THIS PAGE
TO A FRIEND
FALWELL CONFIDENTIAL
Insider weekly newsletter to
The Moral Majority Coalition and The Liberty AllianceSenate Report Details Outlandish CDC Spending Habits
Friday, June 22, 2007
From: Jonathan Falwell
The next time you are feeling under the weather -- perhaps home sick in bed, and looking for a way to pass the time -- you may want to read through the new 115-page Senate report on the outrageous and wasteful spending practices of the taxpayer-funded Centers for Disease Control (CDC). On second thought, what you read in this report just might make you feel worse.
For years, CDC officials in Atlanta have made the trek up to Capitol Hill to request additional funding to carry out their mission of “preventing and controlling disease, injury and disability.” With the annual CDC budget currently at $10 billion, Senator (and medical doctor) Tom Coburn, R-Okla., decided it was time for the activities of the CDC to be put under scrutiny.
Coburn spearheaded efforts to publish the just released senate subcommittee report: “CDC Off Center.” For an indication of what the investigative team found, you need look no further than the report subtitle: “A review of how an agency tasked with fighting and preventing disease has spent hundreds of millions of tax dollars for failed prevention efforts, international junkets, and lavish facilities, but cannot demonstrate it is controlling disease.”
Here are a few examples of outlandish CDC spending revealed in the report:
* Construction of a lavish new $106 million visitor center in Atlanta – the 202,000 sq. ft. Thomas R. Harkin Global Communications Center, including a 70 ft. X 25 ft. video wall of plasma television screens and a $20 million TV studio. The previous visitor center was built in 1996.
* A new $109 million 325,000 sq. ft. Arlen Specter Headquarters and Emergency Operations Center, also in Atlanta, including $9.8 million in office furniture.
* A state-of-the-art “Lifestyle Facility” fitness center at the CDC’s Atlanta campus with free access for employees to enjoy such attributes as “zero-gravity” chairs with a mood-enhancing light show, which one employee called “very soothing,” plus two “quiet rooms,” and two “dry-heat saunas.”
And if these expenditures don’t raise your temperature, you might get a little nauseous to learn about the taxpayer-funded activities at CDC-sponsored conferences.
* In 2003, taxpayers shelled out $300,000 for a conference in New Orleans that featured a workshop on how to defund abstinence education and a sexually graphic “entertainment” segment denigrating the Vice President of the United States.
* At a 2004 conference in Thailand, attended by 150 federal employees, attendees could see a “drag” show, art shows, fashion parades and Brazilian dresses made from condoms.
* Your tax dollars were also at work at the 16th Annual International AIDS conference in Toronto in 2006. This conference, which cost taxpayers $315,000, included presentations designed to encourage recognition of prostitution as “legitimate legal work.” To make the point, one convention center exhibit included three prostitutes lying on a satin-covered bed designed to “look like a typical workplace.”
As part of its mission in fighting the very real threat of acts of bioterrorism against the United States, the CDC gave away in excess of $2.7 billion in grants from 2002-2004. Los Angeles County alone received $83 million during this period, $14 million of which was never spent. Nevertheless, the county received an additional $27.9 million in 2006.
A review of L.A. County’s spending of CDC funds by the Los Angeles Times said that “at times, the spending has stretched the definition of terrorism readiness.” The Times may have come to this conclusion after learning how CDC bioterrorism funds were used to hire Hollywood actors to portray patients in a smallpox vaccination drill, costing $57,045 for the actors, $10,000 for gift certificates, $13,600 for pens, digital thermometers and bags for the gifts.
Other ludicrous uses of CDC grants include a transgender beauty pageant, a “safe sex” event featuring a porn star, a “Bar Night” by the San Francisco-based STOP AIDS Project and an article on how to throw an alcohol party by the same group, using federal funds designated for HIV prevention.
This scathing senate report on the wasteful and ineffective (not to mention often absurd) uses of CDC funds clearly demonstrates that the CDC has strayed far from its noble mission of fighting and preventing disease. Since its founding in 1946, Americans have trusted that the CDC has been doing its job, but this new evidence shows that this agency, like all government agencies, needs constant oversight.
Hats off to Sen. Coburn and his staff for bringing to light this blatant abuse of taxpayer money. If you would like to read the entire 115-page report, visit the website of Sen. Coburn at www.coburn.senate.gov/ffm. You can voice your opinion to the CDC by calling their public line at (800) 311-3435 or sending an e-mail to cdcinfo@cdc.gov .
Live From Liberty
Be sure to watch our “Live from Liberty” television program this week as we present Part Two of Dr. Jerry Falwell’s message, “The Indestructibility of God’s Servant.”
You can watch “Live from Liberty” each week on these major cable and satellite networks:
INSP (the Inspiration Network) on Saturday night at 7:00 p.m. ET.
ION (formerly PAX TV) on Sunday night at 11:00 p.m. ET and PT and 10:00 p.m. CT and MT.
Daystar TV on Sunday morning at 11:00 a.m. ET
Dish Network: Channel 262 and 9701 (Angel One) at 8:00 a.m. SundayNOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, any copyrighted material herein is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For further information please refer to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
