MIscellaneous Political Insanity

Every once in a while we do a post that covers recent miscellaneous insanity that has come from the political class. It could include wasteful government spending, stupid government regulation, or just about anything else that wastes time and money from those people we have elected. Thus, tonight I present the latest from our leaders:

1) A short article in the April 2, 2010 issue of The Week magazine illustrated some wasteful legislation that a Congressman is actually working. Representative Paul Broun of Georgia is putting together legislation that would require every religion to acknowledge that the United States' "national character" was shaped by the Ten Commandments. It would also establish the first weekend in May as "Ten Commandments Weekend" and "would encourage citizens of all faiths and religious persuasions to honor it."

Wow, where to start. I always thought the founders of this country were very clear from the start: freedom of religion was a basic American right. You cannot have freedom of religion if members of the government are forcing you to acknowledge a tenet of another religion. Even if you agree with that the Ten Commandments did shape the country, you should not be forced by that government to bow down to that ideal. The word "Taliban" comes to mind since we know that they did not allow any deviation from their beliefs when they were in charge in Afghanistan.

Also, where do we think this concern would fall in a list of the top issues and worries that are bothering Americans? Do we even think this would make the list? Is it more important than failing public schools, our failed war on drugs, deficit spending, national debt, two wars we are currently fighting in the Middle East, our trade imbalance, high unemployment, etc.? It is efforts like these that just verify that those in Washington have no idea what they are doing and what is important to ordinary citizens. Imposing on other's religious beliefs is very dangerous besides just being a tremendous waste of time, given everything else wrong in the country today. Talk about screwed up priorities.

2) A short article from the March 5, 2010 issue of The Week Magazine reviewed how political class members in the state of Missouri where dealing with revenue shortfalls, like many other states, and how they needed to cut funding levels for schools and homeless shelters. However, it appears that they have not closed a long standing tax loophole that allows purchasers of yachts to avoid paying sales tax when they purchase the yachts. The article says that a buyer does not have to pay $30,000 in sales tax on the purchase of a half a million dollar yacht. While I doubt the closure of this loophole would solve the entire state budget problem shouldn't this have been one of the first action items undertaken to ensure fairness for all Missouri citizens? Could it be that politicians in Missouri own a lot of yachts themselves and voted themselves the exemption or is it possible that the yacht lobby donated to some re-election campaigns of Missouri politicians? In either case, the politicians benefit to the detriment of the citizens.

3) A New York Times report that was printed in the March 14, 2010 edition of the St. Petersburg Times reviewed how investigators were looking into the corruption accusations as they relate to reconstruction projects in Iraq, projects that are funded with U.S. taxpayer money. The investigators have opened 50 new cases in just the past six months. Many of the cases include instances where people just took some of the reconstruction money in cash and mailed it home, some cases involve the use of foreign bank accounts throughout the world to conceal the theft, and some cases people just carried the cash out of the country in duffel bags. Additional cases are likely to be opened in the near future and possibly additional cases for the potential cash fraud going on in Afghanistan. The waste and fraud could be in the billions of dollars. The good news is that finally someone is trying to find the missing money. The bad news is: why did it take so long? Those members of the House and Senate committees responsible for these projects need to be removed from their committee posts for dereliction of duty as proposed in Step 34 of "Love My Country, Loathe My Government." According to the article, this level of fraud and waste has been going on since 2003 and the political class has done very little to stop it.

4) Part of Obama's health care reform bill includes the mandatory posting of calorie counts for food served in most restaurants. The hope of this facet of the bill is that people will change their eating plans once they get to the restaurant and eat healthier. This would reduce their chance of becoming sick from poor eating habits. Nice idea, bad implementation. According to a March 23, 2010 Associated Press article, in a study from last year that was published in the online journal "Health Affairs", only half of the customers in poor New York City areas with high rates of obesity and diabetes noticed the calorie counts. Only half noticed, who knows how many actually read the information and how many of those that read the information actually changed their eating plans because of it, probably very few, if any.

Another study found that the accuracy of the counts was often wrong due to variations in ingredients and portion sizes. Bottom line: another government program that does not work but costs money to implement. Just like the law they passed that required every company in the world to tell you their privacy guidelines. Did anyone ever read the privacy guidelines of more than a few, if any, of the businesses they do business with? You cannot change behavior in a fast food restaurant by hanging a poster, it is a waste of time and money and delusion to those that think this is a good idea.

Just another four instances where the political class is falling down on the job and spending a lot of time and money (or wasting a lot of time and money) with no discernible benefit to Americans. As we have said before, these are the same types of people that want to control our health care fate. Heaven help us.


Our new book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.