Author: William La Jeunesse

While Washington wrings its hands over immigration, Arizona border residents say political dithering is making things worse.

“Every time our president talks to the Mexican president, or every time the word amnesty comes over the Mexican news, there is a flood of people,” said one resident who wanted to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation.

She and her neighbors say unarmed National Guard won’t deter drug smugglers or anyone else.

“There’s guys out here with no guns and they’re our troops. The Mexicans think we’re nuts,” says the resident.

But it is not just Mexicans. In 2009 Customs and Border Protection arrested 52,000 illegal entrants from countries other than Mexico, known as “OTM’s,” including from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen.

U.S. representative Rob Bishop (R-UT) says the crossings are a concern.

”It’s the illegal drug human smuggling and yes, the potential for terrorism.”

In spite of the Border Patrol’s best efforts, thousands of people are getting through, on federal land like Indian reservations and national parks that cover almost half of the Arizona-Mexico border.  In many places, agents can’t pursue criminals in their vehicles for fear of damaging the environment.

Rancher Fred Eddington says he is frustrated.

“Border Patrol needs to go where they can go to do their job. And nobody else plays by the rules, so why should they?”

The recently retired head of the Tucson Border Patrol puts it plainly: “The border is porous. We don’t have the resources that we need. Somebody who wants to do us harm can get into the United States.”

Before we tackle history – a little math.

The Texas Board of Education has 5 Democrats, and 10 Republicans, of which 7 vote as a conservative block.

What does that mean? They control what happens here.

While liberals yesterday packed the hearing room, held news conferences, and shouted ‘don’t indoctrinate, just educate’ and ‘get your hands off our textbooks, leave it to the experts’, sources here say 10 years ago, when Democrats enjoyed an identical majority, they too manipulated the curriculum to fit their agenda.

The debate began when a teacher review group of teachers recommended replacing Christmas with a Hindu holiday and removing partially or entirely Alexander Graham Bell, Albert Einstein, religious references, and Christopher Columbus.

There are two sets of changes sought by conservatives.

Board Member Don McLeroy will address the below ideas at the meeting:

1. Contrast what the Founding Fathers meant by separation of church and state vs. how it is practiced by government today

2. Analyze the cause and effect of eugenics:  Early in the 20th Century, 60,000 poor and mostly minority Americans were  sterilized against their will because they were considered genetically inferior…

3. Evaluate efforts by the United Nations to undermine U.S. sovereignty including a gun ban and the redistribution of American wealth

4. Discuss the fiscal health of Social Security and Medicare

5. Discuss government abuse of property rights and the taking of land w/o compensation – and the adverse impact of affirmative action on when more qualified workers are passed over by minority applicants

Liberals say changes eliminate academic freedom and overplay Biblical values. While, conservatives say this is just an attempt to bring balance back to curriculum that liberals hijacked years ago.

Update: 11am

Out of the 208 people who signed up to speak at the Texas Textbook board meeting,  73 have registered as for the Board of Education’s changes to the curriculum; 56 against. The remaining 79 declined to state their opinion in advance.

Two speakers have taken to the podium. Rev. Stephen Broaden, an African American minister, steadfastly expressed his support for the Board’s changes to the curriculum, saying that Judeo-Christian principles should be focused on when students study the nation’s Founding Fathers.

Following Rev. Broaden, Former Superintendent of Education in Houston and former U.S. Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, an African American man, expressed his concerns of political agenda having too great an influence on what students will learn.

By William La Jeunesse & Lindsay Stewart

What do liberal lawmakers in California share with their conservative counterparts in Texas? Very little. But this week both are watching the 15 member Texas State Board of Education, which will chose the next generation of history textbooks for most American children.

The left-right culture war will play out over the choice of words, photos, who to honor and what events in American and world history should receive a few lines of text. It may sound innocent, when it is anything but.

Years of research, months of editing, hundreds of hours of debate will be boiled down into a single document – a statement of curricula – that will define the parameters followed by virtually every social studies textbook and test for students from kindergarten to thru 8th grade for the next decade.

The battle lines are drawn. On one side are conservatives, who contend academia has been hijacked by liberals. A point supported by studies that show 90 percent of humanities teachers identify themselves as Democrats.

