Help!!!!

I can't stop spending! I've tried the whole "control your spending" thing, but it just isn't working. I'm $10 trillion in debt and I only make $2.5 trillion per year, and now this Bernanke jerk put me on the hook another $1.5 trillion! My boss is breathing down my neck and China is threatening to repossess all my stuff.

Please, what can I do?

Calm down, Jim. You too can escape from debt by following a few basic budgeting principles. Let's take at look the government's budget and see if can't benefit from some personal finance wisdom.

Take the scale down a couple thousand notches and the United States Government is like a divorced father working to make ends meet. The poor guy makes about $30,000 per year and grapples with a seemingly inescapable debt of $90,000. Instead of paying down the debt's principle, he spends slightly beyond his means, about $32,880 each year, ensuring that that his coffers won't overflow anytime soon.

Each year, he sits down and writes out a detailed five-year budget that always puts him in the black towards the end. He promises to start paying down the debt then, but in practice, the extra cash never materializes. It's not that he doesn't have good intentions. His spending is just too unwieldy.

He has two types of expenditures: personal and court mandated. His personal expenses are the basics. He pays for rent and food, and the occasional beer at the neighborhood bar. Nothing too extravagant. It's becoming tougher to justify those little luxuries as his other expenses have grown. By order of the court, he must pay his ex-wife significant alimony, plus child-support for their growing kid. He could save money by eating out less or watching the game from home instead of heading to the bar for a pint, but those unpopular choices wouldn't make anybody happy.

These are the pretty much the choices facing the U.S. government, but on a drastically larger scale.

How Much Do We Owe?

The U.S. debt is huge. The interest payments alone cost more than $400 billion. China is our Master Card and Japan is our Visa. As a society, we owe them $2 trillion, plus interest. And every single day, we borrow another $1.5 billion.

What's All This I Hear About A Deficit? Is That The Debt?

No. The deficit is our yearly contribution to the debt. When politicians talk about slashing the deficit, they mean that *this year* we will still add to the national debt, but maybe not as much as we thought. Presidents habitually propose "balanced" budgets that slash deficits year after year, ending with a balanced budget after five years. Ignoring the fact that Presidential terms are four years, those proposals mean that the government will continue to add to the debt for every year except the last, when we will contribute nothing to debt, but won't do anything to reduce it either.

When the government spends less than it receives, we have a surplus. This is rare. Surpluses come with the same choices as holiday bonuses. You can blow them on iPods (or F-22 Raptors,) or pay off your student loans and credit card bills (or Social Security.)

Why Is The Planet's Wealthiest Nation In Debt?

Just like our hypothetical divorced father, the U.S. has two types of expenses: discretionary and mandatory. Discretionary spending accounts for one third of our budget and funds all the those nice little things that we want, but aren't required to fund. This encompasses most agencies you know about, like the Pentagon and the Departments of Agriculture, Education, State, Labor, Justice, Transportation, Commerce, and Homeland Security. All of it is nice, but if Congress wanted, it could quickly swing the legislative mace and kill off the FBI and the Navy.

Discretionary spending is also the source of those pork barrel projects that get Senator McCain in such a huff. Technically, pork barrel projects benefit the residents of one Congressional district—think of that spiffy new park down the street—rather than further any national aim. In a budget of nearly $3 trillion, they cost around $18 billion.

The vast majority of the federal budget is eaten up by the mandatory spending that funds our social safety net. The big entitlements are Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The cost of entitlements is driven by the number of eligible citizens, rather than the annual Congressional appropriations process. To our divorced father, they are the court-ordered child support payments.

Congress has the ability to tweak entitlement program eligibility, or scrap them altogether, but politicians don't like futzing with our entitlements because it's one of the easiest ways to get fired.

Don't Mention The War!

You may have noticed, we're at war. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan add to our national debt, but not to our deficit. How? Emergency spending. Congress doesn't have a rainy day fund like most responsible families. When the United States' car breaks or we have an unexpected health scare, Congress waives its few existing budget rules and appropriates emergency funds, adding to the debt like any normal expense. For those keeping track, the wars have added almost half a trillion dollars to the debt.

Even in peacetime the Pentagon guzzles nearly half a trillion dollars annually for its operating budget. The defense budget is so large that it was one of the only points of reference for the recent $700 billion bailout.

Ok, Debt Is Bad. How Do We Reduce It?

If our hypothetical divorced father can reduce his debt, so can the government.

