It's oversight season: 'Hundreds' of hearings to tackle funding cuts

By Molly K. Hooper - 02/06/11 12:05 PM ET

House appropriations oversight season starts in earnest this week as subcommittees hold the first of “hundreds” of oversight hearings to trim funding for federal agencies and programs.

On Wednesday, two of the 12 appropriations subcommittees are set to review budget numbers with key officials from the Justice Department, Commerce Department, NASA and Securities and Exchange Commission.

Since taking on the role as Appropriations Committee Chair, Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), a former prosecutor, has made it known that he expects the so-called “cardinals” – appropriations subcommittee chairmen – to hold vigorous oversight of any and all agencies that are funded with taxpayer dollars.

A committee aide said that these are the first of “hundreds” of hearings with agency representatives and department heads.

“One of the chairman’s overarching priorities for the committee is to conduct vigorous and comprehensive oversight of every single federal agency, department and program. He’s instructed his subcommittee chairmen to hold hundreds of oversight hearings between now and the time when we’re going to be writing our bills in order for them to make the best possible decisions on prioritizing programs, cost/benefit analysis and making sure that the taxpayers' money is being spent appropriately and to decide where to cut,” the aide told The Hill.

The appropriations committee usually produces funding bills for the fiscal year in early summer.

Commerce-Justice-Science (C-J-S) Appropriations subcommittee Chairman Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) scheduled a hearing with Acting Justice Inspector General Cynthia Schnedar and Commerce Inspector General Todd Zinser on Wednesday. On Thursday, C-J-S appropriators are set to hear from NASA Inspector General Paul K. Martin and National Science Foundation Inspector General Allison Lerner.

“The goal of the hearings is to help identify top management challenges and find ways to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in these respective departments and agencies,” Wolf said in a statement released late last week. An aide familiar with the subcommittee’s schedule noted that the panel has at least 25 similar hearings planned through March.

Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee Chairwoman Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.) has also scheduled several hearings to review budget numbers with inspectors general of three federally funded programs including the Treasury Department’s tax administration, the Postal Service and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

As subcommittees begin their oversight hearings, appropriators will have to create spending bills to fund government operations for the rest of 2011. The continuing resolution approved by Congress in December is set to expire on March 4.

Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) released a budget blueprint to cap spending at $1.055 trillion for 2011. That number is $74 billion less than the budget request President Obama submitted to Congress for fiscal 2011 and $32 billion less than the level at which lawmakers agreed to maintain spending.

Rogers said on Thursday that the GOP will seek to make the deepest cuts to funding for transportation, housing, agriculture and justice as it seeks to bring down spending for the rest of 2011.

Rogers said that subcommittee chairmen will be focusing on those areas in an attempt to meet the $1.055 trillion total spending ceiling set by Ryan. Rogers said an increase in defense spending compared to 2010 levels will be allowed.

House Republicans are intent on cutting as much as $100 billion from annual discretionary spending – or reverting to pre-economic stimulus, pre-bank bailout levels in 2008.

Some Republicans want to cut even more from discretionary spending – which means that the oversight hearings to be held over the next few months in the appropriations subcommittees will take on a greater importance, as lawmakers demand that agency and program heads justify their individual funding levels.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), vice-chairman of the State and Foreign Operations appropriations subcommittee, said that he anticipates a rigorous schedule on his panels. Cole also sits on the Interior and Defense appropriations subcommittees.

Cole expects that the oversight hearings will focus primarily on government spending in 2012.

And he has some advice for officials headed to the hot seat: be prepared for tough questions on money spent to operate respective federal programs.

“A lot of these things are popular programs or good programs … but, you still have to live within your means, sometimes there are things that are good that you just can’t afford, we’re in that position right now,” Cole said in an interview with The Hill.

Cole also said that the hearings will help appropriators make the cuts needed to specific programs, as opposed to broad, across-the-board cuts for all agencies.

“We’ll try and reprioritize, we’ll look at everything, everything will be on the table but I don’t expect any across the board cuts, I expect instead, an effort to prioritize what’s truly important, we’re going to have some sharp differences with Democrats,” Cole said, adding that Republicans will also face differences within the party.

Erik Wasson and Vicki Needham contributed to this report

Comments

The first step is to defund the EPA and cut the dept of education and transportation to 50 employees + 2, one for each state and secretary and dept head, all communications to be done by internet saves time and traveling because each state employee remains in the state they are from. 
Take away regulation, rules and laws that are given to all agencies that have them. Federal employees are not accountable to the citizens of this country, only congress should have that power and if we do not like what is happening we can vote them out of office.
Take a look at the federal government and the 275,000 jobs that have been created in the last two years and also the raises given should be revoked to all employees making over $70K. Take a look at every dept. of government and budget them for decreases next several years instead of automatic increases.BY WILLIAM on 02/06/2011 at 13:00

Big Government is a failure. Witness our $14.1T debt that will grow to $28B by 2015 and take us to a financial meltdown.