And nowhere is their bias more visible than the one-sided treatment of American history in U.S. textbooks, where words like ‘man’ and ‘mankind’ have been stricken, ‘Founding Fathers’ has been replaced by ‘Framers’ and ‘Founders’ and racial quota’s are applied to the number of photos used in any one book.

“ The liberal extreme groups aren’t interested in balance.  They want the standards one-sided, that only fits them,” says Jonathan Saenz of the right leaning Liberty Institute. “The other side’s not interested in the truth. And the reality is, they have this mission of distortion and confusion because they have a political agenda.  And they’re not really interested in the content.  They’re interested in changing the political demographics.”

In the last two years the board, composed of 10 Republicans and 5 Democrats, has been led by 7 influential social conservatives. By the end of this week, the board will have finished rewriting curriculum standards for three key subject areas – English, science and now, social studies.

Liberals contend the board is out of touch and the block of social conservatives have manipulated the process to reflect teachings out of the mainstream.

“They have politicized the textbook process.  And I think that our schoolchildren deserve better than politicizing it,” Terri Burke, Texas ACLU Executive Director . “We really believe this curriculum should be turned over to experts who know something about history, about education, about the learning levels of schoolchildren. We ought have people who really know it being the ones who write it and vet it and tell us that this is what kiddos oughta learn.”

In California, a key state Senate Committee passed a bill Tuesday designed to prohibit any textbook approved in Texas to be used in the Golden State.

“While some Texas politicians may want to set their educational standards back 50 years, California should not be subject to their backward curriculum changes,” said Leland Yee, D-San Francisco.  “The alterations and fallacies made by these extremist conservatives are offensive to our communities and inaccurate of our nation’s diverse history.  Our kids should be provided an education based on facts and that embraces our multicultural nation.”

Comprehensive immigration reform and “pathway to citizenship” are Washington-speak for legalizing the roughly 12 million illegal immigrants currently living in the United States. And at a time of high unemployment and mounting federal debt, one important component is the legislation’s impact on the federal budget.

According to studies from both the left and the right, an estimated 40 percent to 60 percent of illegal immigrants don’t have high school diplomas, compared to about 15 percent of American adults. Illegal immigrants typically work in low-wage careers, such as housework, food service, gardening and construction, earning roughly $15,000 to $30,000 a year.

In some cases, those wages would qualify them for social welfare programs like food stamps, Medicaid and refundable tax credits — programs that you don’t need to pay federal income tax to qualify for.

CLICK HERE FOR TAX CALCULATOR ON IMMIGRATION

The latest immigration bill hasn’t been scored yet by the Congressional Budget Office, but many of the components are similar to those in the failed 2007 immigration bill, which would have cost an estimated $30 billion over five years, including $20 billion for enforcement measures. The CBO also said the 2007 bill would have added $15 billion to the federal deficit.

FoxNews.com’s latest taxpayer calculator estimates how much someone in your income range would have paid on average under the 2007 bill.

People earning under $15,000 would have paid an estimated $1.27 over five years. The same average for those making $30,000 to $50,000k would be $48. The bill would have cost Americans bringing home $100,000 to $200,000 an average of $365 over five years, or $73 a year.

Staffers and sources on Capitol Hill say that, like the 2007 bill, the latest legislation would require citizenship applicants to learn English and pay a fine, but it also may contain a “touch back” provision – in which people would go to their home countries to register but would be allowed to “wait in line” while working in the U.S. with visas.

The conservative Heritage Foundation says comprehensive immigration reform will cost U.S. taxpayers much more — about $90 billion a year, once low-skilled immigrants are fully legalized. The organization says these immigrants will receive an average of $3 to $4 in benefits for every $1 paid in taxes.

“If you are adding millions and millions of very poorly educated people into the welfare system, into Social Security and Medicare, you are going to have a huge expansion of government costs,” says Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

A large chunk of your state income taxes goes to education, and schools benefit from a portion of your local property taxes, too.

Now the federal government is considering a big increase in its spending on school construction — with your money.

Already, as federal taxpayers, we pay $70 billion a year for K-12 education, much of it going to teacher salaries and school lunches.

Then last year, Congress approved another $56 billion for school construction, renovation and repairs in the economic stimulus bill.

But now Congress is considering another bill — the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act — sponsored by Rep. Ben Chandler, D-Ky., and 25 other Democrats. They say it would create a “healthier, safer and more energy-efficient teaching environment by requiring schools to use green materials.”

