Even When The Political Class Solves A Problem, They Rarely Ever Solve The Problem

Even when the political class thinks they have solved a problem, it always seems to be that they never really actually solve the problem. Consider a few historical examples:

- Back in the mid-1980s, Congress demanded that the Defense Department seal the U.S./Mexican border within 45 days in order to address the problem of illegal aliens and illegal drug trafficking. Didn't really solve the problem, given that millions of illegal aliens have since come over the border along with untold tons of illegal drugs more than two decades after their proposed solution. 

- Back in the mid-1970s, the U.S. struggled economically as a result of a number of oil shocks and energy crises. As a result, Congress tried to solve the problem of energy independence by creating the Department of Energy.

That problem solution did not work out real well either. Decades later we still do not have a coherent national energy program and we do not have energy independence. However, we do have another giant Federal government bureaucracy that eats up tens of billions of dollars a year without ever really contributing anything to the lives of Americans, least of all finding a remedy for our energy problems. 

- As a result of corporate accounting scandals at a very small number of American companies back in the 1990s, the political class passed the Sarbannes-Oxley legislation. The law made all U.S. companies develop extensive accounting processes and accountability documents to theoretically prevent future accounting scandals. It was intended to produce advanced warnings if a company was not following generally accepted accounting principles for the intent of defrauding investors or was in dire financial straits.

However, at the onset of the Great Recession, financial companies like Lehman Brothers and Bear Sterns went bankrupt within a matter of weeks even though there were no advance warnings from the Sarbannes-Oxley processes, i.e. the legislation was a failure at producing advance warnings of dire financial straits.

This failure was proven further when the Treasury Department decided to do "stress tests" of U.S. banks to determine if they were in good financial shape as a result of the Great Recession. Wasn't that was the Sarbannes-Oxley solution was supposed to do?

- Almost thirty years ago, President Reagan commissioned an expert panel to examine the deep problems and pitfalls of the public education system in the United States. Their resulting 1982 analysis and report, "A Nation At Risk," addressed the problems of under educating of kids. The panel's recommendations laid out a detailed blueprint for fixing our schools' problems.

Despite having a detailed problem solution presented to them, the politicians in 1982 and beyond could not even execute the blueprint to fix our schools' problems, resulting in the continuing under educating of our children today.

- As a result of the Great Recession and the failure of Sarbannes-Oxley to foretell when financial services companies accounting results did not match up with their dire financial situation, the political class in Washington passed the Dodd-Frank financial services reform legislation that was supposed to do what the Sarbannes-Oxley legislation did not do, i.e. spot bad accounting and financial hanky-panky.

However, shortly after the legislation was enacted into law, MF Global, a large financial services firm, went belly up in bankruptcy, making it the 8th largest bankruptcy in U.S. history. Unfortunately, none of the prior solutions from the political class in this area, Sarbannes-Oxley, stress tests, and Dodd-Frank identified the oncoming bankruptcy before it happened. As a result, we have another example of political class solutions that do not work.

Even worse, MF Global accounting hanky-panky may have criminally destroyed over $1 billion in customer wealth by commingling company funds with client funds. This is the exact type of misbehavior all of the political class "solutions" was supposed to prevent. Two years into the Dodd-Frank legislation, the results are not encouraging if the 8th largest bankruptcy gets missed by the legislation.

- In 2008, the political class in Congress passed legislation that was intended to cut down on the massive fraud that goes on every day in the Federal food stamp program. We covered one of the typical frauds in a previous post where we reported how food stamp recipients will use their food stamps to buy cases of bottled water, go outside the store and empty the bottles, and then bring the bottles back inside for a cash refund of their bottle deposit.

The 2008 legislation was written to cut down on this type of blatant fraud. However, even though Congress passed the legislation in 2008 and the President signed it right away, the government bureaucracy has never gotten around to writing the rules, procedures, and guidelines for implementing the legislation.

This has resulted in the food stamp fraud continuing, two years after Congress thinks they solved the problem. Thus, laws are passed that theoretically contain solutions but never get implemented by the bloated Federal bureaucracy.

- But the best solution/non-solution situation is currently gathering steam in Congress and it is a doozy. A few months ago we reported on a CBS "60 Minutes" report that illustrated numerous examples in Congress where politicians abuse their positions of power. They use the insider information they come across during their days of governing to personally enrich themselves, turning their Congressional insider trading information into personal wealth.

Apparently, members of Congress do not have to put their financial holdings into a blind trust once in office like the President, Vice President, and other high ranking government officials have to do. They are free to day trade on their financial accounts as much or as little as they please with no constraints on leveraging sensitive, secret information they come across as politicians. A gross, despicable conflict of interest if ever there was one.

