economic emergency since the New Deal of the 1930s, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“Tapped” is not a financial term of art, of course, and what “data” did Bloomberg compile?

One suspects that this might be loan guarantees of some kind, with the total amount being lent in the $7.7 trillion range, but this does not mean that $7.7 trillion is going to be spent.

It’s all quite fishy.

The “TARP” program in the bailout bill (”Troubled Asset Relief Program”) – this money might well be spent, and I predicted as much when the whole bailout process began – but loan guarantees are a different thing.

Without better reporting, I don’t find the Bloomberg story credible or useful. So relax folks! It may not be tens of thousands spent on your behalf. But it could be. We’ll keep watching . . . .

Commenting on the recent 1,000,000th visitor post, one Amos Davis says:

I have never been a 1,000,000th anything (Visitor) or anything else. If this is in fact true, then I feel honored to be a part of Washingtonwatch.com history.

I use this site to locate information on pending and enacted legislation from the U. S. Senate, House of Representatives, and the Office of the President. I hope all Americans have the opportunity to visit this information rich treasure chest.

It’s true (per Google Analytics) – and I couldn’t be happier to read your kind words.

Last week, during Congress’ lame duck session to consider economic stimulus legislation, a couple dozen more bills were introduced, bringing the total number of bills in the current Congress above 11,000. And it’s not over: Congress will probably come back the week of December 8th to do a little more legislating.

Statistics don’t often mean a lot – particularly simple ones like “number of bills introduced.” But when you see thousands and thousands of bills go in the hopper and nothing being done to run the legislative trains on time, something is going wrong.

I pointed this out in a post from August called “10,000 Bills Introduced in Congress, While Government Management Goes Neglected.” Congress was writing all this legislation, but didn’t pass any regular annual spending bills. The number of bills has increased by 10% since then.

One is struck with curiosity, of course, why some bills are introduced with just days to go in the legislative session. They’re not going anywhere. When Congress finally adjourns sine die (latin for “for real”), all these bills will be dead. The process starts over again next year.

And that’s actually part of the story, starting over again. Lobbyists and congressional staff like to point out that a bill has a history – “It’s been introduced in the last three Congresses” – to show that a bill is something serious. So they might still work to get a bill introduced even if it has no chance of passing.

But more than that, I think it’s a signal that Congress is doing too many things at once. And, as noted in that 10,000 bills post, it’s definitely not doing the regular work of running the government. It’s enough to make you want to . . . take the rest of the week off and eat some turkey!

Here’s the WashingtonWatch.com email newsletter for the week. Subscribe here.

email newsletter | tell a friend | wiki | about | home | log in On the WashingtonWatch.com Blog Last week, WashingtonWatch.com welcomed its 1,000,000th visitor for the year. Featured Items Congress returned for a lame-duck session last week, planning to consider an economic stimulus plan, but consensus did not come together. An economic stimulus bill was introduced in the Senate. S. 3689, the Economic Recovery Act of 2008 proposed to spend about $750 per U.S. family on various programs thought to stimulate the economy. These included funding for highways and other transportation, energy programs, school renovation, and clean water. The bill would also have increased Medicaid payments to states. This bill also included an extension of unemployment benefits. When it did not pass, Congress passed a freestanding extension, which the president signed. No cost estimate is yet available for Public Law 110-449, the Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2008. The new law extends unemployment benefits by at least seven weeks in every state, and by 13 weeks in states with unemployment rates of at least 6%. S. 3689 The Economic Recovery Act of 2008 Costs $766.21 per family P.L. 110-449 The Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2008 What People Think The Economic Recovery Act of 2008 33% For, 67% Against Vote on this Bill The Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2008 45% For, 55% Against Vote on this Bill Displayed below are new, updated, and passed items with their cost or savings per family. New Items H.R. 4854 The False Claims Act Correction Act of 2007 Costs $0.00 per family H.R. 7112 The Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2008 Costs $4.68 per family S. 3689 The Economic Recovery Act of 2008 Costs $766.21 per family Updated Items P.L. 110-428 The Inmate Tax Fraud Prevention Act of 2008 Costs $0.03 per family Passed Items P.L. 110-449 The Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2008 email newsletter | tell a friend | wiki | about | home | privacy | contact | log in WashingtonWatch.com P.O. Box 77576 Washington, D.C. 20013

H.R. 178 is the Justice for the Unprotected Against Sexually Transmitted Infections among the Confined and Exposed Act of 2007.

Gimme a J! Gimme a U! (Ignore the A!) Gimme an A! Gimme an S! Gimme a T! Gimme an I! Gimme a C! Gimme an E! (Ignore the A!)

What’s that spell?!

JUASTICEA!

I said to ignore the A’s!! What’s that spell!?

JUSTICE!

Yayyyyy! The bill passes!