Some studies, however, say “green” schools are notoriously over budget and consistenly fail to save the energy they promise.

The House has passed the bill, and it now is under consideration in the Senate. The Congressional Budget Office’s estimate puts the 5-year cost of the bill at $32.9 billion.

What do you think? You can estimate how much the bill would cost you over those five years by using FoxNews.com’s latest tax calculator.

CLICK HERE FOR FOXNEWS.COM TAX CALCULATOR

For example, people who earn under $15,000 a year would pay an average of $1.41 to fund the bill. Those making $30,000 to $50,000 would average $53 over five years. And the average for people making $100,000 to $200,000 is $406.

Almost half the nation won’t owe income taxes Thursday, thanks to the Bush tax cuts and thousands of dollars in refundable tax credits from President Obama. That’s why America’s income tax burden looks the way it does. The top one percent of tax payers — those earning over $390,000 — pay the same amount in income taxes as the lowest 95 percent of Americans combined. That group comprises anyone making under $150,000, according to the tax foundation.

“Last year, Washington paid out more than $70 billion in refundable tax credits to individuals who either had no income tax liability or just a small one, so that’s why people look at April 15 as pay day rather than tax day,” said Scott Hodge, President of the Tax Foundation.

Regardless of how much each American is paying, no one wants his or her money being wasted. Take the C-17, a transport plane Obama tried to cancel last year and is again targeting for termination this year.

In fiscal year 2010, Congress appropriated $2.5 billion to procure 10 C-17 transport planes — even though the initiative has been opposed by both the Bush and Obama administrations and the Department of Defense decided to cease C-17 production in 2007.

Fox News Calculator: How Much Are YOU Paying for C-17 Production?

Do you want your tax money to pay for 10 C-17 transport planes the Pentagon says it does not want or need, even if it does employ people in 10 states?

We crunched the numbers so you can find out how much it costs you. If you earn $15,000, the planes will cost you a little more than a dollar. If you make between $200,000 $250,000, the planes will cost you about $70.

How about funding for NASA? Obama’s fiscal year 2011 budget would end funding for the Constellation Systems program, initiated by NASA in 2005 to return astronauts to the moon by 2020 and later to Mars. The administration says the program is behind schedule and cannot achieve its goals without budget increases.

Fox News Calculator: How Much Are YOU Paying to NASA?

Now it is your turn to tell Congress which programs you would like to keep funding, and which ones should go.

Even though the nation is technically broke, not everyone votes no.

It’s all your money. So should it be spent on costly shuttle flights or on a military aircraft that even the military decided it doesn’t need?

President Obama’s fiscal 2011 budget would end funding for the Constellation Systems program, initiated by NASA in 2005 to return astronauts to the Moon by 2020 and later to Mars. The administration says the program is behind schedule and cannot achieve its goals without budget increases.

CLICK HERE FOR FOXNEWS.COM TAX CALCULATOR

In fiscal 2010, Congress appropriated $2.5 billion to procure 10 C-17 transport planes even though the initiative has been opposed by both the Bush and Obama administrations and the Department of Defense decided to cease C-17 production in 2007.

CLICK HERE FOR FOXNEWS.COM TAX CALCULATOR

When you combine the public debt — the amount we owe China and other nations — with our intragovernmental debt — what we owe Social Security — the interest alone is $383 billion.

That’s more than what we spend on energy, agriculture, homeland security, education and almost every other government agency combined.

So how can you judge if Washington’s next purchase is worth it?

This week, Fox News introduces the Taxpayer Calculator. It allows us to break down programs into amounts we can understand. In Wednesday’s installment, we take a look at the individual cost of $890 million in earmarks for just two senators. Type in your salaray, and the calculator will estimate what the average taxpayer in your income category is paying toward those earmarks.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS TAXPAYER CALCULATOR

In addition to the Taxpayer Calculator, you can also vote. Results will tell us if the public agreed with each expenditure of their money

These numbers are based on tax returns – whether you file single or married.

All this week we will be putting a price tag on government programs – from earmarks to subsidies. Why? Because it is all your money.

When it comes to big ticket items — a television set, a car, a house – you don’t buy it without knowing the price or your monthly payment. That’s the only way to know if you can afford it.

