If you think anyone in Washington gives a damn about your money, listen to how they have wasted it, and will continue to waste it, because of "politics."

Taxpayers have spent more than $10 billion dollars digging a hole in a mountain in Nevada where the nation's nuclear waste was supposed to go. The Yucca Mountain project has been underway for nearly three decades. In 1987, Congress even passed a law explicitly directing waste from the nation's nuclear power plants would start arriving in Yucca Mountain in by the late 1990's.

So far, not one single radioactive isotope has made its way to Yucca, and probably never will.

President Obama, making good on a promise to Senate Majority Leader (and not-in-my-backyard-of-Nevada) Harry Reid, has effectively killed any future for the Yucca Mountain facility. More than $10 billion dollars of scientific study, engineering and congressional spending has just been thrown into a hole in the ground.

But Yuccas Mountain is not officially dead, and here is where the real arrogance of wasting your money comes in.

Even the President cannot kill the project because, remember, the project is law. According to the federal government, the government is required to build Yucca Mountain and accept the waste. Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) would like to change that law, but without an option for where all this waste will go, it may be hard to get the votes.

So what to do?

Keep Yucca Mountain on life-support while you spend money looking for another alternative. President Obama plans to do just that by spending $197 million dollars in the 2010 budget, essentially to pay people to do nothing. Out at Yucca Mountain, there will be a staff getting paid, proceeding with licensing and other odds and ends, knowing all along that the project has no future.

It's pure politics that has already cost you and me $10 billion dollars and now $197 million more.

Let's hope they don't carve out more of Yucca Mountain to stuff with dollar bills.

Police say nearly half of the student killings in the Chicago Public School district this school year are unsolved. Some people blame the police. Many blame the prosecutors. Others blame young community members for not speaking up.

While working on this report, I spoke with many parents who told me that witnesses in their slain child’s case were not coming forward with key information that could help lead to an arrest of the assailant. These witnesses, in some cases, were friends of the victims. No clues – no conviction. There is no justice. And the murderers are free to kill again. All because there is an unwritten rule in this community that teaches people to mind your own business and keep your mouth shut.

Well, I cannot pretend to understand what it’s like to see a friend shot and killed. I cannot pretend to understand what it’s like to be a teenager who fears getting shot on my way to school each morning. But Patricia Brown understands. Brown’s daughter, 17-year-old-daughter Patrice was gunned down in her own neighborhood in 2007. Brown says there were witnesses. She is convinced someone knows something. But no one will speak up. She says she understands why these young witnesses won’t come forward – she says they likely fear retaliation – they are afraid. But she says people need to be more afraid of the killers who are roaming the streets, free to kill again.

Brown wants justice. And that is what the other parents I talked to want as well. Justice equals power. But unless the kids who witnessed these crimes step forward with information, there will be no justice, and the killers will be the only ones with power.

Do you think these young witnesses have good reason to fear coming forward with information? Beyond possible retaliation, why would these kids not want to identify their friend’s killer?

As I was reporting this story, the one thing I heard quite a bit from people who oppose the Indian Street Bridge project was that they truly feel their voices will no longer be heard now that the government is stepping in with stimulus money to build this bridge.

For more than 20 years residents of Palm City and Stuart, Florida have been debating whether this bridge was a good idea or a total waste of money. Remember, there’s already a bridge connecting these two communities less than a mile away.

Depending upon who you ask, the reason for the new bridge is because there’s too much congestion on the existing bridge, and a second bridge down the street would reduce the congestion. However, many of the people who oppose the bridge feel traffic congestion is not the problem, and don’t want more growth in the area. The debate could have gone on for many more years, and maybe it still will. But does it really matter anymore? This project was approved by the Florida legislature and soon Martin County officials will receive a stimulus check for $128 million.

Here’s my question to you: Do you feel the government’s mighty checkbook is silencing the voice of the people?

Also, do you know of a controversial project that is now getting stimulus money, whether people who live in the community like it or not?