Current Day America - The Good News and the Bad News

While I still believe we live in the greatest country in the world, there are always some days where the news is not so good. Whether it is the economy, a do nothing political class, or other irritant, something always seems to be going astray lately in this country. Most of the time, the things going astray are caused by somebody or some organization associated with government. Thus, today's theme: what is going wrong and why and what is actually going well according to the political class:

Bad News # 1 - According to a USA Today article that was summarized in the May 7, 2010 issue of The Week magazine, today's teens and 30-somethings are likely to be the first generation in U.S. history to be less well off financially than their parents. Also:

• 49% lack health care insurance
• 39% were jobless at some point during the current recession
• 42% do not pay their monthly bills on time

Not a pretty sight, America's potential future leaders will not have the opportunities that their parents had. Could it be that poorly performing, government controlled public schools have not prepared this generation for the world's challenges ahead of the them? Could it be that government interference in the economy has resulted in a shrinking job market and huge national debt levels that these kids and young adults will be paying down for the next several decades rather than building their own version of the American dream? Whatever the case, someone has failed this generation of young people in America and it does not bode well for the nation's future.

Bad News #2 - In the May 3, 2010 issue of Business Week, there was a short article about roads in North Dakota. In Stutsman County, there are 233 miles of paved roads. The county road department, however, says that it can afford to care for just 48 miles of the total miles of roadway. Thus, unless there is an unexpected increase in taxes, the county will start to grind up ten miles of paved roads this summer and turn them into gravel roadways. According to the article, other counties may do the same as they run short of tax money to keep up the roads. How bad is it when the richest country in the history of the world cannot maintain paved roads? These are not new roads that have to be built from scratch, these are existing roads that just need routine maintenance. How poorly is the political class performing when the country now begins to revert back to the unpaved roads of yesteryear?

Bad News #3 - Lets see, we have recently had a fatal coal mine incident in West Virginia. We are in the middle of the worst off shore oil drilling mishap in our history. According to an Energy article in the May 3, 2010 issue of Business Week, Germany already gets 7.5% of its electricity from wind turbines while the United States gets only 1% of its electricity from wind. However, the millionaires and billionaires that live on Martha's Vineyard are very upset that their ocean views are tainted by the new off shore wind farm. What do all of these events have in common? They exist in the vacuum of a missing national energy strategy and policy. The political class has done nothing since the oil embargo shocks during the Carter administration relative to defining and implementing a comprehensive energy strategy that balances costs, environmental concerns, foreign policy, technology and availability. This lack of a coherent strategy has caused the country to look for energy in suboptimal ways that enrich hostile foreign entities, damage the environment, and increased costs to the consumer. What a mess.

Good News #1 - While I have never been a fan of Obama's stimulus program, mostly because it does not work and is fundamentally flawed, I was impressed by a government operation that was summarized by an article in the May 3, 2010 issue of Business Week. The Federal government has set up an anti corruption group in Washington whose job is to make sure that the government is not defrauded by unsavory parties relative to the dispensing of stimulus money. According to the article, "staffers scrub government databases and public records, looking for bankruptcies, past criminal records, tax liens, and other signs of trouble from individual or companies seeking public stimulus funds. The aim is to catch fraud before it happens" How about that? A government entity trying real hard to make sure the taxpayer's money is spent efficiently and effectively? So far, the center has opened 245 fraud investigations relative to the stimulus program.

The bigger question is why is this amount of attention not spent on ALL government programs and expenditures? According to the article, average government programs lose 7% of their funding to corruption, according to the Association Of Certified Fraud Examiners. If that is true, than Obama's current budget in 2010 of about $3.4 TRILLION is wasting about $238 billion a year. Imagine how much better the national deficit or taxpayers would be if that 7% of waste could be eliminated or at least significantly reduced by tracking government spending as diligently as the stimulus funding? Thus, this is some good news. Waste is out there, we just need the political class to put as much focus on saving our money as they do on spending our money.

All of these bad news and good news items are covered in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government." It has the fifty steps necessary to minimize the bad news and start maximizing the good news including fixing public schools, establishing a national energy policy that works, downsizing and making government more efficient, and most importantly, getting smarter and better politicians in office who will actually act courageously to fix the nation's ills. The fix begins in November with the removal of all incumbents from office and starting over.




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. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.