So shouldn’t government be the same way? Can Washington D.C. really afford to pile more debt on our credit card? Judge for yourself.

When you combine the public debt — the amount we owe China and other nations — with our intragovernmental debt — what we owe social security — the interest alone is $383 billion.

That’s more than what we spend on energy, agriculture, homeland security, education and almost every other government agency combined.

So how can you judge if Washington’s next purchase is worth it?

This week, Fox News is introducing the Taxpayer Calculator. It allows us to break down programs into amounts we can understand. Take the $99 billion dollar bailout of AIG, General Motors and other failing companies. How much of your money went to those big bailouts?

CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS TAXPAYER CALCULATOR

Type in your salary. When we use $50,000, America’s median salary, this pie chart shows what portion of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) bill is paid for by that tax bracket. It then calculates how much each American pays individually for the program

In the case of a $50,000 salary, TARP would cost you $478. For top wage earners it would cost $13,000.

In addition to the Taxpayer Calculator, you can also vote. Results will tell us if the public agreed with each expenditure of their money

These numbers are based on tax returns – whether you file single or married.

All this week we will be putting a price tag on government programs – from earmarks to subsidies. Why? Because it is all your money.

How much is a billion dollars? A trillion dollar federal budget? Americans don’t know because the numbers have no context. They’re just too big.

This week Fox News aims to shrink those numbers down to size with the Taxpayer Calculator.
It calculates exactly how much government spending costs taxpayers individually. It breaks down government programs in numbers people understand, in the hundreds and thousands, not millions. Finally it puts a price tag on services by allowing taxpayers to ‘vote’ on programs they value.

Here’ s how it works. Take a bill like the $862 billion stimulus.

Type in your income. A pie chart pops up showing what portion of the stimulus your income group or tax bracket paid for.

It also calculates what you paid individually for the program. The median income in America is about $50,000. For thos earning $30 to $50k, the stimulus bill cost about $1,300…make 50 to 100, the amount more than doubles to more than 37-hundred.

At the bottom of the page, you’re asked to *vote*. Do you support or oppose the expenditure of your tax money on this project

“It gives them an opportunity to find out not only what’s in  legislation but how it’s going to impact them on a  day-to-day basis and it’s an excellent tool for all taxpayers and it’s going to open their eyes to amout of waste, fraud and abuse and what the government is actually doing,” says Leslie Paige, Citizens Against Government Waste.

The numbers aren’t exact, because the tax code treats singles and married differently. However it is an accurate representation of the portion of any project or program paid for by those who file a tax return in that income gropup.

Roughly 142 million Americans will file a tax return this year. Here is the IRS data which shows how many taxpayers fell into each bracket, and their share of the total tax.

It shows that the largests group of taxpayers – 37 million – earn the least and have an effective tax rate of less than 2%..

(( insert table form scott hodge ))

“There are really two americas. There is a growing class of americans who pay no income taxes whatsover, and there’s a shrinking group people at the top, who are paying all of the nations tax bills,” says Scott Hodge, director of the Tax Foundation. “Essentially they’re paying their tax bills as well as everyone else’s.”

All this week we’ll be using the taxpayor calculator to put a price tag on different government programs, including new earmarks being proposed in the 2011 budget and on going subsides – iincluding how much the United Nations is costing you.

The hope is better informed taxpayers, make for a more accountable Congress, and ultimately a more responsive government.

While Congress voted to overhaul U.S. health care and provide universal coverage, 15 percent of America’s uninsured population remains uncovered and unaddressed: illegal immigrants.

Democrats are expected to introduce comprehensive immigration reform legislation this spring, and when they do, health care costs will once again be front and center.

Under the new law just passed, illegal immigrants are not entitled to health care. That means undocumented workers will continue to get care the way they always have, showing up at county clinics and hospitals for emergency treatment. According to cost estimates submitted by various states, that costs taxpayers and ratepayers about $4.3 billion a year.

However, according to the conservative-leaning Center for Immigration Studies, that number would spike from $10 billion to $30 billion annually under immigration reform. At the high end, that could add as much as $300 billion to the Congressional Budget Office’s cost estimates of the new health care bill, and make obsolete the promise by Democrats to keep the cost at $970 billion over 10 years.

