"Vote Early And Often"

I believe that this saying, "Vote early and often" originated in the Chicago political realm but I will leave that to my Illinois friends to tell me if that is a correct assumption. Anyway, today's topic is voting and it provides two opportunities for you to actually vote to make a difference rather than voting to elect the same old tired politicians over and over.

Before we get to these opportunities, lets consider some background. First, the country's financials are hurdling towards a very serious situation. The government in Washington is spending much more than it is collecting in taxes, about 70% more than what is available (spending $3.5 TRILLION on collections of $2.1 TRILLION). They are financing this wasteful spending by selling bonds to other countries and individuals. The problem is that this selling of government securities is contributing to a rising debt load for both current Americans and future generations of Americans. All of the indicators are bad:

• The total national debt is nearing the value of the country's entire GDP, a level that is generally acknowledged to put that country in financial peril.
• The annual deficit of 70% is many times higher than what is recommended for a sound national fiscal policy (less than 10%), a level that is generally acknowledged to put the county in financial peril.
• Even if the 10% unemployment rate miraculously went to zero overnight, increasing the collection of taxes by 10% of so would still leave the government hundreds of billions of dollars short on an annual basis.
• In a previous post we showed that even if you confiscated the total wealth of the richest Americans, not their income, you still could not pay off the accumulating national debt.

Thus, you cannot tax or grow you way out of this problem, the hole is too deep. The only way to do it successfully is to begin reducing the size and expenditures of government. The problem is that the political class in America does not want that reduction to occur. If pork and earmarks were removed form the budget to save debt, they would not be able to boast on how effective they were to their voters. They would not be able to grant government earmark funding to private and public organizations that donate to their re-election campaigns. If they had less programs and budget to rule over, they might not have their egos stroked as much.

The second issue is that the political class has hijacked a lot of the freedom we should be enjoying when it comes to voting. They have wired the system through obscene gerrymandering so that incumbents almost always get re-elected. Outgoing Senator Bayh from Indiana is on record saying that no more than 15 out of 435 Congressional districts are truly competitive, the other 420 are wired for the incumbents and the incumbents' parties. Incumbents can use their position to steer sham government funding to businesses in return for extensive re-election campaign contributions. Those already in power can use and abuse their power to ensure they get their way politically.

The latest and one of the more gross examples of abuse appears to be the current situation where someone sent out former President Clinton to bribe Joe Sestak to get out of the Pennsylvania Senate primary and allow White House favorite and incumbent Arlen Specter to get the nomination. The theory is that Obama enticed Specter to switch parties in return for White House support in getting re-elected. What was offered in the bribe package is still under debate (could include appointments to President ail commissions, a Federal judge position, etc.) but Sestak and his lawyer have both come out and said the bribe was offered. An outsider and non-incumbent would have tremendous problems overcoming this kind of politicking which is not in the best interest of the voters, they should decide who represents them, not the political establishment.

So there's the dilemma: the current political class does not want to see any expense/budget cuts and the current political class is almost impossible to uproot because of their rigging of the election process, reducing our freedom in the process but we need to start cutting spending to get the country fiscally sound again. In the short term, there are two ways to start sending the message to Washington to start cutting. First, go to www.loathemygovernment.com and vote on the forty plus Federal spending items and whether or not you think they were good uses of your tax dollars. Some examples of spending you can vote on include:

• $300,000 spent to study the feasibility of an enclosed motor speedway in Ohio.
• $200,000 given to the Arkansas Commercial Driver Institute.
• $134,000 spent on the Montana World Trade Center.
• $250,000 to construct a county farmers' market in Kentucky.
• $200,000 to conduct a county wide census of cats and dogs in a California county.
• $125,000 to compile a "Simo-Tibetian Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus.
• $1,000,000 study in Utah on how to cross the street.

These and other documented Federal expenditures will allow you to vote on what you think were good uses of your tax dollars. I will publish the results next week.

The second way to send a message has just been made available by the Republican Party (note: this is not an endorsement of the Republican Party, they are just as adept at wasting money as the Democrats.). If you go to www.republicanwhiphouse.gov/YouCut you will be presented with five Federal programs that are currently funded. You are then allowed to vote once a week on which of the five you would like to see eliminated and the budget from that eliminated program saved. The Republicans then draw up actual legislation and present it for a vote in front of the full House of Representatives. I believe the programs put up for vote change on a regular basis so you can go back to the site weekly and vote again.

The first week resulted in hundreds of thousands of votes and the Republicans presented a plan to repeal the number one vote getter, an expansion of the Federal welfare program that was snuck through on the coattails of the health care reform bill (another reason to despise the bill). The proposed legislation was defeated along party lines but I understand some Democrats actually crossed those lines and voted with the Republicans to repeal the program.

Will either of these actions save us from financial ruin as a country? Probably not but at least it is a start. Now, you can bypass the rigged election rules and gerrymandered Congressional districts and at least voice your frustration with government waste at either of the two sites listed above. It is a form of democracy and that can never be bad. And who knows where it will lead. It does get us closer to one person one vote which I have to believe was the intent of our founding fathers. Sure beats bribes, earmarks, and political egos.

The obvious desire is that opportunities empower a critical mass of voters to step and take back the country. Dumping all incumbents, regardless of party, in November and starting to execute many of the steps (term limits, campaign donation restrictions, systematic reductions in government spending, etc.) in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" are the only ways to save us from the political class.

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.