Nelson Mandela would be appalled at the U.S.'s spend-o-rama

TEMECULA, Calif. — Where is Nelson Mandela when we need him?

In the fine new film "Invictus," South Africa's first black president inspects his first official paycheck.

"This is terrible," Mandela says. He decides he earns too much and subsequently donates a third of his salary to charity.

Mandela's humility and fiscal restraint would be as exotic in the nation's capital as a giraffe atop the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Washington's lavish self-aggrandizement and relentless march toward bankruptcy cruelly mock Mandela's sacrifice.

Today's thoughtless and corrosive spend-o-rama began under a Republican Congress and the feckless George W. Bush-Karl Rove administration. Alas, a Democratic White House and Congress briskly outspend their predecessors.

In stunning contrast to Mandela's example, Congress carpet-bombs taxpayer dollars on greedy federal bureaucrats — even as Americans struggle, and often fail, to pay their mortgages and rents.

Between December 2007 and June 2009, USA Today reported on Dec. 10, federal employees earning more than $100,000 annually increased 46 percent to 382,758. Those making more than $150,000 rose 119 percent to 66,538. Only one Transportation Department employee scored more than $170,000 as the recession began. By last June, that number had soared to 1,690.

Federal indulgence and incompetence are too vast to catalog. But these illustrations are sufficiently maddening.

After "Cash for Clunkers" gloriously shipped $3 billion chiefly to Tokyo — and Seoul-based automakers — the Obama administration concocted "Cash for Caulkers" — fresh subsidies to weatherize homes. This program could cost up to $20 billion, if House Democrats prevail. So far, Texas has spent $1.8 million in federal funds and has treated seven homes, averaging $257,000 each.

Congress sent President Barack Obama a $447 billion, 2,442-page omnibus spending bill on Dec. 14. It ballooned federal spending 12 percent while inflation inches along at 1.8 percent. This measure contained 5,224 pork-barrel projects worth $3.9 billion, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense. These included $700,000 for "Shrimp Industry Fishing Effort Research Continuation" in Silver Spring, Md.

Breaking the law that launched the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the House misallocated $154 billion in repayments by TARP-funded banks. That money legally must finance deficit reduction. House Democrats nevertheless flouted the law by turning this cash into America's fourth economic stimulus package.