“The health care reform bill does raise significantly the cost of an amnesty or legalization because roughly seven million low-income and uninsured illegal immigrants would now be insured at taxpayer expense,” says CIS economist Steven Camarota.

Roughly 11 million illegal immigrants live in the US, according to the Census Bureau. About 35 percent have health insurance through their employer or their spouse. That leaves seven million undocumented workers uninsured and earning earn less than 400 percent of the official poverty level.

Individuals earning less than $14,404 and families of four under $29,327 would qualify for full Medicaid – that means 100 percent of their costs would be covered by taxpayers. Most others would qualify for subsidies – or affordability credits – worth about $5,000 per enrollee.

Camarota says taxpayers in border states like California and Texas would again pick up a large share of the tab, while federal taxpayers would pick up the rest.

“If a large fraction of the illegals sign up for Medicaid, then that’s very tough on California’s budget, a state with a large illegal population, because states pay for a large portion of Medicaid. If, however, the illegal immigrants are in the affordability credits part of the bill, then that will be borne by all taxpayers across the country,” Camarota said.

But cost isn’t the only issue. Enrolling illegal immigrants into the new system will improve health outcomes. Dr. Steven Wallace of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research says including undocumented workers in the health care overhaul makes sense.

“In the long term, the point is to make sure all Americans who are living here and working here have access to health care,” he says. “It is simpler and therefore more efficient if you simply say, everybody who works gets health insurance. Everybody who has a low income, we will help you and we move forward. People don’t come to the U.S. for health care, they come to work.”

As a population, illegal immigrants are younger and healthier than the native-born and use less health care. But studies show that once someone gets insurance they use the system more. Secondly, federal subsidies are based on each enrollee, not how much their care actually costs an insurance company. Consequently, taxpayer costs remain high based on enrollment alone.

But when the immigration reform debate takes shape, advocates for undocumented workers will claim health care is a right, and once a bill is passed, newly legalized workers should be entitled to the same health care as all Americans, just as they were after the 1986 reform bill.

“It is an issue of fairness. If a person is working and paying taxes, if they get injured or get are sick, they should be able to access health care services to get care and go back to work and pay taxes,” says Wallace.

While President Obama promises to create 5 million green energy jobs, using billions in American tax money to subsidize renewable energy, new research shows most of that money is going overseas, creating more jobs in China, Germany and Japan than in the U.S.

“The purpose of those funds was to spur American innovation and help create American jobs and I think it is fair to say we are off track,” said Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R- Tenn.).

Blackburn and others in Congress want to reintroduce legislation requiring a “Buy American” clause after a new analysis of green energy projects shows 79 percent of stimulus money for wind and solar projects went to overseas companies, according to the Investigative Reporting Workshop. A second study by Bloomberg New Energy Finance shows Chinese corporations taking over the solar panel market, jumping from a 3 percent share in California early in 2007 to 46 percent today.

The Chinese are “sweeping the table clean” in the photovoltaic market, according to one analyst who did not want to be named. “The Chinese have such low manufacturing costs, the U.S. may need protections like we have in farming.”

The numbers don’t surprise everyone. Roughly half of all wind turbines and two-thirds of all solar cells in the U.S. are manufactured overseas, according to the Energy Information Authority. Many established European manufacturers enjoy a competitive advantage, since the E.U. has long subsidized clean energy.

The purpose of the stimulus was to help level the playing field. U.S. subsidies were intended not just to put Americans back to work, but to help U.S. manufacturers transition to clean energy manufacturing. President Obama said as much in February:

“Make no mistake: Whether it is nuclear energy, or solar or wind energy, if we fail to invest in these technologies tomorrow, we’ll be importing those technologies instead of exporting. We will fall behind. Jobs will be produced overseas instead of here in the United States of America. That is not a future that I accept.”

And yet that is exactly what is happening, with the help of American stimulus money.

* Australian company Babcock and Brown received $178 million to install Japanese turbines on a Texas wind farm

* French Co. enXco received $69 million to install German turbines on an Indiana wind farm.

* Eurus Energy from Japan received $91 million to erect its towers in Texas.

No one paid much attention to these American subsidies until the  Department of Energy granted $450 million to A-Power of China to install its turbines in Texas. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, asked Secretary Steven Chu to reject subsidies to companies that buy their components abroad, especially when renewable energy companies are closing plants, like Vestas in Colorado, and laying off workers in Pennsylvania, like Gamesa.