We must privatize Fannie and Freddie, the US Postal Service, FAA, NASA, HUD and eliminate a host of wasteful, inefficient government agencies including Education.BY RON on 02/06/2011 at 13:20

Cut salaries for panels, committees, boards, scholars, advisors, consultants, interest groups, political friends, lapdogs and anyone else that eats up funding without contributing in a positive way to human civilization. Many just get in the way of human progress even though they speak eloquently.BY NORM on 02/06/2011 at 14:22

Start by cutting Obama's salay he has not earned it and in fact owes us all 5 trillion dollars.BY BARRY on 02/06/2011 at 15:52

Clinton balanced the budget by placing a 2% tax increase on the rich without a single republican vote. Bush removed that tax increase for ten years and it has led to the current deficit. Why is anyone against restoring it instead of cutting all of the social programs the poor and middle class desperately need? This is nothing but class warfare. If you are not rich, why in God's name do you support republicans? You are idiots!BY SFC CARRIER on 02/06/2011 at 16:09

Big governament IS a failure. Especially under the 'guidance' of the Liar-in-Chief. His ideas: Obamacare, Crap and trade etc. are to the point of treason.BY BONZOBUDDIE on 02/06/2011 at 16:13

Obama is ramming his $1.5 trillion budget deficit down our trhroats: 
2007 budget of Rev $1.939 trillion less "on budget" outlays $2.275 trillion = deficit of $342 billion.
BINGO - what stands out is that with approximately the same revenue expected in 2011 as in 2007, Obama is planning to spend in 2011 $1 trillion more which creates a $1 trillion deficit.
Add another half trillion to the deficit for the tax cut extension which Obama refuses to cut in his budget, therefore, the deficit becomes a whopping $1.5 trillion. 
They need to cut at least $1.2 trillion on their over-inflated budget just to equal the $340 billion deficit of 2007.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals/BY ALERT CITIZEN on 02/06/2011 at 16:44

They never should have passed the TAX CUT EXTENSIONS for the ultra-wealthy, but McConnell and the RETHUGS held the other 98% of America hostage…Why any middle or lower class person would vote GOP is beyond me.BY INDEPENDENT1 on 02/06/2011 at 16:46

Start cutting Disability insurance. The program that gives more money for each child the disabled has,,,Disabilit y Insurance is to help the disabled not be some thing that can be gamed…same with medicare, where philologist are making money giving "counseling to the elderly"BY DIANE on 02/06/2011 at 17:38

Why does the strong and healthy always want to cut the helpless. You better be Thanking God that you are still healthy, instead of trying to bury the helpless.BY SOCVT on 02/06/2011 at 17:53

A Case Study: Part 4

Part 4: 400 Rabbis Choose Politics Over Faith and A Station Wagon Full of Nuns

After the horrible tragedy of the Tucson shooting Media Matters and Uncle George cooled it on the Antisemitism slander for a while, not because they were heeding the President’s call for toning down the dialogue, but because they were too busy blaming, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh and other for the Tucson shooting.

Just before the weekend of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, the “Glenn Beck hates Jews” machine re-started its engines as the Soros-affiliated Jewish Funds for Justice (JFJ) delivered a petition to Fox headquarters criticizing Glenn Beckfor comments he made about George Soros back in October (the same ones Abe Foxman criticized). JFJ embellished the original Foxman allegation with a false charge that Beck used Holocaust terms to describe people he disagreed with “hundreds of times.”

Two weeks later in the January 27th edition of the Wall Street Journal was an advertisement/open letter signed by four-hundred Rabbis via JFJ. Repeating the libels found in the petition delivered earlier that month, the letter added a demand that Fox News Chief Roger Ailes disrespected the group because when JFJ announced they were preparing a complaint signed by four hundred Rabbis, Ailes dismissed the threat  describing the group as “Left-Wing Rabbis who don’t think anybody should be able to use the word Holocaust on the air.” Ailes was completely incorrect– the group was composed of Left-Wing Rabbis who don’t think anybody but progressives should be able to use the word Holocaust on the air.

This was the Soros/Media Matters anti-Beck strategy hitting the bottom of the barrel. That Rabbinical letter broke the Jewish laws against loshen hora (evil speech). Even worse, it tried to put Beck in a situation where in order to defend himself he would have to attack 400 Rabbis. Or, as Archie Bunker’s attorney Mr. Rabinowitz once advised:

In a court of law, you can’t beat a station wagon filled with nuns!

