Tag: Contracts

The Fox Guarding The Hen House

Everyone by now has an opinion about the DOGE fiasco playing out in the first month of the Trump Administration…..but did know the head of the agency is a parasite on the government money?

Elmo has made billions thanx to lucrative contracts with the government….

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, owes much of his wealth to government funding, even as he pledges to slash billions with his Department of Government Efficiency initiative.

A new Washington Post report found that the tech mogul/fascism enthusiast built his fortune from $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies, and tax credits going back more than 20 years. Musk’s companies received at least $6.3 billion in commitments from state and local governments in 2024 alone, and this is likely an undercount.

The total amount of government funding that Musk has received is likely much higher, given that federal funding related to defense and intelligence projects is often classified. For example, Musk’s company SpaceX has a contract to build spy satellites from the National Reconnaissance Office, an intelligence agency tasked with building satellites for national defense. That contract is reportedly worth $1.8 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.

According to the Post, Musk’s companies have close to a dozen other local grants, tax credits, and reimbursements whose costs are not publicly known. Musk also has 52 ongoing contracts with seven government agencies—including the Department of Defense, the General Services Administration, and NASA—that could pay his companies $11.8 billion in the next few years.

Tesla has been a major beneficiary of federal and state government funding, receiving $11.4 billion in regulatory credits meant to boost electric cars. Tesla sales have been helped by a $7,500 tax credit for buyers of electric vehicles too.

https://newrepublic.com/post/192001/elon-musk-government-funding-wealth

I would wager that none of his very lucrative contracts are on the chopping block.

How about you?

This is how you make sure your business interests are protected.

Word is the the contracts that have been terminated by DOGE may not be the cash cow they are said to be….

News accounts continue to challenge Elon Musk’s claims of major savings thanks to the Department of Government Efficiency he runs. On Monday, DOGE published an updated “wall of receipts” list of about 2,300 contracts that have been terminated across the federal government. The problem? The AP reports that nearly 800 of those cancellations won’t yield any savings whatsoever because the money already has been committed.

  • “It’s like confiscating used ammunition after it’s been shot when there’s nothing left in it. It doesn’t accomplish any policy objective,” says Charles Tiefer, an expert on government contracting law. “Their terminating so many contracts pointlessly obviously doesn’t accomplish anything for saving money.”
  • As a story at Axios explains, the only way to get truly meaningful savings would be to cut defense, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, which collectively make up 86% of the budget. President Trump, however, has promised not to touch any of them.
  • “When you consider where federal money really goes, most DOGE oddities and outrages amount to rounding errors in a sea of government obligations,” write Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei.
  • A defense: The AP quotes an anonymous administration official who says the canceled contracts are still important for the message they send about efficiency. And the Axios piece cites a Harris Poll survey showing that 72% of registered voters back the idea of an agency focused on the issue. “So Trump and his aides correctly calculate that both the cuts and the tales of government insanity are popular with the vast majority of Americans,” the outlet notes.

I think that this agency will be no more effective than the last Trump administration.

But that is just me.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

Where Does Our Tax Dollar Go?

My friend over at American Liberal Times wrote a post today about the cost of the ACA program…..I add this is to where a lot of our problems are found…..

I have heard this question asked by many and from both sides…..we hear about all those cheats on welfare and we hear about all that corporate welfare…..and then there are the stories about a $60 hammer or that $500 toilet seat…..you get my drift……this country is screwed daily by all those government contractors….that is why so many want to be on the list…..it is easy money.

I found another story about a total waste of our hard won cash in Afghanistan……

500 for a gallon of fuel?

That was the exorbitant figure paid with U.S. tax dollars to a contractor building a hospital in rural Afghanistan, according to a report from the government watchdog tasked with investigating expenditures on Afghanistan’s reconstruction.

In the report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the International Organization for Migration was found to lack sufficient internal controls able to detect overpayments of at least $507,000 to the contractor it hired to build a 100-bed hospital in the town of Gardez.

It was part of a project begun in July 2008 in a cooperative agreement between the United States International Agency for Development and IOM.

The examples of oversight ineptitude are staggering.

The inspector general found one case where IOM paid the contractor, Sayed Bilal Sadath Construction Company, $300,000 for 600 gallons of diesel fuel – a cost of $500 per gallon.

In another instance, IOM was found to have paid $220,000 for an automatic temperature control device that the audit said should have cost between $2,000 and $10,000.

Read More…

And I bet you thought gas was expensive in your neighborhood….believe me….IT can get worse!

Another Private Contractor Story

From the VOMITORIUM

These types of stories…horror stories….about the private contractors that the US uses thanks in part to the privatization of certain fields during the Reagan days….just keeps giving us nightmares…….

The most memorable one in my mind is that of KBR in Iraq…a subsidy of Halliburton…..was responsible for the electrocution deaths of several American soldiers while taking a shower….and then there are the killings and fraud and out right theft that is part of the Blackwater (sorry, that is Xe, now) saga…yet another private contractor that is screwing the American people as hard as they can…..