However, the report did get Americans aroused so much and so infuriated that Congress is proposing new ethics rules to curb such abuses, as reported in a January 29, 2012 Associated Press report. The Senate version of the legislation would subject any Congressional member to a ban on insider stock trading in additional to opening violators up to Congressional, ethical, and criminal investigative proceedings. 

President Obama signaled his support for the legislation by stating recently: "The House and Senate should send me a bill that bans insider trading by members of Congress and I will sign it immediately. They should limit an elected official from owning stocks in industries they impact."

Great concept but the politicians are already at work creating tunnels around the currently proposed solution. The 60 Minutes report did not stop at Congressional members using insider information to trade on stocks. The report had at least one report where a high ranking member of Congress used his insider trading information to profit off of real estate deals.

The report also showed that while members of Congress already cannot receive outright stock grants from companies, they are allowed to participate in lucrative IPOs of the same companies. The report showed how Nancy Pelosi earned hundreds of thousands of dollars in a two day period by having access to the VISA IPO offering. Apparently, Ms. Pelosi had also had IPO access to nine other IPO offerings.

No where in the Associated Press article does it appear that Congress is willing to cut itself off from IPO access like it should  Whether a politician gets an outright grant of a company's stock or access to the company's IPO, both actions are nothing more than an outright bribe.

The article does report that the House version of this bill would go further than the Senate version by banning real estate deals based on insider information. However, I would bet that this extra bit of control on Congressional enrichment never sees itself into the final legislation.

Thus, follow along on this escapade of the political class where they make much ado about solving a problem but leave themselves giant loopholes to drive through. In this case, IPOs and real estate deals, which will allow them to continue their obsessions with enriching themselves vs. making the country a better place to live. Just like food stamps and water bottle fraud, bad financial services regulations, bad public schools, non-existent energy programs, and leaky borders, it is highly likely that this solution from our politicians will also turn into another non-solution.

For this type of lousy service, we pay over three TRILLION dollars a year. Disgraceful.




We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

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

Another Reason Why Any American, Rich Or Poor, Should Not Pay Another Penny In Federal Taxes

Let's review the numbers that we all should know by memory now (and which we have documented from reliable, nonpartisan sources in previous posts):

• Annual waste and fraud lost by Medicare: $60 - $90 billion
• Annual waste and fraud lost by Medicaid: $30 - $40 billion
• Annual waste and fraud lost by Social Security: $70 billion
• Annual waste and fraud lost by just one Federal unemployment program: $19 billion
• Annual waste and fraud lost by the Federal food stamp program: $2 - $5 billion
• Annual Federal income tax evaded by tax evaders: $325 billion
• Total waste by just the above Federal programs: $506 - $549 billion
• Total annual wasteful spending per American household: $4,400 - $4,800

Now, keeping these figures in mind, consider the findings of a study by James Sherk is Senior Policy Analyst in Labor Economics in the Center for Data Analysis at the Heritage Foundation. His study examined the pay levels, and pay differences, between similar job positions in the Federal government and the private sector. This study is consistent with similar studies that we have already discussed in this blog but Mr. Sherk appears to have done a very comprehensive job of analyzing the data and adjusting the results to make sure job comparisons are fair and accurate.

His findings include the following:

• The Federal pay system gives the average Federal employee wages 22% above the average private worker’s for doing the same type of work when the data are adjusted for time in position and education.
• If you include benefits, the average compensation disparity between a Federal worker and their comparable private sector counterpart rises to between 30% and 40%.
• Federal workers receive automatic seniority-based raises irrespective of performance whereas most private sector employees only get a raise for good or outstanding performance, assuming that their company actually has the wherewithal to give raises in these tough economic times.
• President Obama’s suspension of the annual cost-of-living adjustment does not affect these raises, i.e. the President's claim that he froze Federal worker salaries is not valid or correct.
• Federal employees receive more enhanced health benefits, for retirement they receive both a defined-benefit and defined-contribution pension plan (whereas very few private sector employees can still receive a defined contribution pension), and Federal employees get full retirement at 56 with full health benefits (while private sector employees retire at a much later age on average).
• Federal employees get significantly more paid leave than private-sector workers with a Federal employee with three years on the job receiving all 10 Federal holidays, 20 paid vacation days, and 13 sick leave days per year.
• Despite millions of jobs being lost in the private sector, resulting in an overall unemployment rate in the country of 8.6% and an underemployment rate of about 16%, the Federal government civilian payroll has expanded by over 230,000 employees over the past few years which is the equivalent of a 12% increase. Ask yourself if you are getting 12% better service from the Federal government over the past few years.
• Federal employees voluntarily leave their jobs at one third the rate that private employees leave their positions, indicating that Federal employees realize what a sweet deal they have.
• Federal guidelines make it almost impossible to fire a Federal employee regardless of their behavior and how poorly or well they perform their jobs.