Blackburn agrees. “If you are going to create green jobs,” she says, “if you are going to create incentives, those should be American jobs and the American taxpayer needs to realize where those jobs are taking place.”

The situation is no better in solar, where increasingly Chinese manufacturers are getting U.S. contracts to undercut American suppliers.

According to a Bloomberg New Energy Finance report in January, “Q4 2009 saw a dramatic rise in Chinese MG (megawatts) by application” with three of the four largest solar panel suppliers now from China. The other is from Taiwan.

“I don’t see Europe or the United States becoming major producers of solar products – they’ll be consumers,” says Thomas Zarrella, of GT Solar. That is not to say any new energy installation doesn’t provide some American jobs.

Bill Henning of American Vision Solar in Los Angeles says the cheaper imports make solar more affordable. “People are able to spend more money in the economy because of what they are saving,” he says. “So solar, in and by itself, is doing a lot, outside of where it’s manufactured.” And while it is true American workers get jobs wiring solar panels or erecting wind towers, the real money is in manufacturing.

A new report from the Renewable Energy Policy Project finds that 70 percent to 75 percent of the total labor for any new wind or solar project is in manufacturing the component parts, not in marketing or sales. Rhetorically, that is something the president understands, but many say his policies do not support.

“Because I’m convinced that the country that leads in clean energy is also the country that leads in the global economy. And I want America to be that nation. I don’t want us to be second place, or third place or fourth place when it comes to the new energy technologies. I want us to be first.”

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced Tuesday that she will freeze all funds to expand the virtual fence program along the U.S. border with Mexico.

While not dead, SBInet – also known as the ‘virtual fence,’ is on hanging by a thread. After a two hour hearing before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Republicans and Democrats were willing to give the billion-dollar-program one more chance to prove itself. But Congressman Henry Cueller (TX-R) warned Department of Homeland officials: “You better be working on a Plan B.”

A Government Accounting Report on the virtual fence, the fifth such report, showed DHS did a lousy job overseeing the project and Congressman from New Jersey suggested the agency ‘doctored”  70% of the tests so Boeing could pass.

Two years behind schedule and millions over budget, right now Boeing is still trying to complete coverage of the first 28 mile stretch of border outside Tucson. It just began erecting towers for Stage Two, outside Ajo, Arizona. DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano has frozen funding for the $6 billion plus Secure Border Initiative.

While no decision has been made pending a review, it looks more likely DHS will terminate the program but continue to employ SBInet technology where appropriate.

But the promise of “comprehensive situational awareness” from Brownsville to San Ysidro looks doubtful.

Politically, neither Republicans nor Democrats took ownership of this white elephant. Both wanted to make it clear they did not want to “spend good money after bad.”

But Randolph Hite, Director of IT architecture at the GAO seemed to give them cover when he said: “I think this program was underestimated in its complexity, I think it was driven by a schedule rather than what needed to be in place. I see that changing now. It’s not going to happen overnight, but progress is being made in that direction.”

Why does SBInet matter now? Technically, it doesn’t. The agency can get by with existing technology and manpower. That changes the moment the White House announces it is pursuing so called ‘comprehensive immigration reform,’ which is code for legalizing the 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants now living in the U.S.

Then ‘operational control’ of the border becomes a huge political issue. Both parties want to avoid another 1986, when Washington approved amnesty for 3 million immigrants, without securing the border.

Republicans will insist on a nearly airtight border, in exchange for their support of a bill. Border security has steadily improved, but some GOP members claim ‘operational control’ has flat lined since Democrats took the White House.

So the ‘virtual fence’ stays alive as Democrats prefer this alternative to new demands for a longer physical fence, which has no chance of going anywhere, with the current Administration.

Maybe money can’t buy love, but the U.S. Government is trying to find out.

Millions of your tax dollars are spent to study the sex habits of gays, transsexuals, Chinese prostitutes, Puerto Rican couples, Scandinavian men, low income women, drug addicts, the homeless and of course, animals.

Do quiet Buffalo have more sex than noisy bison?
Do Japanese beetles chose their sex partners based on scent?
Do barn swallows with dark breasts get more action than those with spots?

