Let's start with our best source of political class insanity, the latest monthly issue of Reason magazine:
- The insanity that comes out of the California state legislature never ceases to amaze. Remember, California is a state in financial crisis - revenue shortfalls, high levels of debt, extreme cutbacks in all state government programs, and high unemployment would you lead you to hope that the political class in the state would focus on some the critical programs that affect just about every state resident.
However, that hope would be dashed. State Senator Kevin Leon recently introduced legislation that would require every hotel in the state of California to use fitted sheets in their hotel rooms rather than regular sheets that get tucked under the mattress by the maids of California. His intent of the legislation was to make life easier and safer for the maids since he felt the maids would not have to lift as many mattresses when the make up the hotel rooms.
This could add up to $50 million in expenses to hotel budgets every year, increased costs that would be passed onto hotel visitors.
However, according to Reason, there is no scientific proof that fitted sheets are safer than non-fitted sheets. Think about that last sentence: can you imagine we can even write about something like this as the country and California are in such dire economic straits? How many Californians do we think this proposed, fitted sheet legislation will affect vs. how many Californians are affected by high unemployment, school budget cutbacks, high taxes. etc.?
Talk about bad priorities. Or is it possibly the fact that the state senator does not know how to fix the real problems and wastes time, resources, and energy working on an issue that probably does not make the top 100 list of issues faced by Californians.
- Let's leave California and move east to Pennsylvania. The state of Pennsylvania rolled out a program in 2010 that put wine vending machines in Pennsylvania supermarkets. That is correct - let's get a bottle of wine for dinner...from the local wine vending machine. The state of Pennsylvania viewed this program as a consumer-friendly alternative to the network of state-operated liquor stores.
The problem with this program is that apparently no one asked consumers whether this was a good idea. Not only did the vending machines have recurring mechanical problems, but the process of accessing the vending machine contents was extremely cumbersome.
In order to use the vending machine, a resident has to present a valid id in front of an online camera that is reviewed remotely by an actual state employee, has to breathe into a blood alcohol meter, and swipe a valid credit card before the machine will spit out a bottle of wine.
The state political class obviously did not recognize these problems ahead of rolling out the program since within a year or so, the program had already cost Pennsylvania state taxpayers over one million dollars. Not only is the program severely cash negative already, the program never attained its original objective of having 100 vending machines up and running by now. Only 32 machines ever got installed, which may be a good thing.
If 32 machines resulted in a negative financial results of losing one million dollars, if they had actually been efficient and installed three times as many to hit their objective, the Pennsylvania taxpayers might be out three million dollars after one year. The state expected each machine to disperse 35 bottles of wine a day, a level that was never attained in a consistent basis.
The Reason article reports that Wegman's supermarkets has already shut down ten of the 32 machines and Walmart has decided to cancel plans to install 23 machines in their stores. Great program, it did not meet its financial objectives, it did not meet its penetration levels as far as getting machines installed, and the installed machines never made their daily quota objective. Strike one, strike two, strike three. Insanity, and millions of dollars wasted.
- Congressman Jeb Hensarling was quoted in the August 17, 2911 edition of the New York Times: "This committee (the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction) has very serious work to do, but it should not be confused with Captain America or any other superhero."
Let's be very clear, did any American citizen ever confuse any politician or any U.S. political institution with a super hero? I would settle for a Congressman or Congresswoman who just applied a little dedication, a little focus, some unselfishness, and some compassion to their job, a super hero is a little too much to expect, given our politcians' track records.
- The city government of Chicago has gotten so unwieldy and inefficient, that anyone who wants to open a business has to go through an extremely complex and bewildering licensing process. It has gotten so bad, that you can now get a city license to help other people get a city license.
Yes, things are so complicated in Chicago that people are now available, called expediters, to help other people get through the maze of bureaucracy. Rather than fix the root cause of the problem, city licensing procedures are too complicated and complex, better to add another layer of complexity by allowing for another level of licensing to address the confusing level of licensing. Only a politician could make a bad situation worse.