Newser is reporting on another contractor fraud, this time in Afghanistan….

The contractor that supplies the military with Afghan translators is putting American lives at risk by sending out unqualified translators, a former employee charges. Paul Funk—who used to oversee the screening of Afghan linguists for Mission Essential Personnel—tells ABC News that the company inflated grades and tolerated cheating on exams to hit staffing targets. He says some 28% of translators sent out by the company between November 2007 and June 2008 failed to meet the required standard of proficiency. Funk, who has filed a whistleblower lawsuit, says he complained to the company about “corrupt” practices, including candidates who had stand-ins take over-the-phone exams in order to secure jobs that pay upwards of $200,000. Military personnel and embedded journalists say they have witnessed unacceptably poor translators working in Afghanistan. The company rejects Funk’s accusations and says it will answer them in court. The US military has confirmed that the company, which holds contracts worth up to $1.4 billion, is under investigation.

This is a constant thing….my guess it is only the tip of an iceberg that NO one in Washington wishes to confront…….

Privatization has not saved the US much money nor has it been more efficient nor has it made the country safer…..what it has done is allow the private contractors to steal billions….and yet the Repubs still embrace privatization….leads me to ask whose payroll are they really on?  I mean guards at embassies use to be Marines and they made about $45,000 a year and then they were replaced with “security consultants” making $1000 a day…now you tell me where that saves the country any cash….

Ladies? Is This The Party For You?

May I please see a show of hands of the ladies that are members of the GOP?

This is the party of the absurd…sorry…but if you are a woman and still think the GOP is the Party that best represents your interests in the political world…then you should hold hands with Rep. Bachmann and pray…..this party seems to dislike blacks and hispanics and now it has shown its true colors in its thinking towards women…..

About now…you are wondering just what the Hell I am talking about….right?

I read this story in personalmoneystore.com written by Steve Tarlow:

Following one of the more vile incidents against a woman in American history, the Senate has voted in favor of Sen. Al Franken’s amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill that gives the government the right to withhold defense contracts (no small cash loans, either) from companies like Halliburton/KBR (not just that company) that deny employees from taking “workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court,” reports Think Progress.

If you aren’t already aware, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR co-workers in Iraq during the year 2005. After the tragic incident, she was imprisoned in a shipping container for at least 24 hours without food, water, or a bed. If small cash loans could have bought a human conscience, perhaps her captors could have found it within themselves to stop.

She was told that if she went against the company’s mandatory arbitration clause and sought treatment and justice outside, she’d lose her job.

30 Repub Senators voted against giving the woman any satisfaction for being gang raped…..30 out of 40 Repub senators…..who were the infamous Repubs that voted against the issue?  Glad you asked!

  • Alexander (R-TN)
  • Barrasso (R-WY)
  • Bond (R-MO)
  • Brownback (R-KS)
  • Bunning (R-KY)
  • Burr (R-NC)
  • Chambliss (R-GA)
  • Coburn (R-OK)
  • Cochran (R-MS)
  • Corker (R-TN)
  • Cornyn (R-TX)
  • Crapo (R-ID)
  • DeMint (R-SC)
  • Ensign (R-NV)
  • Enzi (R-WY)
  • Graham (R-SC)
  • Gregg (R-NH)
  • Inhofe (R-OK)
  • Isakson (R-GA)
  • Johanns (R-NE)
  • Kyl (R-AZ)
  • McCain (R-AZ)
  • McConnell (R-KY)
  • Risch (R-ID)
  • Roberts (R-KS)
  • Sessions (R-AL)
  • Shelby (R-AL)
  • Thune (R-SD)
  • Vitter (R-LA)
  • Wicker (R-MS)

If you think these guys shafted the woman in her pursuit of justice and your senator/s is on the list then write, email, call them and voice your displeasure with them.

If this is the way the Repubs are trying to reinvent themselves to move into the 21st century then they are more idiotic than I ever anticipated….with all their moves they seem to move further and further away from reality….not a good start for any reinvention of self…..

Boeing, Union Hold Talks

Boeing Co. faces a quandary in final contract talks with union machinists that begin Thursday: It must avoid a strike that would cause delays on an already backed-up production line, yet be tough enough to make inroads against mounting pension and health-insurance costs.

The round-the-clock talks are aimed at averting a strike like the one that shut down the company’s jet production lines for almost a month in 2005. Going into the talks, both Boeing and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers are digging in on the same thorny issues — health care, pensions and job security — that led to the walkout three years ago. The union is scheduled to vote on Boeing’s final offer on Sept. 3.

Boeing has sought to limit its pension and health-care liability by paring who is covered by plans or by asking employees to pay part of the costs through payroll deductions and insurance co-payments. In successive contract negotiations, Boeing has pushed for limits to future retiree benefits and sought changes in job-security language that permitted the company to farm out work or bring in contract employees to save costs.