According to my calculations, if you assume that the average Federal employees fully loaded costs to the taxpayer is say $80,000 (wages, benefits, retirement costs), then if the Federal government had just kept its employee level unchanged in these dire economic times, the American taxpayer would be saved about $18 billion a year. I doubt that the American taxpayer would notice any drop off in government service and accountability if the Federal payroll was returned to its 2008 level.

Furthermore, Mr. Sherk calculates that if the Federal payroll system was reduced to competitive market rates, America taxpayers would save another $47 billion a year. Thus, this situation is unnecessarily costing American taxpayers about $65 billion a year.

Three observations about fairness come to mind immediately:

1. Since Federal workers are totally dependent on private sector workers paying taxes, it seems a little unfair that Federal workers get much higher salaries, much better health care benefits, much better retirement options, and much better vacation time than the average private sector worker.
2. Since private sector employment has taken a beating during and after the Great Recession, it seems a little unfair that the Federal employment situation has been so rosy and robust.
3. Since the Federal government's excessive employee compensation unnecessarily costs the country $65 billion a year, it seems a little unfair for President Obama to ask any American to pay more in taxes in these tough economic times since even if we only used Mr. Sherk's $47 billion annual savings estimate, the President could more than fund his infrastructure jobs program (which does not mean it is a good idea) without raising taxes.

In the bigger picture, we have just added another 65 billion reasons why no American should pay a penny more in taxes. Our Federal government wastes so much money and wealth in so many ways that we can now confidently say that we its inefficiency from all sources now costs us at least $571 to $614 billion a year.

This comes out to about $5,000 to $5,300 a year per U.S. household. Imagine how much better off our economy would be if over 100,000,000 U.S. households had an extra $5,000 or so to spend every year. I would bet that the Federal government would be more efficient, unemployment and underemployment rates would drop sharply and no America would pay anything more in taxes, leaving all of us a much freer democracy in the process.



We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

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

President Obama's State Of The Union Speech - More Bad Math, More Deception

It is pretty obvious from the President's actions leading up to the state of the union speech, and his assertions within the speech, that rather than run on his record in office, which is a disaster in so many ways,

 (http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/01/88-reasons-why-president-obama-is.html) 

he would rather devolve into class warfare, rich vs. poor, as a campaign strategy. I personally find this brand of Chicago politics despicable, but given his failure in office, it may be the only way he can get reelected, set one group of Americans after another.

If the President and his supporters would do some simple math, it would become very clear that his numbers and strategy of taxing the rich will do nothing to solve the major economic and other issues facing this country. In fact, from my perspective, I am still struggling trying to figure out if the President is lying, ignorant, or just plan bad at math.

The following analyses try to decide whether it is lying, ignorant, or bad math skills that the President is guilty of. All of the following numbers and simple math calculations are based on official U.S. Federal government data from the official IRS website. The data is not from the Republicans, Fox News, Tea Party, social conservatives, neo conservatives, etc.

Let's start with the country's 2009 IRS tax data (2009 is the latest year this data is available for) and with following graph (double click on the graph to get a better, clearer view):

The graph plots the percentage of income taxes paid by income

bands taken from all of the country's 2009 IRS tax returns. What  becomes very obvious is that as a tax filer makes more money/has higher income, the percentage of that income that is taken by the IRS grows substantially.

In fact, by the time a tax payer gets to $200,000 in adjusted gross income on the IRS tables, that payer is paying almost 20% of their income to the Federal government. As Americans make more than $200,000, the percentage paid to the Feds continues to go up, on average, so that most people making over $500,000 are paying about 25% of their income to the Federal government.

By using Warren Buffet and his secretary as props in his politics, he tries to infer that all Americans making a lot of money in this country pay less as a percentage of their income than middle class and poorer Americans. As this graph shows, on average, this is ignorance, lying, or bad math skills. While there may be a few cases where rich Americans pay a low percentage in taxes, they are definitely exceptions, as the graph shows. To imply otherwise, is nothing more than deception.

If you look at the lower end of the graph you find that about 58% of American tax filers pay less than 5% of their adjusted gross income in Federal income taxes. And about 90% pay less than 10% of their income in Federal income taxes. Thus, it is hard to believe the President when he portrays Buffet and his secretary as the rule rather than the exception when so many Americans pay so little in Federal income taxes. 

But let's dive further into the IRS facts and you decide if the rich get such a free deal at the expense of the poor in this country:

• Only .17% of tax filers in 2009 had adjusted gross income over a million dollars. Thus, it is hard to believe that taxing these few people more would alleviate the country's ills when there are so few of them (only about 237,000 out of 140,000,000 tax filers).
• These .17% of earners account for 9.5% of the IRS adjusted gross income totals but pay 20.5% of all Federal income taxes listed on the 2009 IRS tables.
• The Federal income tax rate of these earners in total is about 24.4%, compared to the 90% of filers who pay less than 10%.
• If we redefine rich as those Americans with adjusted gross incomes of more than $200,000, we find that these earners account for only 2.8% of all American tax returns.
• They also account for only 17.1% of the country's income but pay 50.2% of the country's Federal income taxes.

