Political Class Silly Season

A major action item under Step 1 in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government", is to do a Federal government-wide zero based budget program and activity analysis. In this process, we would ask ourselves the question, "Would we do this activity/program if we had limited resources and we were starting a government from scratch?" Hopefully, this approach would get rid of a lot of silly, stupid, and useless things that the political class has instituted, resulting in more freedom and lower tax burdens. I would suggest that the following efforts might be early casualties of our analysis:

• In a previous post we reviewed how a Congresswoman was using government resources to write legislation that would regulate the sound volume of television commercials. Let's put Iraq, Afghanistan, failing public schools, escalating health care costs, rising unemployment levels, and a myriad of other problems on the back burner and attack the TV commercial volume control issue. I would hope this would be one of the first efforts cancelled during our review.
• Also in a previous post we discussed how a Congressman was using government resources to write legislation that would prohibit the televising of erectile dysfunction TV commercials. Hopefully, this would be the second effort eliminated after review.
• Dropping down to the local political class level, New York City, and possibly the U.S. Senate in the future, requires all fast-food restaurants to publish calorie counts for all of its offerings. This would, theoretically, allow customers to understand what they are putting into their bodies and make a healthier diet choice. Unfortunately, according to an article in the October 23, 2009 issue of The Week magazine, a recent study has shown that the posting of this information has had absolutely no effect on the buying and eating habits of those dining in fast food restaurants. Think about all of the waste in this program: politicians dreaming up and writing the legislation, government staffs drawing up the enforcement guidelines, restaurants putting forth expenses to develop, print, and post the information and law enforcement looking for violators. All for nothing. I am pretty sure there are similar projects everywhere in government, program that are either now useless or were never useful but which absorb mega taxpayer dollars and inconveniences for no positive return.
• Going international, you have to hand it to Russia for silly season activities. In an article from Moskovsky Komsomolets that was summarized in The Week issue of November 6, 2009, Putin's pro-Kremlin United Russia party usually rigs most elections so that their candidates win. However, they got a little silly in one district where the leader of an opposition party did not get a single vote in the election even though the leader claimed he had voted in the election. Thus, not only did he not vote for himself, but no member of his family, his friends, or his party voted for him. Even American politicians have gotten this silly yet.
• Staying international, in the same issue of The Week, a summarization of an article from The Globe And Mail discussed how many Canadian provinces had instituted strict bans on cigarette smoking in both public and private places. However, in at least province you can smoke cigarettes if you are a crack addict. Please explain the silliness rationale for this one.
• Back in the USA, and using another article from The Week magazine, their October 9, 2009 issue reviewed how the Obama administration is committing tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to a program to help public housing agencies provide mortgages to middle and low income families. Does this sound familiar? Remember how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did similar things, i.e. back subprime mortgages to consumers with less than stellar credit and ability to pay back those mortgages? Did these similar actions not lead to the worst recession since the Great Depression? Sounds pretty silly to do the same thing twice.

Silly or not, these and other similar programs are wasteful, useless and, unfortunately, expense from a taxpayer perspective. The only way to get rid of them is a zero-based approach with limited resources or the silly season will continue to be a year round event.

Visit our website at www.loathemygovernment.com to order an autographed copy of the book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government -Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom and Destroying The American Political Class" and to sign up for the cause. The book is also available online at Amazon and Barnes And Noble.