Being Jewish and somewhat observant, I still wouldn’t dare try to argue against the nuns, however felt completely comfortable challenging libelous accusations of 400 Rabbis.

Using Halacha  (Jewish Law) explained down by ancient Jewish sages, something the 400 should be practicing, I explained why that  Rabbinical letter broke the Jewish laws. Those sages explained that before people could make charges against anybody they should, among other things, research the veracity of the accusations and examine the motivation of the accuser. Jews are taught that even if the charges are true (which was not the case this time) in the vast majority of cases Jews are commanded to keep that kind of talk to themselves. Because of ignoring the rules they are supposed to be teaching, these 400 Rabbis  brought shame upon themselves, their holy profession, the entire Jewish people, and even worse, have committed a Chillul Hashem (desecration of God’s name).

Before the Media Matters types accuse me of making the same mistake I accuse the Rabbis, as well as Media Matters and Soros of making allow me to suggest their contention would be argued against by none other than the Chofetz Chaim, his real name is Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan.  In 1873 the Rabbi wrote what is considered the definitive book on the Jewish laws of proper speech  (Chofetz Chaim, meaning Desire Life is also the name of his book).  The Chofetz Chaim, of blessed memory,  would argue that when such desecration and Loshon Hora as committed as in the case of the Beck-libel,  one has a duty to respond, point out the infraction in order to give the offender’s an opportunity for teshuva (Hebrew for repentance). The purpose of this Case Study is not only to clear Becks name, but to point out to Soros, Media Mattes and the Rabbis how they have been operating, warn other who may be facing similar libel from Soros, the Progressives and Media Matters, and most importantly to give them an opportunity to change.

A Further investigation revealed that most of the people/or organizations whose quotes were used in the body of the JFJ letter to corroborate their slander were rebelling against the Soros effort. Out of the five quotes, three weren’t contacted prior to the use of their names, disagreed with the thrust of the letter and were not happy that they were included. A fourth came out and said the letter was too one sided. And, not surprisingly, the only group/person not raising an objection has multiple connections to the Dude himself.

Media Matters decided to weigh in-on that last report and as their usual practice; they used half-truths and distortions in an attempt to discredit.In this case not Beck, but your humble blogger–me.   This new evidence must have truly disturbed them since they brought out the “heavy”  ammo, Senior Fellow, Eric Boehlert to respond.

This was actually exciting, an experienced writer with all of the financial backing of the Spooky Dude  looking at the work of an unemployed marketing director living on a few freelance writing  jobs and the kindness of a few strangers hitting his tip jar, struggling  to find a full time paid writing gig.  Here was an opportunity to pick up tips from a professional, an opportunity to hone my craft.

Sadly, it was obvious that Mr. Boehlert did not spend much time with my piece. Well either that or he was deliberately trying to mislead his readers. Of course,  that wasn’t possible Eric Boehlert wrote a freaking book about blogging, he wouldn’t break rule number one, being honest with your readers readers, it must have been that he was forced to do a rush job.

Allow me to explain what I mean. Mr. Boehlert began his article saying:

The sweeping denunciation clearly touched a deep, right-wing nerve, since it prompted hysterical reactions like this one:

[T]he rabbis efforts brought shame upon themselves, their holy profession and the entire Jewish people.

A bit over the top, no? Or do rabbis no longer enjoy the freedom of speech if that speech includes criticizing Glenn Beck and Roger Ailes

To my surprise, Mr. Boehlert, the professional ignored the link/explanation which justified the sentence which he called over the top. If  Boehlert had read the section carefully he would’ve realized that no, it wasn’t over the top when you understand what Jewish law says the Rabbis are supposed to be teaching. Freedom of speech and the U.S. Constitution had nothing to do with my reaction, it was the Rabbis violation of  the religious tenets inherent with their sacred profession.

Before I proceed any further, I would be negligent not to thank  the Senior Fellow for linking to my blog at the beginning of his comments, the extra-traffic was welcome.  I don’t want to seem ungrateful but the next time, it would be nice if he reminded his readers to click on an ad or hit the tip jar, they seemed a bit stingy. I am a sole practitioner and unlike Mr. Boehlert don’t have George Soros to help pay my salary.

Boehlert continued with a weird attack on the main thrust of the piece.