Thus, it is very obvious that Obama's tax the rich/fairness approach to politics is totally out of touch with reality. The vast number of people in this country that make a lot of money, also pay a lot of that money in Federal income taxes on both an absolute basis and a percentage basis. Warren Buffet and his secretary are misleading props, the IRS tax tables are the real thing.

But let's get a little crazy with the math. Let's assume that Obama was able to tax those earning over a million dollars at 100%, i.e. he could confiscate all of their earnings and redistribute the money to everyone else. That would result in all non-millionaire earners getting about $3,917. But he could only do that for a year or so since who would bother going to work and earning over a million dollars if Obama was just going to seize all of it?

If that happened, within a year or so every non-millionaire earner would have to pay additional Federal income taxes of $5,283 a year since those non-millionaire earners would now have to cover the taxes that used to be paid by millionaire taxes. Not a good deal.

Let's idle back the math. Rather than confiscating 100% of the millionaire earners income, let's assume Obama only confiscated 10% more of it. Thus, every non-millionaire earner would receive $392 a year if that 10% was equally distributed or about $1.80 a day. Hardly worth the effort.

The problem with this approach to taxing the rich class warfare is that it does not solve the major problem facing the country: the Federal government is spending and wasting far more money than taxing the rich can ever cover. The Federal deficit in 2011 was about $1.6 TRILLION.

If Obama confiscated all of the millionaire earnings, assuming that 2009 tax profiles were similar to 2011 tax profiles, the Federal government would have increased their revenue by about $549 billion. In other words, taking all of the earnings of Americans making more than a millions dollars a year in adjusted gross earnings would have covered only about a third of the spending deficit that Obama's administration runs up in one year.

Thus, taking less than 100% of millionaires' earning would cover even less than Obama's outrageous deficit spending. We have a spending issue and waste issue with the Federal government in this country, we do not have an under taxation problem.

Many times in this blog we have documented how the Federal government bureaucracy loses over $500 billion a year to incompetence, fraud, and criminal activity in the Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment benefits, food stamps, and tax evasion programs and areas of responsibility. Fixing these problems would go a lot further to solving the country's financial and other problems than raising taxes on .17% of the country's income earners.

But that would require the President to actually do some real work, to get into the detail's of  governing, to do things that are impactful for the good of the country rather than trivial for the good of his political career. Governing should be more than ignorance, lying, and bad math skills which serve no real purpose other than class warfare for political gain.

One last fact to keep in mind. Consider the following graph based on the same IRS data:

This data graphs the number of millionaire earners from an

adjusted gross income perspective over the past several years. The vertical line shows when the Democrats took over control of Congress after the November, 2006 midterm elections.

Since then, the number of American millionaire earners has decreased considerably through 2009. From just under 400,000 millionaire tax filers in 2007, within just two years that number had dropped to 237,000 under a Democratic Congress and first year of a Democratic Presidency (about a 40% drop). Since millionaire earners accounted for 20.5% of taxes paid in 2009, as the number of millionaire earners decreases,  non-millionaires will have to pay more and more to cover the deficit and government expenses.

At his rate, a 40% drop in millionaire earners in just two years, this argument of ignorance lying and bad math skills might be moot soon since it looks like this Presidency is in the business of depopulating the millionaire tax bracket altogether.

********************

All of the above data, analyses, and conclusions are based on facts and figures provided by the Federal government itself. For another view of the President's state of the union speech, consider the following link top the Heritage Foundation for their views on the misleading statements and statistics and other deceptions from the state of the union speech:

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/01/25/fact-check-10-dubious-claims-from-obamas-state-of-the-union/

We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

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



Checking In With Our Lost War On Drugs - January, 2012 Edition

On a semi-regular basis we check in with our lost war on drugs to see how bad it has gotten. Despite decades of trying to stem the illegal flow of drugs from Mexico and beyond, probably spending hundreds of billions of dollars in the process, nothing has really changed except for the fact that Mexico is on the verge of turning into an out of control narco state.

To illustrate, consider the latest news reports on the subject:

- According to an Associated Press report from December 31, 2011, the powerful Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel is expanding its reach from Mexico into Guatemala in the illegal methamphetamine market. Consider the numbers behind the drive to expand drug cartel meth production to labs in Guatemala:

• Mexican authorities seized 675 tons of a key chemical used in meth production just in December alone. While the 675 tons sounds like a lot, imagine how much of the chemical was not seized and how many meth hits could be produced by what is probably much more than 675 tons.
• All of the 675 tons was heading towards the cartel's labs in Guatemala where that government seized over 7,800 barrels of other meth chemical precursors throughout all of 2011. This is the equivalent  of about 1,600 tons.
• In all of 2011, the Mexican authorities seized 1,200 tons of meth chemicals.
• Thus, according to the article, the total amount of chemicals seized within or heading to Guatemala could theoretically produce more than a billion one-gram doses of pure meth, and billions more if cut to street-level purity.