Keep A Budget: Well at least this one is covered. We have a budget and we know exactly where our money goes. See, here's the President posing with his newfangled "E-Budget." To make your own slightly less fangled version, read our post on How To Build Your Own Budget .

Acknowledge The Problem: Hmm, well, we kinda have this one covered. Maybe you remember that Perot fellow, the one with the ears and the oil who loved talking about our debt? He got it. Some of our politicians get it, but Oh! New Program! WANT!

-sigh-

Stop Digging: This means balanced budgets. The government won't ever pay off its massive debt unless it stops sending more than it takes in year after year. Balanced budgets are only the first step. We really need more money.

Make Small Cutbacks: Um, yeah. Whole think tanks devote their time to finding "small cutbacks" that might save a little cash. If the government really was a divorced father, we'd point him to our post: 5 Expenses You Can't Afford If You Have Credit Card Debt.

Start An Emergency Fund: Lockbox, anyone? This was one of the original ideas behind Social Security and Medicare: start a separate fund with a separate funding stream, and keep the big bad mess away from our annual operating budget. It didn't take Congress long, those naughty little rascals, to figure out that the big box labeled "COOKIES - DO NOT TOUCH" was filled with yummy, yummy cookies, on which they've been feasting ever since. Now the trust funds, as the President likes to point out, are filled with IOUs. Whoops! You, however, are more disciplined than Congress, and have no excuse for failing to fund a rainy day fund.

Snowball: You have an edge over the government in that you can start a debt snowball, paying off your smallest balances first and then applying your newfound cash to payoff the larger balances. The government doesn't have "small" and "large" balances. They simply owe tons and tons of money. Revel in your superiority by reading our post: Use Snowball Method Spreadsheet To Pay Off Debts

Make More Money: This means raising taxes, the government's nearly exclusive source of income. Everyone, even people who want more government programs, hates paying taxes. There's nothing pleasant about it. But it's the only way the government can raise cash. We need to pay for all those nifty services like the Do Not Call List and the Pentagon.

Spend Less: This means cutting services, like that Do Not Call List and Pentagon thing we like so much. Rarely can we agree on what to fund, let alone what to cut. In a budget of $3 trillion, canceling the government's cable service doesn't amount to much. The big dollar savings come from staunching the future cost of entitlements or scaling back defense spending, but good luck getting the needed votes in Congress.

But Isn't Some Debt Ok?

Some debt is the natural byproduct of a healthy society that reinvests in its future. Just as student loans are investments to boost future earnings potential, the government funds projects that can improve society and the economy. We can all agree that the interstate system is rather spiffy.

Economists bicker over how much debt relative to income is healthy for the economy, but most everyone accepts that a reasonable amount of debt—however much that may be—is alright, much in the same way that carrying a mortgage isn't fundamentally bad.

Public policy is the constant, painfully entertaining struggle to provide the right services at the right tax levels. When you realize that cutting spending means fewer police officers or raising the retirement age, and that making more money means raising your taxes, you begin to understand why we have a $10 trillion debt.

What Can You Do To Reduce The Debt?

The most important thing you can do is to keep paying your taxes. If you are feeling especially charitable, you can make a donation directly to the treasury. Make your check payable to the Bureau of the Public Debt, and in the memo section, write: "Gift to reduce the Debt Held by the Public." Mail your check to:

Attn: Dept G
Bureau Of the Public Debt
P. O. Box 2188
Parkersburg, WV 26106-2188

Budget of the United States Government [Government Printing Office]
(Photo: Matt McGee)

Why Personal Letters Beat Form Letters
Don't get suckered in by the quick and easy "Write to Congress!" form letters littering the internet. Form letters are not an expression of values; they are a show of organizational strength. If the NRA convinces five million people to send letters opposing gun control, it shows that the NRA can muster five million people to action, not that five million people necessarily care about gun laws. Congressional offices know this and generally disregard form letters.

So what happens when you send a letter?

Every office has its own procedures for tabulating constituent correspondence, but most will produce a report at the end of week breaking down how many letters were received by issue area, separating out form letters from letters sent by individual constituents.

Members treat each type of letter differently, but most look for individual letters as a barometer of their district's concerns. These are the letters that have the most influence, the ones we will show you how to write.

What Should Your Letter Say?
We adhere to the three paragraph rule: introduce yourself, introduce your issue, request action. Congressional offices have staffers whose days are spent solely on the mail, so make their lives easier by keeping letter succinct and to the point.

