Political Class Insanity, Stupidity And Other Loose Ends

As I have said many times before, the advantage of writing a blog like this is because all branches of the American political class never cease to amaze with their insanity, stupidity, ineffective programs, wasteful spending, and immoral behavior. Today's post is just a quick hitter of different examples of some of the above as we tie up some lose ends and small incidents that would not justify a full post:

• In the area of loose ends, recall yesterday that we reviewed how ineffective Obama's National Commission On Fiscal Responsibility and Reform is likely to be. Within that discussion, we showed how easy it was to reduce Federal spending by about $208 billion a year without hardly trying. One other opportunity to cut $50 billion a year from our defense budget without sacrificing our national security comes from the July issue of Reason magazine. An article by Veronique de Rugy points out that a March report from the General Accountability Office compiled a long list of financial management abuses and shortcomings at the Department of Defense. The report estimated that over $50 billion a year could be saved by that department if we dropped a few non-needed weapons systems and by reforming the Pentagon's supply chain, information technologies, and human resources practices. Thus, while the Commission wants to reduce Federal government spending by $240 billion a year, each year until 2015, we have already given them the first year's objective, the $208 billion we found yesterday and this $50 billion or more that the GAO has found for us.
• In the area of stupidity, the state of Illinois has stood out again. The Illinois state government is facing a significant budget shortfall of billions of dollars, such much so that earlier this year the state stopped paying its bills to those companies that had done work for them. In one example of how bad it got, one company that provided bullets to the state for law enforcement insisted on being paid up front for their bullets, not trusting the credit worthiness of the state. In the midst of all this financial trouble, the Associated Press reported today that the governor has given 35 members of his staff salary raises averaging 11.4%. Budget Director David Vaught got a 20% raise to $144,000 and Deputy Budget Director Gladyse Taylor received a 10.4% raise to $110,000 and the governors' spokeswoman received a 25% raise. These raises come as the governor reduces spending in education and health care services in order to try and close the state's budget shortfall. Needless to say, many inside and out side of government are outraged at the raises in these hard economic times of high unemployment. And it is not as if the ones receiving the raises were at the poverty line, they were already being paid significantly higher than the average household earning level in the country.
• In the area of insanity, our old friend Attorney General Eric Holder pops back on the radar. Your remember Mr. Holder, this is the same gentleman who testified in front of Congress that he might sue Arizona over the illegal immigration law that the state passed, only to admit under oath that he had not even read the law he was going to sue over. By the way, the law is less than twenty pages long, it would not have taken him much time to read it. In recent testimony he gave to Congress, he got into a tiff with Congressman Lamar Smith. Rather than repeat the entire exchange, the abridged version between the two revolved around the fact that Holder absolutely refused to acknowledge that radical Islam could be an underlying cause of current day terrorism, Holder would not even speak the words "radical Islam." Never mind that the Time Square bomber, at at his District Court hearing where he pleaded guilty, stated that he "considered myself a mujahid, a Muslim soldier." The Fort Hood shooter, that killed 12 American soldiers, shouted "Allahu Akbar" during the shooting while carrying a home made business which identified himself as SoA - Soldier of Allah. The Christmas Day underwear bomber trained in terrorist camps in Somalia under a radical American Islam cleric. Despite all of these examples, the Obama administration insists on playing word games and not recognizing that radical Islam is the source of almost all of the terrorism in the world, Refusing to acknowledge the source means that you do not understand the underlying root cause, which usually means you do not understand how to combat the problem. Utter insanity.
• More insanity - in order to cover millions of uninsured Americans with health care insurance, whether they want it or not, the Obama administration forced through a horrible piece of legislation through the back door of the Senate that will not solve the problem of rising health care costs in the country. This is becoming clear in any number of ways, the most recent of which was laid out in the August issue of Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine. According to the article, insurance costs for those currently covered by existing health plans are likely to see the costs of those plans go up 2-5% incrementally more than they would have if the legislation had not passed. And this is before all of the components of the law even start to take effect. Thus, in order to provide health care for about 40 million Americans, we have substantially raised the cost of health care for 260 million Americans. Insanity.
• More stupidity - The August issue of Reason magazine had an article by Tim Cavanaugh that reviewed the history and status of the California High Speed Rail Authority. According to a recent audit:

1. The authority had paid out at least $4 million for services in which it had not evidence or invoices proving that the work paid had actually been performed.
2. Out of 22 invoices that were reviewed, 20 were paid without any supporting documentation.
3. The Authority spent $46,000 for it's Program Manager's use without any written documentation.
4. The Authority has not done any detailed plans or studies on how many people would actually use the Authority's proposed high speed rail line or how much revenue would likely occur if the line was built.
5. The contractor working on the Los Angeles to Anaheim portion of the high speed line completed 81% of the work but incurred 230% of the budgeted dollars.
6. A state agency reported earlier in 2010 that the Authority build-out plan had no timeline, no specifics and likely violated state law.
7. So far, since 1996, the Authority has spent $250 million and has yet to build even one foot of track.
8. Despite this incompetence, the Obama administration has allocated $2.25 billion of taxpayer money to California for high speed rail, putting all of us on the hook for their bumbling. More stupidity, this time at the state level.

• And one more loose end. According to a blurb in the July 8, 2010 issue of The Week magazine, President Obama's popularity in the Muslim world continues to slip. Remember, one of the main reasons for electing the President, was how he would improve our nation's image throughout the world, especially in the Muslim world. Much like his other promises that have gone unfulfilled (e.g. we are still militarily in Iraq, we still have not closed Guantanamo, the President has hired many lobbyists for his administration even though he said he would not, he has not reduced the number of earmarks as promised, etc.), his ability to improve our image in the eyes of Muslims has also fallen flat. The Pew Global Attitudes Project has poll results that show the percent of Muslims who say they have confidence in Obama has fallen from 33% to 23% in Turkey, from 41% to 31% in Egypt, and from 13% to 8% in Pakistan.

If these acts of stupidity and insanity are not enough for you, wait until tomorrow where we will provide you at least five YouTube instances of even more of the same. After tomorrow, I hope you are as eager as I am for November to arrive in order to start dumping all incumbents out of office. It cannot happen soon enough.

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.

Also visit the following sites for freedom:http:

//www.cato.org/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/