From the site Yid With Lid:

Groups Whose Quotes Used by Soros Group to Attack Glenn Beck, Repudiate Anti-Beck Effort

And this [emphasis added]:

Over the past few days, three of the groups used to corroborate the false charges raised by Jewish Funds For Justice have repudiated the letter arraigned by the George Soros proxy. All three weren’t contacted prior to the use of their names, disagreed with the thrust of the letter and were not happy that they were included. A fourth came out and said the letter was too one sided.

And…this is just dopey for the very simple reason that all the JFSJ did in its ad was reference public quotes attributed to the three Jewish organizations (the Anti-Defamation League, Commentary, and the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors). They are quotes critical of Beck’s Nazi rhetoric.

Gee, nowhere did I say JFJ was not allowed to use the quotes, what I said was the people involved were upset their quotes/ organizational names were associated with the bogus letter your Soros sister organization issued. He went on:

Those quotes are all on the record, and none of them are in question. Why would JFSJ need to ‘contact’ the groups before referencing their quotes? Why would JFsJ need to make sure the groups would be “happy” to be mentioned in the ad? It’s absurd. The JFSJ never claimed the groups were sponsors in the ad in any way

You are 100% right Mr. Boehlert, the JFJ ad never said the people or organizations were sponsors of the ad. Although by neglecting to mention that they weren’t connected with the Soros-led effort it misled the reader into thinking they were connected. It also caused the people who objected think JFJ was trying to tie them into their little hate project, something you should be pushing JFJ to apologize for.

But let’s be a little truthful here Mr. Boehlert, if that kind of disingenuous connection was made by a conservative (or if George Soros wasn’t paying part of your salary)  you would have not spared one penny of Spooky Dude’s billions to bash that fake claim from here, back to Soros’ birthplace in back in hungry.

Just curious Eric, (I assume I can call you Eric because we have been talking for almost 200 words now). How come you didn’t comment on all the charges and research presented in the first post last week? Or answer any of the questions raised in the Facebook conversation with Rabbi Steven Wernick? Why didn’t you bother to answer the specific objections made by the people whose quotes were misused. For God’s sake, one of them was Abe Foxman the progressive’s progressive.   Face it, when JFJ  lost Abe was the progressive equivalent of when Walter Cronkite editorialized against the Vietnam War and President Johnson said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America”

It’s just so hard to understand; on one hand, Eric Boehlert is professional, remember  he even wrote a book on blogging. There is no way that he would leave out parts of the story on purpose, just to skew it in one direction or another. Just because he works for an organization funded by George Soros, it doesn’t mean that he would be deliberately misleading. Maybe he just had to rush and get the post out quickly, I can certainly understand deadlines. But why would my new good  friend Eric do a rush job that would mislead his readers? He is a professional dammit!

See my conundrum? I can understand how George Soros, Media Matters and the rest of the progressive army would exploit anti-Semitic bigotry to discredit Glenn Beck and protect George Soros; its just their desperate attempt to avoid answering the fact laid out by the Fox host, and a warning to others, not to follow in his footsteps. That is simply how the progressive Sugar-Daddy and his smear machine operates. But I can’t come up with an explanation as to why Eric Boehlert would ignore part of the story or mislead his readers, this guy is a professional , not simply some hack  writer of progressive propaganda.

--Jeff Dunetz

A Case Study: Part 3

Part 3: Dumb and “Dumberer”/The Challenge

Since they didn’t have the capacity to debate the Fox Commentator’s on his facts,  Media Matters and the rest of the Soros started to do would do whatever they could to brand Glenn Beck  an anti-Semite. Maybe they believed in the anti-Semitic stereotype that Jews controlled the media,and at was needed to rid themselves of Beck was to convince the media’s “Jewish overlords” that Beck hated Jews. Granted that is a ridiculous theory.  But not as ridiculous as the one Media Matters presented next.

On November 9th they attacked Beck-owned website,The Blaze, using a charge that will rank as probably the lamest allegation of Antisemitism made since biblical times when God told Abraham to leave Ur the land of his birth, his kindred and his father’s house, move to the Holy Land to create the first “Jewish neighborhood.”

The Blaze’s infraction was quoting Zubi Diamond, author of The Wizards of Wall Street” in order to push the claim that George Soros may be “betting on U.S. financial collapse.” According to Diamond, Soros’ agenda is “to destroy capitalism.” According to Media Matters, when Diamond called Soros the “mastermind” behind of a “cabal of slithery rich” who “visited financial violence on the American people to get Barack Obama elected,” He was referring to Soros using anti-Semitic imagery. No really, they actually said that.

Interestingly when Mr. Spooky (or is it Mr. Dude) used the anti-Semitic canardthat the Jews control everything they were silent “The pro-Israel lobby [a polite way of saying, those dammed Jooose] has been remarkably successful in suppressing criticism.”

