Has anyone heard of the United States Institute of Peace? Didn't think so...yet you're paying for it. While doing some research on the internet, I stumbled upon the name of this organization and became curious. I emailed hubby at work, asking if he had heard of it. Nope. A little research (mine and his) revealed that this organization is funded by Congress, has a huge annual budget (I think it's over $11 million), has 70 full-time employees, and is building a $100 million headquarters on the Washington Mall. Headquarters? For 70 employees? Now, I'm not one to use bad language, but WTF?! And get this, according to the website, "67 percent of USIP’s budget is for in-house operations." What does that mean?
What's really annoying is the fact that this institute is not successful! It's been around since 1984. How many wars have we had in that time period? Please don't get me wrong. This Quaker hippy girl is about as peace loving as you can get. But I'm seeing this as a terrific waste of taxpayer money. I'm hoping hubby will do a blog entry on this one as he is much more astute about all things political - which is why I was surprised he hadn't heard of this. I'm curious what others think about this organization - and if they have even heard of it.
3 comments:
You're a little light on the annual appropriation. What could the US government possibly do that would cost a mere $11 million per year? The true cost (exclusive of $100 million buildings):
"USIP has an annual appropriation from the US government, usually around 30 million, and it has additional supplementary appropriations of something along the lines of 15 to 25 million."
Thanks for clarifying this for my readers.
Hadn't heard about it. My husband said "you should work there so we can get some of that money." haha
And no I hadn't heard about it and I'm pretty in to politics!
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