• Introduce Yourself: There is a two-prong test for determining your worth: 1) Are you a constituent? 2) Are you an important constituent? Feel free to puff up your chest. Are you a lifelong member of the district? Are you associated with community groups? Say so! Convince the reader that yours is a voice of experience and wisdom.
• Be specific: Don't just ask a Member to oppose mandatory binding arbitration agreements. Ask them to rush to the floor to support S.1782, The Arbitration Fairness Act of 2007.
• Marshall Facts: Your argument—and you are making an argument—must be supported by facts. Feel free to use facts gleaned from us or other sources, but don't copy and paste paragraphs of pre-written text from form letters. Personal experiences are particularly effective, and often moving. Share them!
• Be Exceedingly Polite, Please: Congress attracts haughty personalities. Staffers don't appreciate being spoken down to or insulted. You are trying to rally them to your cause, so be nice.
• Clearly State Your Request: Plainly tell your representative that you want them to support or oppose a certain bill. If you want a response, explicitly (but politely) ask for one.

Send Your Letter To The Right Place
Only write to your representatives. You have three: one Representative in the House, and two Senators. Do not send more than three letters. Some citizens try to get their voice heard by writing to all 435 members of the House. Congressional courtesy compels the 434 Members who do not represent the zealot to forward his letter to the one lucky Member who does. This angers the Member's staff greatly at the expense of any point you are trying to make.

The addresses for your Representatives and Senators are available online, but don't waste your time with an email. Letters carry significantly more weight. Send your letter to the Capitol, where the legislative staff is based, though it will take a while to arrive since all incoming Congressional mail is irradiated thanks to those still-unidentified Anthrax mailers.

For an even greater impact, send your letter care of the staffer covering the issue. These staffers - called Legislative Assistants - are the Member's eyes and ears on their assigned issue areas. Finding the staffer destined to read your letter is easy: call the Capitol switchboard (open 24 hours a day!) at (202) 224-3121, ask for your Member's office, and ask the person who answers for the name of the staffer handling the issue area or bill number. Once you get that name, address your letter like this:

Member Of Congress
c/o Staffer
Office Building/Number
Washington, DC 20515

What Should You Expect In Return?
It depends. There are 535 Congressional offices and each handles constituent correspondence differently. The vast majority respond to letters with either a form letter pre-written by a Legislative Assistant, or with a more personal response written by a Legislative Correspondent. Controversial issues that attract many letters normally receive a form letter response, while smaller issues or specific questions often receive the attention of a personalized response.

Conclusion
Members of Congress work for you. Without your votes, they won't stay in office. They go to great lengths to cultivate a positive relationship with you, their boss. Very few people take the time to write to a Member of Congress, so the few that do carry a disproportionate influence.

Fifteen minutes is well worth the time to influence a $2 trillion enterprise.

(Photo: indi.ca)

...may include some good ideas, but it is largely a re-hashed, unsubstantiated industry wish-list that seeks to eliminate state enforcement authority over insurance, securities and other financial products, without even guaranteeing strong consumer protection at the federal level.

This plan would consolidate a large number of regulators into roughly three big new agencies.

Bank supervision, now divided among five federal agencies, would be led by a Prudential Financial Regulator, which could send examiners into any bank or depository institution that is protected by either federal deposit insurance or other federal backstops. It would eliminate the distinction between "banks" and "thrift institutions," which are already indistinguishable to most consumers, and shut down the Office of Thrift Supervision.

Any effort to merge the Commodity Futures Trading Commission with the S.E.C. is likely to provoke battles.

Yet another proposal would, for the first time, create a national regulator for insurance companies, an industry that state governments now oversee.

Administration officials argue that a national system would eliminate the inefficiencies of having 50 different state regulators, who have jealously guarded their powers and are likely to fight any federal encroachment.

The federal insurance proposal is a huge giveaway for the insurance industry. Insurers would be able to evade strong consumer protections at the state level by opting-in to what would be comparably lax regulation from the Treasury Department. If approved, it is not unreasonable to expect higher rates and fewer protections.

The new Prudential Financial Regulator, which would gobble up the five regulators that currently oversee banks and creditors, could severely harm consumers. We don't yet know who would steer the massive new regulator, or whether they would emulate the destructive model of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which preempts state authority and then sits idly by as consumers are financially raped.

So what is the media focusing on?