40 years after going to war against illegal drugs, law enforcement authorities have seized enough meth precursor chemicals that would have created at least a billion hits of the final drug. A safe assumption is that the chemicals that were not seized are being used to create billions and billions of meth hits. Not really successful warfare.

- A January 8, 2012 Associated Press article reported that a Mexican city worker had been gunned down by suspected drug cartel gunmen. The worker was also a part time journalist who wrote articles for the local newspaper. This comes on the heels of nine other Mexican journalists who had been assassinated in 2011.

Imagine the outrage that would have occurred if nine American journalists had been killed by drug cartel gunmen just for doing their job. Democracy suffers considerably when a free press fears for its life from criminal and drug cartel elements, which apparently is the current situation in Mexico.

- Moving on to another large Mexican drug cartel, in a January 8, 2012 Associated Press article, Mexican  police reportedly captured an alleged member of the Zetas drug cartel who is considered the planner behind a casino fire that killed 52 people in the northern city of Monterrey last August. The theory behind the arson crime is that the owner of the casino had refused to pay protection money to the Zeta cartel.

Just another way for ordinary Mexican citizens to worry about whether or not they will get killed by cartel activity going about their daily lives.  Over 50 citizens died in the fire for just having a good time at the local casino that the Zetas decided needed to be destroyed. They had nothing to do with drug cartels, they were just relaxing. Imagine the outrage if a Vegas casino or the local bowling alley in your home town had been torched and 50 Americans killed for doing nothing.

- The same article reported that since the Mexican Federal government launched a focused effort to wipe out the cartels several years ago, probably 45,000 Mexicans had died as a result of the conflict between the government and the cartels and between the cartels themselves.

What if all of the residents of Coral Cables. Florida had been murdered? What if all of the residents of Binghamton, New York had been murdered? What if all the residents in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the state capital, had been murdered? What if the same thing happened in the state capitals of Missouri, New Hampshire, and Washington state, all of the residents of their state capitals had been murdered?

All of these U.S. towns and cities have about 45,000 residents. Imagine the reaction and horror we would have had if the Americans in these towns had been wiped out as a result of our lost war on drugs like what had happened in Mexico. We would be demanding the Federal government take immediate action. The fact that the drug problem in this country causes 45,000 Mexicans to die, and not Americans, results in hardly a a rise.   

Looks like nothing has improved since the last time we reviewed this situation. The cartels are extending their reach into other countries. They have gotten so large and powerful that they are transporting thousands of tons of chemicals around the world as if they were a multinational corporation. The cartels' violence has threatened democracy through the intimidation of journalists. Ordinary citizens go about their lives newer knowing when their paths will tragically cross the violence of the cartels. The equivalent of well known American towns and cities are wiped out for no reason.

And let's face it. A lot of this chaos is a result of the cartels feeding a huge demand for illegal drugs in the United States. And that demand for drugs that are produced from far away is the result of our decades long failure of the war on drugs. And that situation is unlikely to change at least for another year. In an election year, no politician, from Obama on down, is going to take any risks on re-examining our approach to illegal drugs. Thus, at least another year will go by where democracy declines, innocents are killed, and the drug cartels' reach and power expand.

Which is sad because Step 26 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" suggests a process to take a totally new, ground zero approach to examining all facets of the drug plague and deciding what to do about this dire situation. All it requires is a little leadership and courage from our political class to move us off of this obviously losing strategy.

Consider what is at stake: loss of democracy via the intimidation of journalists, loss of national sovereignty when criminal enterprises threaten legitimate governments, innocents being killed, Americans suffering the consequences of addiction. Sounds like a worthy cause for our leaders to undertake. Unfortunately, there are U.S. elections to be won which means freedom, sovereignty, killings and addictions will need to wait at least another year, given the selfish history of our politicians.




We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

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

Who Is To Blame For Our Economic Crisis? An Analysis In Pictures

One of President Obama's major faults is his inability to take responsibility for anything that has happened during his time in office. He always looks backward to make sure others get the blame for things that go wrong rather than looking forward to deal with the present situation and develop the solutions needed to resolve the issues. I truly believe that his ego is incapable of believing anything he did, any program he implemented, or any strategy he approved went wrong.

It is always other factors that cause his administration's failures. It is the fault of the Bush administration, it is the fault of the Japanese tsunami, it is the fault of Congress, it is the fault of the Republicans, it is the fault of the Tea Party, it is the fault of ATM machines (that eliminate jobs), it is the fault of the Constitution, etc. A true leader would deal with the reality of the present situation and look to move forward with solutions rather than wasting time and energy looking backwards for blame.

