From the N.Y. Post:
“Bush kills HUD ‘Wellness’ Plan”
**
Read the rest. It’s unbelievable.
Maybe if Bush would start wearing orange pastel, he wouldn’t be such a big meanie and cut worthwhile programs like this.
Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Huh. And here I thought he supported faith-based programs!
::d&r::
What? No feng shue?
Hey, I dunno about anyone else, but Jim Beam sure makes mefeel less stressed.
Of course, I refer to it as J. Beam so as not to assign gender. I drink to no patriarchy, but only to equality.
Jesus H. Christ, Milo.
Every time I convince myself that Clinton was not the greatest criminal mastermind of the 20th Century, I see something like this.
Thanks for ruining my night.
While I doubt Bill had all that much to do with that program himself, it would appear that Dubya has made his first wise decision.
Now, George. How about that Kyoto Treaty, you idjit.
In the honor of “J. Lo”, I propose that we refer to Jim Beam as “J. Be.”.
Just a suggestion…
Dammit. This is just another attempt by the Man to restrict my right to enjoy government sponsored incense therapy. I think I’m going to chain myself to a McDonald’s to protest. 
I am interested to see a Clintonite try and bash Bush on this one. Any takers?
well, since the US revenue for the year 2000 was 1,883 BILLION $ this 860,000 savings will explain away my tax refund eh?
Seriously (aw, hell why ?) in any governmental budget you’ll find something. I’m sure there were more in the past 8 years than that one, just as I’m certain there were plenty during Papa Bush and Reagan years as well.
yes, on the surface from the description it seems like a bizarre little program. but what else would you expect from a press release.
Yeah! This is superficial!!
I need to know more about those “glandular points”…
Valiant effort, wring! 
Actually, I am well aware of the odd little pork-barrels that astonishingly make their way through Congress, as Reps and Senators scratch each other’s backs and give perks to one another’s constituents. And I don’t like them, either.
This strikes me as wholly different from that, however. This was an administrative decision at the Cabinet level.
The absolute beauty of this story is that the numbskulls who allowed this to happen have two choices - attempt to justify it, or (the tack they are taking), claim it was one “rogue civil-servant” in their office responsible for it. Despite the fact that it was signed-off upon by the assistant HUD secretary. And the fact that means some gem-stone-rubber in a federal office can spend almost a million dollars in taxpayer money with no one really knowing about it or approving.
nah - pretty much all spending packages have to be ‘signed off’ by some one. the listed items (of a three year budget of course) amounted to be 20,164 (that Jim Beam item, in particular was $624- which I admit is a questionable item at all, but certainly not at the level of giving a quart to each person type of thing).
Seriously, when you’re dealing with any governmental program, you’ll find all sorts of things that spark controversy. and not all is pork barrel, either.
Tell ya what Milo if you were at the Flint dopefest, I was gonna suggest to you to check out some data in your home district about Work First. I was gonna bet you were unaware that the Work First program in MI would authorize a lump sum payment (can’t remember the amount -when I ran one it was $500, I know it got raised after we stopped) for an AFDC recipient to purchase a car. Other things are routine for ‘supportive services’ - hair cuts, clothing, car repairs. Much of it actually made sense, tho’ - for a cash outlay of a grand or so, you could greatly enhance some one’s ability to find a job and ultimately get off welfare. but, in the meantime, in certain quarters you’d be likely to hear “damn gubmint, given’ away cars, I should quit my job and get me one of them”.
Like I said, the article doesn’t say much about the program except this small percentage of it’s budget. While those things seem questionable, it leaves a bigger question of what was the other 840,000 spent on (one could assume of course, that the most egregious examples were already covered).
I’ll wait over here for my $0.03 tax refund thanks.
What’d they spend the rest of the money on? Probably pork rinds and anti-histamines for those allergic to the incense smoke. Unless it was wasted on something even more detestable, administration.
Hmmmmmm…
Granted you’ll find idiotic programs on either side of the fence, this just reinforces my loathing (on principle) of anything that (insert expletive) did except leave office.
Come on, UncleBeer, we’re supposed to be fighting ignorance, right?
any goverment contract I’ve ever even heard of, let alone been responsible for compliance had a maximum of 20% administration overhead, some much less (one of mine had a maximum of 7%). Administrative overhead, in addition to paying wages for strictly administrative tasks (such as grant writing, meetings dictated by funding source, audits, report writing, bookkeeping, bill paying, etc.), also had to pay for (in my case) things like audits, certain insurances and other bookkeeping costs. They’re also supposed to charge the appropriate percentage of housing costs, so that if the amount of time/wages that account for administrative tasks is 20%, then 20% of utilities, phone, supplies etc, should also be counted as administration.
Heck, my (public) college offers recreational offers recreational classes on dreck like that. I am sure our rec classes are at least partially substidized. I am yet to figure out why no one complains about the riduculous things that colleges spend cash on (except for the culture war people, but they didn’t really care about the money, just the prestige). What is financial aid but glorified welfare? What are college recreation programs except “hiring bands to entertain the rich kids” and that sort of thing? Everywhere you look the gov. spends money on wierd stuff. I just don’t understand why there is only outcry when they spend that money on the poor.
Heck, the people on the website looked happy. Even dreck can help sometimes. People sometimes survive serious illnesses using new age crap- not because the crap works- but because in their mind it works. I say let them burn incence. At least it will cover the stench of the unlivable ratholes we call public houseing.
So wring, you’re saying they didspend the bulk of it on pork rinds and anti-histamines?