Paulson couldn't just ignore the subprime meltdown, so he is proposing a Mortgage Origination Commission, which would set baseline qualifications for mortgage brokers and chastise states for failing to adequately regulate the industry.

The plan also calls for broad new authorities for the Fed to oversee the market, "in effect allowing it to send SWAT teams into any corner of the industry or any institution that might pose a risk to the overall system." The proposal would standardize emergency borrowing from the Fed's discount window. In exchange for allowing non-bank failures to sally up to the window and beg for cash, the Fed will claim the ability to thumb through their books and balance sheets "in order to protect the Federal Reserve (and thereby the taxpayer)."

It is doubtful the plan will become law this year, but is an important vehicle for framing the coming debate over regulatory authority. Congress is going to put its prints all over the plan before it passes. The devil is in the details and Congress must ensure that any new regulatory environment isn't hostile to strong consumer protections.

After all, even the Treasury Secretary acknowledges that his proposal may not be enough to prevent the next subprime meltdown: "At a fundamental level, the root causes of market instability are difficult to predict, and past history may be a poor predictor of future episodes of instability."

Treasury Dept. Plan Would Give Fed Wide New Power [NYT]
Treasury's Summary of Regulatory Proposal [NYT]

PREVIOUSLY: IRS Reminds You To File Your Tax Return In Order To Receive Stimulus Payment
$600 Rebates Are A Tax Credit Advance

"Has your department tested every parking meter in the city within the past three years?" I asked Deputy Commissioner Dominic Verdi. "No," he replied. So how many have they inspected? The Deputy Commissioner wasn't clear, saying "The exact number I don't have in front of me."

But we know, after 3 On Your Side reviewed the inspection reports ourselves. Out of 14,500 meters, only around 2,000 have been tested and certified for timing from 2005 through 2007, that is less than 15 percent!

Verdi blames lack of man power, L&I only has one inspector assigned to that job.

"There is no way possible for us to handle all of those meters," said Verdi.

But when we checked, we found some meters were being checked time and time again! A meter on South 9th Street was tested at 11 a.m. one morning and approved, then hours later it was tested again, and approved again!

When I asked Verdi if the inspector was clueless, he just shrugged.

Then there is the situation we found on Ridge Avenue, a meter was tested and approved eight times last year, and it happened in other places too!

Our town—which is full of parking ticket sticklers and has this suburban cowboy ticket inspector guy who revels in ticketing parents who dash into stores while their kids wait in the car—was caught issuing tickets that listed only the month and year of a registration's expiration, not the exact day. As a result, the town's tickets were invalid. The townspeople celebrated and the suburban cowboy cried. True story.

Anyway, if you live in Philadelphia and have an outstanding parking ticket, click on this link (PDF) to see if the meter was properly certified. If it wasn't, the ticket is not legally enforceable and will be tossed out by any law-abiding judge.

If only this applied to New York City's $150 parking tickets...

3 On Your Side: Parking Meter Investigation [CBS3]
(Photo: Getty)

Significant differences remain between the Senate and House legislation, but compromise seems assured on several key points:

• Funding for the Commission would rise from $63 million to over $100 million.
• The CPSC would be allowed to work without a quorum, but funding would be available for a full slate of 5 Commissioners.
• Lead would effectively be banned from all children's products, not just toys.
• Toy makers would be required to use independent labs to test their products for lead.
• Maximum fines would rise from $1.8 million to at least $10 million.
• 
  

Thirteen Senators think the bills goes too far and that their families are plenty safe without an expanded CPSC, thank you:

Allard (R-CO)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)

The White House has yet to threaten a veto. Stay tuned for updates as the bill heads to conference.

Senate Votes For Safer Products [Washington Post]
Vote Summary [United States Senate]
S. 2663 - A bill to reform the Consumer Product Safety Commission to provide greater protection for children's products, to improve the screening of noncompliant consumer products, to improve the effectiveness of consumer product recall programs, and for other purposes. [THOMAS]
Write Your Representative
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• The CPSC would create a consumer complaint database that lists death, injury and illness reports, a provision absent from the House bill.
• State attorneys general would be allowed to seek injunctions for violations of federal law, but would not receive broad enforcement powers.
• Whistleblower protection would be extended to private-sector employees, and whistleblowers would be allowed to sue for damages up to $250,000.
• Maximum fines would rise from $1.8 million to $20 million—far less than the $100 million approved by the House.