But Reason magazine is not the only source of political class insanity:
- The November 11, 2011 issue of The Week magazine, discussed the pros and cons of getting rid of the one dollar bill and replacing int with a one dollar coin. The article quotes a source that estimates the country would save $5.6 billion over the next 30 years if we went to only coins for one dollars since paper dollars wear out and need to be replaced.
Two things wrong with this situation. First, the Federal government is incurring over TRILLION dollars a year in debt. And our politicians are now concerned about saving $5.6 billion over 30 thirty years relative to paper dollar bills? This is only .02% of a TRILLION dollars. Sounds like more bad priorities.
Second, according to the article this is not a done deal. The Federal political class is proving again that they cannot agree to do anything worthwhile. Congressional people are divided along industry lines, with some politicians trying to make the change to a dollar coin in support of mining and steelworker interests and other politicians supporting ink and paper interests.
The article concludes if the political class cannot agree on this minor issue, how can we expect them to agree on the major issues of our time including Social Security reform, Medicare reform, national debt resolution, etc.? Very scary stuff.
- An editorial in the July 14, 2011 Washington Post reached the following conclusion: "A balanced budget amendment would deprive policymakers of the flexibility they need to address national security and economic emergencies." By extension, does that mean without a balanced budget amendment, our political class will keep us safe and handle all of our economic problems?
Given the 9-11 attacks, the Fort Hood shootings, 14 million unemployed Americans, an 9% unemployment rate, chronic underemployment, almost $15 TRILLION in national debt, high taxes, and low economic growth, I hate to see how bad things would be if our politicians did not have this flexibility.
- An NPR report from mid-October, as reported by the Heritage Foundation on October 21, 2011, concluded that the Cash For Clunkers program was, as expected, a dismal disaster. According to NPR, a study published in September, 2010 showed that Cash For Clunkers increased car sales 360,000 during the two months that it was active.
However, the NPR report went on to state "in the seven months that followed, sales were down by 360,000 compared to what they would have been without the program." NPR concludes that the program did not incent people to buy a car, it just moved the demand for new cars up into the two months of the program's existence. Of course, we knew that months ago, as reported in this blog.
Let's see what this political class insanity cost the American taxpayer. An average of $4,000 in taxpayer given to each of 360,000 purchasers comes out to just under $1.5 billion wasted for no incremental economic activity. Insanity.
- In October, the state of Kansas launched an anti-obesity program extolling the value of drinking plain water. The taxpayer funded program will include TV commercials, billboards, and posters. The program wants to get Kansas kids to drink less soda and theoretically become less obese.
Couple of problems here. Nowhere in the press release from the state government, and political class of Kansas, is there any sign that this program has been successfully implemented before in any other location. There is also no indication that an inexpensive market research program was done ahead of time that quantified how effective this program might be. It looks like this program was just thrown out to see what might happen, taxpayer dollars be damned.
The second problem is that this is a very tactical program, replace soda usage with water usage. There is no overarching strategic plan in this country or anywhere else regarding obesity, just a bunch of unproven, scattered, non-strategic, and disconnected programs like this one. Without an overall, coherent strategy, taxpayer dollars just get wasted for very little in return.
Wasted dollars with nothing in return, it never ends, months in and months out. The insanity never ends. Seems like every time we talk about this type of insanity, term limits (Step 39 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government") come to the forefront. Reminds me of an old Henny Youngman joke:
Youngman: Doctor, my arm hurts when I hold it up like this.
Doctor: Don't hold your arm up like that.
Politically, this joke would go as follows:
American taxpayer: Doctor, my wallet hurts when I elect these politicians.
Dcotor: Don't elect these politicians.
Next November, we can take this doctor's advice and stop the insanity.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available, at http://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.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.loathemygovernment.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment.com/
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