But who is really to blame for our country's economic situation of high unemployment, high national debt, out of control government spending, etc.? Are all of our nation's woes directly attributable to one man and only one man, namely George W. Bush as the Democrats claim? Did Democrats Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama have nothing to do with our economic plight? Is the Obama administration dong anything positive to get us out of the economic malaise?

One way to analyze these questions is to look at reality. In other words, let's look at the data. Rather than deal with opinions, politics, and biases, the reality is in the numbers. Most of the numbers and graphs that follow are from official U.S. government sources. The data does not come from Fox News, tea party organizations, or the Republican party. You can argue politics and opinions, you cannot argue the historical numbers.

Disclaimer #1: up until the November, 2010 midterm elections, I had never voted for a Republican for national office in my life, I am 58 years old. I was nowhere close to being a fan of George W. Bush. His Presidency and associated antics were the main drivers and inspiration behind my writing, "Love my Country, Loathe My Government."

Disclaimer #2 - The following graphs of data and reality are in different forms since many times I could not get my hands on the original data and had to lift the graphs in the format they were in. Thus, I apologize for the inconsistency of the look of the graphs but the data and the reality they portray are accurate.

You can double click on any picture to blow it up for a better view.

The above graph displays the amount of absolute dollars the Federal government spent beyond the amount of money it collected in taxes and fees since the 1990s. One of the constant accusations this administration throws at the Bush administration is that the so-called Bush tax cuts caused massive budget deficits and caused the economy to crash.

However, based on the reality of these numbers in this graph, that is an apparently erroneous accusation to make. While the Bush tax cuts did reduce tax rates substantially, it apparently did not result in ballooning Federal deficits. In fact, as you can see from the graph, the annual deficits were actually decreasing during the middle of the Bush Presidency and were usually in line with the deficits early in Democrat Bill Clinton's Presidency.

This is a true statement until the November, 2006 midterm elections take place and the Democrats take control of Congress. They did not take office until January of 2007 and could not significantly impact government spending in 2007 since that 2007 budget was already set in 2006 when the Republicans controlled the White House and Congress.

However, look what happens after 2007 when the Democrats control Congress and the Federal budget (as illustrated by the vertical line in the graph) and then add the White House to their control in 2009. Deficits skyrocket on the Democrat's and Obama's watch, reaching heights that are multiple times higher than any Bush administration deficit. Thus, if deficits are bad, most of our deficit damage has been done when the Democrats and Obama controlled most parts of the government.

Bush can be faulted in the last two years of his time in office for not reigning in 2008 and 2009 budget deficits coming out of a Democratic Congress. But under the Constitution, Congress finalizes the budget for the government and that was under the control of Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

This graph is a slightly different way of looking at the Federal government's deficit spending. Rather than just looking at absolute dollars, this graph looks at annual budget deficits as a percentage of our GDP. The reason to look at this ratio rather than the absolute dollar view is to see if the nation's economy is big enough to handle the actual dollars being overspent.

For example, if your household budget is $10,000 and you overspend it by $5,000, you have a 50% budget deficit, not a good thing. However, if you have a $100,000 household budget and you overspend it by $5,000, it is only a 5% budget deficit and is much more manageable.

At the Federal government level, this ratio graph shows us basically the same story we discussed above. The budget deficit situation was improving through the middle of the Bush administration and was in line with the historical deficit to GDP ratio performance. In fact, this measure of deficit spending was actually better than Clinton's performance early in his administration.

However, once the Democrats take control of Congress in 2007 and the Presidency in 2009, the government's deficit ratio skyrockets to orders of magnitude larger than those run up during the Bush administration. Tough to blame Bush when he did not control much of the the Federal government over the past five years of budget deficits.

This graph does not look at deficits but calculates a ratio of government spending as a percentage of our GDP. The theory behind this graph is that government spending is a relative measure. You can safely spend more if the economy is large and growing.

Historically, this ratio of Federal government spending to GDP has stayed around 35% both during the Clinton and Bush administrations and administrations prior to them. However, once the Democrats take control of Congress and the White House, this ratio goes haywire in the wrong direction with government spending growing significantly as a percentage of GDP.

Again, Bush can be claimed for not keeping a Democratic Congress's spending under control but it was the Democrats in Congress, and later the white House, that have allowed the reckless spending to grow unabated.

President Obama made the now infamous claim that if the country did not spend $800 billion in economic stimulus, the nation's unemployment rate could soar as high as 8%; He did get to spend and waste that $800 billion and the unemployment rate soared well past his 8% ceiling and has stayed well above 8% for a very long time. Is that the fault of the Bush administration?

This graph would indicate probably not. The unemployment rate was actually coming down throughout the middle of the Bush administration and for several years was actually lower than the unemployment rate during the Clinton years.