Congress should arm state attorneys general with broad enforcement powers and authorize staggering fines that can threaten the reputation and wallet of any company. Still, the current compromise would give consumers more than the pitiful excuse for protection that we currently endure. Even if the bill passes in its current form, consumers need and deserve Commissioners who are willing to wield the tools Congress provides.

And don't just print out our certificate. We earned that through hard work. Brush up on your DTV transition facts and win the respect of friends and neighbors alike with a certificate of your own.

DTV Deputy Quiz [dtv.gov]

Consumers can request the $40 coupons now, but they expire after 90 days even though converter boxes are still not widely available. Mouse Print broke down all the known caveats:

1. You cannot combine the coupons toward the purchase of a single box (each will cost between $50 and $70 approximately).

2. The coupons expire 90 days from their mailing to you, and expired coupons will not be replaced.

3. There are only 22.5 million coupons unless Congress authorizes 11.25 million more.

4. While some boxes have already been approved, more are expected.

5. Many if not most retailers do not have the boxes in stock yet.

Mouseprint rightly argues that the coupons should not expire. The federal government shouldn't worry that throngs of coupon-wielding seniors will bankrupt the treasury by simultaneously redeeming their DTV coupons. This is the sort of problem the government might be able to tackle if a single official was overseeing the DTV transition.

DTV Coupons: The Consumer Catch-22 [Mouse Print]
(Photo: anomalous4)

On February 19, 2009, stations will stop broadcasting analog signals. Consumers will be unable to receive signals over the air unless they shell out $60 for a digital converter box. Few people know about the transition, or the $40 coupons the government has made available to subsidize the cost of the converter boxes. Where we see a problem, The Singing Regulators see a song.

Bloomberg reprinted the lyrics to Away in a Farm House, sung to the tune of Away in a Manger:

Away in a farm house, no show can I see. I lost all my coupons to get DTV. My friends in the city, they all said, "Relax!'' That's easy to say when you're wired with co-ax. Looking for help, I went down to the store, I asked for more coupons, they just said "what for?'' They sold me a monster, takes up my whole wall. I yearn for the days of my old analog. In Two-Thousand Nine after Super Bowl Week, My analog set will become an antique. I hope that the public will know what to do, For most of my neighbors do not have a clue...

Oh BlackBerry! FCC Carolers Poke Fun at Issues: Cindy Skrzycki [Bloomberg]
PREVIOUSLY: $40 Coupons For Digital TV Converter Boxes
The Conversion to Digital Television Is Going To Be Unpleasant

(Photo: clofresh)

They hired a tree trimmer, paid him $3,000 to trim the trees, and were assured that no permit was necessary.

Not so.

From the LA Times:

On the third day of the three-day job, the city's urban forester happened to be in the neighborhood, and noticed the tree trimmer doing his thing.

"She saw what was happening and said, 'Stop! Cease and desist!' " says Mike, a work-at-home software and computer guy.

Glendale has an indigenous tree protection ordinance that dates to the 1980s. It was enacted to discourage developers and homeowners from bulldozing or hacking trees willy-nilly. Earlier this year, because of citizen complaints that native trees were still being ruined, the city approved more restrictions and bigger fines.

None of which the Collards knew about.

They now admit that had they read the Fire Department notice closely, they would have seen in small print that a free permit was required to trim oak and sycamore branches larger than 1 inch in diameter. But it was an understandable oversight.

A week after her first visit, the urban forester was back, telling the Collards an arborist would come by soon to assess the damage. The Collards recall being told they might want to hire an attorney.

"That's when we realized the gravity of the situation," says Ann. "I was pregnant and crying, but it didn't help."

In August, the Collards got a visit from the arborist. She looked at the trees, took measurements and jotted down notes.

How bad could it be? The Collards began to anticipate the possibility of a fine, but it wasn't as if the trees were mauled. They looked pretty good, in fact.

Finally, on Oct. 1, a letter arrived. It was from Glendale's Neighborhood Services administrator.

"Dear Owner," it began. "The city of Glendale is committed to maintaining a community with quality streetscapes that include the care and well-being of protected indigenous trees."

The letter informed them they had improperly pruned 13 trees, some of them on city property because they were near the street, and some on their own property. The fine was listed on Page 2, where the Collards were informed they would be charged "two times the value of the damaged tree(s)."

"Total: $347,600."

"I about passed out," says Ann.

The weird part is that they aren't the only ones who have been fined a ridiculous amount of money for trimming trees in Glendale.

