Political Class Insanity - Football Style

The great thing about writing and following the American political class is that there is never a shortage of examples of stupidity, insanity, and wasteful spending. To quickly review, let's do a quick review of recent Congressional insanity:

• A Congresswoman uses her staff and resources to develop Federal legislation to regulate the sound volume of television commercials. Never mind that most Americans can avoid higher sounding television commercials by simply using the mute button on their remote, leaving the room to get a snack, changing the channel during the commercial, or using DVRs to quickly bypass commercials.
• A Congressman uses his staff and resources to develop Federal legislation to prohibit the use of television commercials to advertise erectile dysfunction products. Never mind that most Americans can avoid erectile dysfunction commercials by simply using the mute button on their remote, leaving the room to get a snack, changing the channel during the commercial, or using DVRs to quickly bypass these commercials.
• A Congressman uses his staff and resources to develop Federal legislation to provide tax deductions for family pets to prevent them for being up for adoption due to unemployment of a family member(s). Never mind that the Federal government is awash in red ink deficits, the legislation would be available to everyone regardless of their economic situation, and would be unlikely to prevent fraud in executing the proposal.

These types of actions of the political class does not leave one confident that these people can solve the real issues confronting the country such as Afghanistan, Iraq, failing public schools, drug addiction plague, Social Security heading for bankruptcy, Medicare heading for bankruptcy, soaring unemployment, skyrocketing deficits, high health care costs, and a whole slew of more important issues than television commercials and pet deductions. It leaves you with the impression that they do not know how to solve the real crises and thus, they need to somehow prove their worth by wasting time and taxpayer dollars on these lame efforts.

But today's news report continue this tradition of worthless exercises by the political class. According to an AP report, a House subcommittee has approved legislation aimed at forcing college football conferences to switch to a playoff system to determine the national college football champion. The reason this news is so distressing is that it is not some solitary Congressman or Congresswoman and only their staff working on something useless: this is the result of a whole subcommittee working on a trivial issue.

A few comments and observations:

• According to the article, the subcommittee chairman said "We can cross the street and chew gum at the same time." However, I would contend that not only can they not cross the street and chew gum at the same time, I am not sure they can do one of those things successfully by itself.
• The proposed legislation would make it illegal to promote a national football championship game "or make a similar representation" unless it is associated with a playoff system. Not quite elegant, original, or likely to be effective. Apparently the proposed legislation does not determine how teams would be selected for the playoff field or how to overcome the tens of millions of dollars that universities receive from bowl football games, bowl games that would be obsoleted by a playoff system.
• The bill's sponsor was quoted as saying: "It's December and the BCS is in chaos again." He said the current system for determining a champion is unfair and won't change unless prompted by Congress. Obviously this gentleman has a different set of priorities than myself if he wants the entire Congress to take up this issue.
• According to the article there is not a similar effort underway in the Senate but one current Senator has pressed for an antitrust investigation by the Justice Department. Forget about real criminals, drug lords, financial pyramid scheme frauds, let's take Justice Department personnel and resources and go after the BCS process.
• Also according to the article, shortly after he took office, President Obama took time out of his schedule to state there should be a football playoff system, delaying action on more important issues to weigh in on a game.

If it wasn't so depressing and pathetic it would be laughable. According to the Tax Foundation, American families send almost a third of their annual income to all levels of government and college football playoffs is what the Federal branch of the political class spends their time on. This is why many steps in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" need to be executed as soon as possible. The most important one is the step that would remove committee and subcommittee members from their committee posts for incompetence and/or lack of positive production. If this step was in effect, Americans could not lose. Either the subcommittee members on this subcommittee would do a better job of prioritizing their work and attack real issues or they would be removed for focusing on a football game. A win/win for America.

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.
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