News by the Numbers - January 2009

• 12 years in a row, the government has failed financial audits. The U.S. Government is unable to accurately report on its fiscal condition according to a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). And this is the organization Americans should trust with socialized health care?

• 50% - the increase in gasoline and diesel fuel taxes being urged by the National Commission on Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing. The current tax is 18.4 cents a gallon federal tax on gasoline and the 24.4 cents a gallon tax on diesel. State fuel taxes vary from state to state.

• 52% of those with incomes over $200,000 voted for Obama and more than 60% of those earning under $30,000 did, according to Star Parker

• 77 kilos of pot were found on a Mexican immigration official who was arrested in Arizona in October.

• 509 homicides were reported in Chicago during 2008, an increase of about 15 percent over 2007

• $175 Proposed EPA 'Cow Tax’ per Dairy Cow to Curb Greenhouse Gases. The New York Farm Bureau warns just this one rule may increase milk production costs up to 8 cents a gallon.

• 2007 - a year of maximum historic sea ice in Antarctica, according to the University of Illinois-Urbana

• 2008 - America's coldest year since 1997

• 3,400 immigrants came to the U.S. in 2008 from the four nations that are currently listed by the State Department as “state sponsors of terror” – Iran, Cuba, Syria and Sudan, according to CNSNews.com

• $3,500 - the daily rental for the Obama’s recent Hawaiian vacation house

• 9,800 aliens from state sponsors of terrorism have received diversity visas from 2000-2007, according to Government Accountability Office which also reported the diversity visa lottery program was "susceptible to fraud" and was a way for terrorists to enter the country.

• 14,000 people were executed by the "revolutionary" Che Guevara, according to Cuban émigré Humberto Fontova, author of "Exposing the Real Che Guevara." Witnesses say this icon for many radicals personally murdered hundreds - including children and pregnant women.

• 29,570 people - 0.4 percent of all those in federally funded housing are "ineligible no citizens," according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

• $30,000+ - the cost per student at Sidwell Friends where the Obama girls will attend school. Their dad’s money allowed them to choose a good school but he opposes school choice programs and vouchers for the not-so-rich.

• 700,000 illegal aliens, fugitives from deportation like Barack Obama's aunt Zeituni Onyango, are in the U.S., according to columnist Michelle Malkin

• $169,300.00 per year in salary, plus full benefits and expenses is the take home pay for a U.S. Senator.

• 270,000 square miles - the amount the Arctic sea ice expanded this year, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. That an increase of 13.2 percent, about the size of Texas.

• 300,000 Iraqi citizens were killed by Saddam Hussein during his 24 year reign. Some place the number at more than a million, according to Larry Elder.

• $677,200.00 - the amount Barack Hussein Obama was paid for 143 days of work in the Senate before running for President (that‘s $4,735.66 per day or $197.32 per hour, assuming he worked 24/7). Another way to look at it is that the taxpayers of Illinois paid him $602,000.00 to run for President for 43 months, according to Allan Erickson.

• 4-5 million illegal visa overstayers from around the world remain in the country, according to columnist Michelle Malkin.

• $100 million was pulled from the nonprofit Citizens Energy by CITGO, owned by the Venezuelan government led by leftist loudmouth president Hugo Chavez, bringing the winter fuel-assistance programs to a halt, according to Jay Fitzgerald

• $1.5 billion - total net worth of the United Autoworkers Union (UAW)for fiscal year 2007, according to financial disclosure forms on file with the U.S. Department of Labor. (CNSNews.com)

• $1.6 billion - was approved by Congress in June 2008 for a border security spending plan... for Mexico and Central America

• $7.7 trillion - the cost of the financial “rescue” package, according to Bloomberg’s latest estimate.