"I was fined $175,000 for cutting two sycamores after my architect contacted the city and was warned not to touch oak trees," says John Oppenheim, a registered nurse and single dad. "I am not a criminal, though because of a string of bad advice, I did make a mistake."

Ann points out that White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby was fined $250,000 for perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to investigators in the case of CIA operative Valerie Plame. She adds, with appropriate exasperation, that Glendale Memorial Hospital drew a $25,000 fine in October for a medical error in which "a person was killed."

Out on a limb over trimming fiasco [LA Times] (Thanks, Cesar!)
(Photo:Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

Radio has moved from being in the business of empowering and educating people to Wall Street, to making money. And that's not the big corporate conglomerates, you know, that's not their fault. They were allowed to do this.

This is the fault of government who did not put the proper checks and balances so that this could not happen.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin thinks they should be allowed to own more. Moyers speculates that Martin wants to pass media consolidation by the end of the year to keep the issue away from the Presidential campaign calender. Even pro-business Republicans oppose consolidation; Trent Lott (R-MS), the Republican whip in the Senate, is leading the fight against consolidation with North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan. According to correspondent Rick Karr:

There's no constituency out there saying we want more consolidation. It's essentially just the big media companies. There are no citizens groups out there saying we want more of this.

Transcript [Bill Moyers Journal]
Comment On Media Ownership Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Docket - 06-121 [FCC Electronic Comment Filing System]
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Write Your Representative
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FCC Chairman To Relax Media Ownership Rules
(Photo: fsgm)

From KYW:

About three weeks ago Mayor Street announced an aggressive effort to reclaim one-third of the $700 million that the city is owed in back property taxes:

"If the taxes are delinquent, you will have to pay."

A local newspaper did some digging and found that among those who owe money is John Franklin Street, our mayor. The Philadelphia Daily News found that he had not paid taxes on two of his four North Philadelphia properties since 2003, and owed $4,800.

The mayor's spokesman, Joe Grace, says after the newspaper called, Street wrote a check:

"As soon as it came to the mayor's attention, the mayor immediately issued a check for $4,798 to pay those tax bills in full."

We don't mean to be unkind or anything, but Mayor Street seems like a bit of a dumbass.

Whoops, Says Mayor, After Being Tagged as Tax Scofflaw [KYW via TaxProfBlog]

From Reuters:

"To assure our success and allow additional time to gather input, I am cancelling plans for the rollout of all changes to our organizational structure," FDA Associate Commissioner for Regulatory Affairs Margaret Glavin said in an e-mail to colleagues about the food labs.

FDA spokeswoman Julie Zawisza said the statement did not mean the agency had canceled its intention to reorganize the labs. "We are evaluating how to proceed with the reorganization based on forthcoming recommendations" from a presidential panel on import safety and other input, she said.

FDA decides against closing food-testing labs [Reuters]
PREVIOUSLY: Congress Prepares The FDA For Battle With The Chinese Poison Train
(Photo: Dave-F)

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

"I have never heard anything like that in my life. This person was laughing uncontrollably. When she picked up the phone, she burst into laughter. She probably had been laughing for a while. I kept on saying, 'Hello. Hello.' But she couldn't talk. She never stopped laughing," said [Brigitte] Biver, 58.

"I finally said, 'I'd like to report some heavy fireworks activity.' She was still laughing as she asked where I was located. I said Norwood Park. Still laughing, she asked where in Norwood Park. Then, she said, 'Ma'am, you're gonna have to call back.' I said, 'Can I have your name please.' But she hung up on me."

"She didn't know what I was calling about. Somebody could have been having a heart attack here. If it had been a life-or-death situation where seconds count, that's very dangerous. It's highly unprofessional in any setting," Biver said.

A spokesperson for the Chicago Emergency Management and Communications Office says Biver has yet to file a formal complaint, and he cannot comment on anonymous 911 calls. He told the Sun-Times that the office is interested in investigating Biver's complaint.

911 caller gets an earful of laughter [Chicago Sun-Times]
(Photo:Keith Haler/Chicago Sun-Times)

The TSA spokesperson responded:

"We don't discuss the results because they tend to paint an inaccurate picture of the competency of our work force," she said. "The tests are designed to be incredibly difficult and TSA does anticipate a fair level of failure."

Fake bomb eludes airport test [Times-Union via BoingBoing]
(Photo: antigone78)