Nobody wants Washington in their bedroom, especially on Valentine’s Day, but National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health are already there. Consider some of these awards.

Why Men Don’t Like Condoms $221,355
Indiana University professors received $221,355 in economic stimulus funds to study why young men do not like to wear condoms. The research will advance our understanding of…’the role of cognitive and affective processes and condom application skills in explaining problems with condom use’ in young men. The program is intended to create “education strategies tailored to the needs of individuals who have trouble using condoms effectively.”

Does Alcohol influence the Sexual Behavior of Young Girls? $219,000
The NIH is using stimulus funds to follow female college students for a year to determine whether young women are more likely to hookup – the college equivalent of casual sex – after drinking alcohol.  Researchers will recruit 500 female students prior to their first year of college and contact them monthly over the course of a year to document sexual hookups, noting when there is alcohol involved.

Methamphetamines and the Female Rat $28,900
Researchers will spend nearly $30,000 to determine whether methamphetamine gives female rats an overpowering desire to have sex. Human meth users report the drug creates an insatiable need and urgency for sex, notes the University of Maryland researchers. Apparently, it is important to know if rats engage in the same risky sexual behavior.

Drugs as a Sex Enhancer $123,000
In an analysis of “high-risk community sex networks” University of Illinois researchers will study how people use drugs to enhance their sex life.

Sex reversal in mice $190,464
When taxpayers were promised that economic stimulus funds would be spent only on the most critical public projects, few would have predicted that includes a projects on sex reversal in mice. But that’s exactly what the University of Minnesota received nearly $200,000 to study.

Risky Sex and Homeless Men $1.97 million
USC School of Social Work professor Suzanne Wenzel received nearly $2 million in stimulus money to help understand the sexual risk behavior of homeless men and their attitudes toward women.

Training Chinese Prostitutes to Drink Responsibly on the Job $2.6 million
The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism is paying researchers in China $2.6 million to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly on the job. The Wayne State University professor running the study says China has a HIV problem. Apparently the NIH believes this is a U.S. taxpayer responsibility, since it is also funding sex studies in Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Nambia, among others.

Sex and the Hungry Vole $9,773
No this isn’t about men in Tennessee, but Memphis researchers received almost $10,000 to study the sexual behavior of voles (underground mice) when they’re deprived of food.

Sheep and Sexual Partner Preference $330, 697
According to researchers, “individuals (people) who have issues and concerns related to their sexuality requires a comprehensive grasp of the biological underpinnings of human psychosexual development.” Therefore the NIH awarded $330,697 to an Oregon university to find out how sheep chose their sexual partners. They say, “The ram is an exceptional model because variations in male-typical sexual partner preference occur spontaneously with as many as 8 percent of the population exhibiting a preference for (male) same-sex mating partners.”

Argentinean Gay Men $400,000
Specialists with the New York Psychiatric Institute will spend up to 740 nites cruising gay bars in Buenos Aires to find out why gay men engage in risky sexual behavior while drunk. No explanation why gay bars in New York and San Francisco weren’t good enough considering it was paid for by US taxpayers to benefit US taxpayers.

Why are taxpayers upset? A few reasons:
– Is this critical to our lives?  NO
– Does it reduce the deficit or taxes? NO
– We actually pay federal employees to make these decisions.
– Isn’t there one Congressman in Washington to stop this?
– All the research goes where – on a drive or shelf that few every see or read.
– 99% of the material has no impact on policy

So enjoy Valentine’s Day with those you love, because obviously the way Washington wastes your money, they don’t.

This is part of an on-going series called Tracking Your Taxes that investigates just where your tax money goes.

If you are hoping to visit the newest crown jewel in America’s park system chosen by Congress, throw away the car keys and open up your wallet. The 2,900 pristine acres of beachfront property were not cheap — or even in the United States.

The property soliciting accusations of “pork” from critics is the Castle Nugent National Historic Park. It’s in the U.S. Virgin Islands, about a thousand miles from Miami and an expensive jet ride to get there.

Two weeks ago, on a near party line vote, a huge Democratic majority in the House agreed to spend $50 million to buy the former cotton plantation on the island of St. Croix.

“This is a beautiful and important natural and cultural resource that is in danger of being lost forever,” Virgin Island delegate, Donna Christiansen, told House colleagues in January.