They were also silent when General Merrel McPeak, former Obama for President Co-Chair, was asked during an interview why there isn’t peace in the Middle East. He answered, “New York City. Miami. We have a large vote — vote, here in favor of Israel. And no politician wants to run against it.” (In other words those pesky Jews, who control America’s policy on the Middle East.)

And there are plenty of other examples, comments made by one-time Obama appointee Chas Freeman, Obama Campaign adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, Progressive Congressmen Moran and Ellison just to name a few—all ignored by Media Matters.

During his Soros series Beck used an interview Soros did with 60 Minutes where the Pope of Progressivism discussed how he helped to confiscate Jewish property:

KROFT: My understanding is that you went out with this protector of yours who swore that you were his adopted godson.

Mr. SOROS: Yes. Yes.

KROFT: Went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from the Jews.

Mr. SOROS: Yes. That’s right. Yes.

KROFT: I mean, that’s–that sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many years. Was it difficult?

Mr. SOROS: Not–not at all. Not at all. Maybe as a child you don’t–you don’t see the connection. But it was–it created no–no problem at all.

KROFT: No feeling of guilt?

Mr. SOROS: No. [my emphasis]

Ironically, Beck had used this passage to bring out sympathy for Soros:

But when he had to go over and take the lands from the people, his Jewish friends and neighbors who were being sent to the gas chambers, I can’t imagine what that would do to a teenager, or anybody, an adult—well, what did it do to George Soros.

Beck’s only real question about Soros and  the Holocast era is why today at age 80, he considers it the happiest year of his life.

This started the whole Beck and the Holocaust craze.

A few days later, Progressive leader Abe Foxman head of the ADL, who often works harder for progressive issues such as abortion rights and amnesty for illegal aliens, than Jewish issues criticized the way Beck handled his discussion of Soros’ youth in Nazi Hungry saying: “Glenn Beck’s description of George Soros’ actions during the Holocaust is completely inappropriate, offensive and over the top.”

But unexpectedly Foxman had to “walk back” his criticism when Beck revealed a letter he received from the ADL guru praising the commentator as a friend to both to Israel and the Jewish Community. Most of the progressive Mainstream Media  leaped all  the Foxman criticism (leaving out of course the walk back part). The small  Jewish community newspapers such as the Jewish Week in New York, who make no attempt to hide their progressive bias, were particularly harsh.

In December, disgraced progressive heroine Helen Thomas went on another one of her anti-Semitic diatribes. Thomas claimed that “You cannot say anything (critical) about Israel in this country”. And that was the nicest thing Thomas said all night. In her speech about discrimination against Arabs she launched into an anti-Semitic tirade about how those rich Jews control America. Thomas drew a standing ovation when she talked about

“the whole question of money involved in politics. We are owned by propagandists against the Arabs. There’s no question about that. Congress, the White House, and Hollywood, Wall Street, are owned by the Zionists. No question in my opinion. They put their money where their mouth is…We’re being pushed into a wrong direction in every way.”

Interestingly, two months later Ms Thomas’ diatribe  was echoed in a piece published written by‘ MJ Rosenberg and published by Media Matters. The Media Matters piece  implied that the Jews ran the government, the media, and if it wasn’t for those dammed Jews,  the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran would be practically “kissing cousins.”

The Thomas incident had no connection to Media Matters except for the fact that it made me wonder, If Soros’  hit men exerted all of that effort on fake charges of Antisemitism against Glenn Beck, would they put in any time criticizing a real example of Antisemitism in the media, Helen Thomas.

I offered a challenge:

… allow me to send a shout-out to the hypocritical folks at Media Matters, you enjoy blasting conservative figures such as Glenn Beck with trumped up charges of Antisemitism, along with writing up one-sided editorials about peoplethrowing around Nazi-related terms.  Since you folks have set yourselves up as the “protector of all Jews” will you now write something that criticizes real Antisemitism spewed out by the progressive Helen Thomas? ….So my progressive friends are you going to finally accept the fact that it is humanly possible for a progressive to be a hater? Maybe after you are done with Helen you can go two of the most Anti-Semitic sites on the internet, the progressive Daily Kos, and the progressive Huffington Post.

That’s if George Soros allows you to.

That challenge was repeated in  Big Journalism a week later. But there was no answer and it couldn’t be because Media Matters  wasn’t reading my posts.   Between July 2010 and Jan 2011 they read and criticized at least six pieces I wrote for the Breitbart Big Sites.  It was assumed they ignored the challenge because Helen Thomas was progressive.