Union officials have already said they are disappointed with Boeing’s initial offers, predicting if things don’t improve, members will strike. “Boeing is negotiating like it’s in bankruptcy court,” said Mark Blondin, lead negotiator for the machinists union’s main offices. “I hope their game plan isn’t to stick with the approach they’ve taken so far. If it is, there will be a work stoppage.”

Verizon UpDate #6

The contract negotiated by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) with the telecommunications company Verizon represents a betrayal of the 65,000 Verizon workers represented by the two unions. It cuts benefits and sets the stage for the company to eliminate thousands of jobs.

The agreement was reached one week after the August 2 expiration of the previous five-year contract. The unions refused to call a strike, despite a 91 percent vote to authorize a walkout. Instead, various protest stunts were organized while the membership was kept in the dark not only about the status of the negotiations, but even about the unions’ demands.

Workers and retirees will see a continued erosion of their living standards. The three-year pact calls for wage and pension increases of 3.25 percent, 3.5 percent and 3.75 percent, with a cost-of-living increase in only the final year. Already this year, the consumer price index has risen well beyond the wage increases in the contract. According to the US government, transportation costs have risen 13.4 percent since last year and energy costs are up a whopping 19.3 percent over just one year ago.

On health care, workers in New York and the New England states will be forced into a preferred providers organization, or PPO. Under the PPO, workers will be able to see only those doctors approved by the plan and will have to get referrals before seeing a specialist. Many services are not covered and there is a cap on benefits.

Both active and retired workers will see their prescription drug program cut and will be forced to pay a larger share of the cost of brand name medications.

The contract also sets the stage for Verizon to eliminate thousands of jobs. Since 2003, when the last contract was signed, Verizon has cut 13,000 union jobs and approximately 40,000 management jobs through attrition and layoffs. In addition, Verizon has forced thousands of other workers, mostly in management, to either move or be laid off and replaced by younger, lower-salary employees.

Union leadership continues down the path of helping the corporations to rape the worker of the benefits that they have fought for for so long.  With the approach of an election, I do not see the worker any better off, no matter who gets elected.

US Steel And Union Reach A Deal

United States Steel reached a tentative agreement Tuesday with the United Steelworkers of America Union that will cover about 900 union workers at the company’s Lone Star tubular products plant.

The new four-year contract remains subject to ratification by the United Steelworkers of America at the Lone Star plant and by 14 other union locals across the country, according to Lorin Mask, recording secretary for the United Steelworkers of America Local 4134 in Lone Star.

Key parts

Elements of a new four-year tentative contract between U.S. Steel and the United Steelworkers Union:

– Significant wage increases;

– Substantial bonus and pension increases;

– Improved benefit programs for active employees and retirees;

– Reduced health care premiums for retirees.

Source: United Steelworkers Union national offices

Verizon UpDate #5

STRIKE AVOIDED!

Verizon said it has reached tentative agreements on three-year contracts with the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. The two unions represent about 65,000 employees.

The tentative agreement will be presented to covered employees as part of the ratification process. The contracts include wage increases that total 10.5 percent over three years, said Verizon in a statement.

Union leaders and Verizon had failed to strike an agreement last week, and had extended talks, setting Sunday night as the new deadline.

Verizon has about 103,000 workers in its telecom unit which provides residential and small business telephone, broadband and video services.

Will be interesting to see the details of the contract–will the workers be screwed as with previous contracts in other industries?

Verizon UpDate #3

This is the press release as of 1930 hrs on 06 Aug 08

Report from the CWA-IBEW Bargaining Committees Negotiations continued throughout the day and will continue into the evening. We’ve made some progress but not enough. As we said earlier, we will do whatever it takes to secure our contract, one way or another. That means we’ll get it done at the bargaining table or on the picket line. We’re stepping up our mobilization because we know it makes a real difference. Plans are in the works for worksite rallies on Friday to focus more attention on our fight for jobs and a fair contract. So stick with the mobe plan, check with your local about actions and stay strong and ready. If progress stops, we’ll all stop.

Verizon Strike UpDate #2

Seeking a fair contract, more than 1,000 telephone workers from throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island marched on Verizon’s New England headquarters on Thursday to rally for good jobs and reliable services. The current agreement covering about 65,000 employees with Verizon East expires at midnight on August 2, 2008.

“Verizon made $5.5 billion in profits last year because of our skill and productivity,” said Myles Calvey, Business Manager of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2222 and chair of the New England telephone workers’ bargaining committee. “This company can afford to provide workers a fair contract with decent benefits, and to keep quality jobs in our communities.”

“We are still far apart on health care costs – especially retiree coverage, lump sum pension payments, contracting out, corporate profit sharing, cost of living allowances and many, many other issues,” added Calvey, a long time Verizon splice service technician. “There is plenty of time left to reach an agreement, but if we have to strike we will.”

Union members overwhelmingly approved giving their union negotiating committee authority to call a strike after August 2.