“The site to be designated as the Castle Nugent National Historic Park continues to be heralded as one of the last pristine areas in the region.”

The mixture of dry forest and rangeland offers picturesque views of the Caribbean Sea, but good luck getting there. Critics in Congress say the purchase is wasteful and irresponsible, especially with unemployment at 10 percent and the nation in debt.

“Now is not the time to spend up to $50 million dollars of the taxpayers’ money to buy nearly 3,000 acres of beachfront property on a Caribbean Island,” said Rep. Doc Hastings, (R-Wash.), ranking Republican on the House Natural Resources Committee. “We can’t afford a price tag for a new park in St Croix, just as many Americans will never be able to afford a visit there.”

Democrats approved the purchase, even though the National Park Service has yet to complete a study on the purchase.

“We don’t have the money to do this,” said Rep Jason Chaffetz, (R – Utah). “Currently the National Park Service has an estimated $9 billion in backlog maintenance on existing parks. Why should the people of Iowa, Rhode Island or California or Utah have to continue to pay and supplement the people there on St Croix for this property?”

But a majority on St. Croix, where the economy depends on tourism, support the purchase.

“It allows us to maintain the natural beauty of St. Croix and also at the same time it allows for the historic nature of the property,” Virgin Islands Governor, John de Jongh Jr., told Fox News.

The land is currently used as a cattle ranch. It includes an estate house and two row houses where the owners kept slaves that worked on the plantation. Most of the land is owned by the Gasperi family, who bought the land in the 1950’s and approached the U.S. Government about four years ago about buying it.

“It’s beautiful, it’s lush, it’s green,” Mauro Gasperi said. “It contains a beautiful reef in front that we want to maintain as clean and as pristine as when we first bought it.”

The Gasperi family maintains it wants to sell the land to the U.S. government in order to protect it from developers. Critics in Congress say there is nothing stopping them from doing that. They don’t have to sell, or the family could impose a conservation easement on the land, preventing development forever.

“Sometimes you have to say, enough is enough,” Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah told the House in January. “We heard it is (the Gasperi’s) desire that this land not be developed, but preserved in its current condition. It seems to me they are in the perfect position to accomplish that goal as landowners.”

The Senate is now expected to take up a similar bill.

Here’s the final passage roll call vote on H.R. 3726:

The nuclear power industry has been dead for 30 years, in terms of government approval for new construction. But in a surprising move, President Obama spoke out in support of building new nuclear power plants during his State of the Union Address on Wednesday, signaling his administration plans to oversee a nuclear rebirth.

“To create more of these clean energy jobs we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. That means building a new generation of safe clean nuclear power plants in this country,” Obama said on Wednesday.

And in a move proving his commitment to bolstering the nuclear power industry, Obama’s budget provides loan guarantees for up to 10 new power plants tripling the amount last year from $18.5  billion to $54 billion.

Once hostage to fears of another Three Mile Island, a majority of Americans now support nuclear power, according to polls.

“Members of both parties are insisting that nuclear has to be included because they recognize the reality of how difficult it is to produce enough electricity in this county without nuclear,” said Alex Flint, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs for Nuclear Energy Institute.

Construction is already underway on two new plants in Georgia expected to go online in 2016. Thirty more plants are in the permit process. At peak production levels, each $8 billion plant would employ about 2,000 workers.

But the key to more nuclear power in the United States, according to Flint, is climate change. “It is now impossible to pass climate change legislation without including nuclear energy,” Flint told Fox News.

Safety and security remain a concern but the biggest roadblock to the industry’s revival is what to do with spent fuel rods. With the closure of Yucca Mountain, there is nowhere to permanently store nuclear waste.

For some environmentalists, that’s a deal-breaker. Ben Schreiber from Friends of The Earth said,”It’s just an unsafe inefficient costly technology and we are definitely not ready to concede that these plants will be built here in the U.S.”

On Friday the president appointed a bipartisan panel to recommend an alternative to Yucca Mountain and how waste can be stored safely at existing reactors. While there is growing support for nuclear energy among Democrats, especially those in the South where the first six plants will be built, some wonder if the President is using it as a bargaining chip – to win Republican votes for a climate change legislation. However, others see his support as recognition that the nuclear option provides the cleanest, most dependable source of electricity, operating 90% of the time, compared to 30 percent to 40 percent for wind and solar.