However, the same phenomenon occurs once the Democrats take control of Congress in 2007. Within a year, the unemployment rate is rising, once the Democrats in Congress can start implementing their agenda and budgets and skyrockets once the Democrats take control of the White House. If Bush is to blame for today's high unemployment, as Obama would have us believe, than Obama, Pelosi, and Reid also have to take a lot of the blame since Bush has been gone for over three years, the Democrats have not.

This graph tracks the average monthly housing  prices in the U.S., from the early 1970s to now. The green line is the actual average price and the red line is that same series of data adjusted for inflation. Thus, the red line is really the more accurate depiction of average housing prices over time.

As the graph shows for almost thirty years, the average price for a  house in the U.S. was pretty steady at about $150,000 with maybe a small upward trend inherent in the data. However, towards the end of the Clinton administration, housing prices begin to move off of that historical position and start trending dramatically and dangerously upward, resulting in a housing price bubble that bursts in the 2007 - 2008 time frame as the country's economy implodes.

Given that Bush was President for most of this bubble it is difficult to blame anyone else but his administration and the Congressional people at that time. It amazes me that no one in the Bush administration, the Treasury Department, The Federal Reserve, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Housing and Urban Development, Senate housing and banking committees, House of Representatives housing and banking committees or anyone in the massive Federal bureaucracy did not look at a chart like this in the 2004 - 2005 time frame and say, "We have a problem."  Didn't the Bush administration or some part of Congress have at least one smart economist on staff that could have recognized what now looks like a classic economic bubble and raised some red flags?

The Democrats, however, do not get off scot free on this major scree up. The Bush administration tried dozens of times to get strong regulatory oversight of the two Federal housing giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, significantly strengthened. However, Congressional Democrats always blocked that necessary move, mainly because Fannie and Freddie's executives made sure that large campaign money donations constantly flowed to Democratic politicians. One has to wonder if the Great Recession might have been less severe if Bush had not failed in getting his regulatory request instituted.

This graph depicts the number of Americans employed in non-farm jobs as a percentage of the total population. If you look at the Bush years, you can see the big drop in employment as a result of the 9-11 attacks and the resulting recession early in his Presidency. However, by the middle of his time in office, employment is improving steadily until the Democrats take control of Congress in 2007 and start enforcing their agenda and plans.

Before you know it, by 2008 or so the employment rate is in free fall and has continued since then, during a time when the Democrats controlled both parts of Congress and then the White House. Got to put most of the blame on this one on Pelosi, Reid, and Obama.

This graph is just another view of unemployment over time, this one based on monthly data. Things are improving steadily, year over year, month over month, under Bush until the Republicans lose control of Congress in November, 2006, the vertical line. Within a year of the Democrats taking over Congress, the monthly unemployment rates starts to climb steadily and only recently has started to nudge slight downward. Are we seeing a trend year, three years after Bush left office and five years after the Republicans lost Congress?

This graph depicts the Labor Department's Series monthly U6 tracking of underemployment in the U.S. Most of the time, the press and the political class only report the regular unemployment rate which is the ratio of people actively looking for work divided by those that are looking for work and those that have the work they want.

However, this usual tracking of unemployment does not include those Americans that are working part time but want full time work (the underemployed) and those people that have grown so frustrated looking for a new job that they have given up the search. This U6 series gives a far better and more complete picture of the bad employment situation int he country.

However, the trend is the same. The more robust U6 unemployment rate is trending downward significantly during the middle of the Bush administration, things are looking good. However, as soon as the Democrats start to assert themselves in Congress and then the White House, this measure of unemployment soars up towards 18% and has come down only sightly. It now stands at around 15%, almost double what the more commonly used, but less accurate, measure of unemployment is. This dubious level of 15% has been reached three years after Bush left office.

Hang in there,we are almost done. This graph appeared in a post from last week and it measures something called the Index of Economic Freedom. This chart tracks the economic freedom ranking in the world of the U.S, over the past three Presidential administrations. The lower the number the better the rank of a country relative to others in the world when it comes to economic freedom. Economic freedom is highly related in a positive way to wealth of a country's citizens which is a good thing.

But even though this is not a government data series, it comes from an independent private organization, the results are the same. Our Index Of Economic Freedom is improving, on average, as we move from the Clinton administration through the Bush administration and then takes a pretty dramatic and negative turn up once the Democrats take over Congress and the White House.

Our economic freedom then begins to weaken vs. the rest of the world. This may explain some of the economic malaise we are living through today.

One last chart and this may be the only one you need to know. Consider the five years from 2007 through 2011. During those five years, the Senate was run and controlled by the Democrats all five years. During those five years, the Democrats ran and controlled the House of Representatives four years. During those five years, the Democrats controlled the White House for three years.

