Okay, we all know that the government wastes money. But this on really has me upset. A report by the Minority Office of the Federal Financial Management Subcommittee examines how CDC has been managing it’s money. I’m just going to list a couple of points here, but you can get your own pdf of the CDC Off Center report.
- $1.7 million — including terrorism funds — on a Hollywood liaison program, which happens to be run by a former employee (pg. 87);
- $45 million for conferences, including those featuring prostitutes, protests, and beach parties (pgs. 48 – 60);
- $250,000 spent so two former employees could help build staff morale, (pgs. 100 – 101);
- $128,000 in CDC bioterrorism funds spent by L.A. County on trinkets such as letter openers, whistles, magnets, mouse pads, flashlights, pens, and travel toothbrushes (pgs. 106 – 110).
- $5 billion spent over seven years on HIV/AIDS prevention funding, with no decrease in infection rates. The U.S. still sees 40,000 new cases each year (pgs. 23-37);
- HIV/AIDS prevention funds spent on a transgender beauty pageant (pg. 45);
For those wondering why this bothers me, you have to realize that I used to work for a non-profit in Arkansas that assisted people infected with HIV/AIDS. In addition to helping those infected we also did abstinence based presentations in the schools and offered classes and retreats to help educate people on how to live with this disease. And, in all this, we dealt with the CDC on a regular basis. However, we could never get the CDC to give us a grant to help pay for anything. We were always having to go to private foundations to fund our projects. If it wasn’t for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation we would have never been able to help as many people as we did. Anyway, that’s why this issue got me fired up.
Also, please realize that the CDC isn’t a business. Its money comes from the federal government and thus from your tax dollars. So in a indirect way, we all just paid for a transgender beauty pageant.
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