Thus, in fifteen years worth of governing (five years for the Senate, five for the House, five for the Presidency), the Democrats were in charge in twelve of those years or 80% of the time. That is what is depicted in the above pie chart in blue. The Republicans, in red, were in control of only 20% of the Federal government from  2007 to 2011.

Thus, Obama's constant harping that the Republicans and Bush are the reason the country is in a ditch today really has no justification in reality. The Republicans have controlled only 20% of the Federal government since 2007, the Democrats 80% so logically, who really is to blame? All of the deficit measures, unemployment measures, employment measures, and government spending under the Bush administration were consistent with historical norms and improving until the Democrats took over Congress. Our Index of Economic Freedom ranking was improving until the Democrats took over Congress and then the White House.

The reality is both parties have screwed up the country but the data strongly suggests that the Democrats and their leaders, Obama, Pelosi, and Reid, have to take the majority of the blame. The numbers and data do not lie.

However, I could forgive the President for blaming everyone else if he would just do two things: stop the whining and start the process of fixing what he and the Democrats are mostly responsible for breaking. Looking backward accomplishes nothing. Looking forward for progress is a greater measure of what a leader does rather than looking backward for blame.

Thus far, based on the President's blame game, he is not a leader. He has shown himself to be just another ordinary Chicago politician who never apparently heard the old saying: "Don't tell me how rocky the seas was, just bring the darn ship in." In other words, "Don't tell me how bad things are and who is to blame, just fix the problems as they exist today."


We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

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

The State Of The Union - Take The Quiz To Find Out

Tonight the President will deliver the annual state of the union message. I am sure it will be a typical political speech, full of bluster signifying nothing. Thus, as a public service, we provide the following short quiz and so that you can determine for yourself what the true state of the union is:

• Is our nation’s economy better or worse than in 2008? Remember that out national economic growth rate has been only in the 2% range or so for the past few years, consistently below the historical average.
• Is our nation’s unemployment situation better or worse than in 2008? Remember that there are about 14 million unemployed Americans and millions more of underemployed Americans.
• Is your job security and job satisfaction any better or worse than in 2008? Remember the 14 million.
• Is our nation’s foreign affairs position better or worse than in 2008? Remember that Iran and North Korea are three years closer to having nuclear weapons, our relations with Pakistan have never been worse, our State Department never foresaw the "Arab Spring," and China is still kicking our economic butts.
• Is our national unity and civility better or worse than in 2008? Remember that our politicians have recently and continuously called Americans terrorists, barbarians, and racists for simply having a difference of opinion from them.
• Are gasoline prices better or worse than 2008? Remember that gas prices are about double what they were when Obama took office.
• Is our level of freedom better or worse than 2008? Remember that the freedom destroying Patriot Act was renewed under the Obama administration and Attorney General Eric Holder has continued many of the liberty killing policies of the Bush administration including warrantless searches, unwarranted electronic communications access, etc.
• Is the influence in our politics from the obscene amount of union, corporate, and PAC money better or worse than 2008? Remember that spending records are being set at every election.
• Is Social Security fiscal solvency better or worse than in 2008? Remember that thousands of Baby Boomers are retiring every day, leaving less workers making Social Security payments to support them with no viable solutions to the problem being put forth by the political class.
• Is Medicare and Medicaid’s’ fiscal solvency better or worse than in 2008? Remember that the two programs still waste upwards of $100 billion a year through fraud and waste.
• Is the fairness and effectiveness of our nation’s tax system better or worse than in 2008? Remember that some rich Americans pay a lower percentage of their income in income taxes than middle class Americans and about 45% of Americans pay nothing at all in federal income taxes.
• Is the nation’s national debt situation better or worse than in 2008? Remember that the national debt is now over $15 TRILLION a year and this administration is on track to incur more national debt than what was incurred by every previous President COMBINED.
• Are college costs better or worse than in 2008?
• Is government incompetence and waste better or worse than in 2008? Remember that the incompetent Federal government performance and reaction in the Gulf oil spill disaster was comparable to the incompetent Federal government performance and reaction in the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
• Is your home worth more or less since 2008? Remember that there are probably several more million homes likely to into foreclosure this year, putting a further damper on housing prices.
• Is the country any closer to solving the major issues of our times such as failing public schools, a lost war on drugs, the lack of a nation energy strategy, leaky borders, and ever escalating health care costs than in 2008? Remember that our kids' test scores still trail test scores of kids in many other countries, our lost war on drugs is turning Mexico into a lawless narco state, we still have no national energy strategy or program, and Obama Care deficiencies are being uncovered every week. Despite this situation, the current administration has no plans, and no clue, to address any of these issues.
• Is the nation’s leadership any better or worse than in 2008? Remember that this is the same leadership that gave us all of the "remember" facts listed above, from $15 TRILLION in national debt to the slandering and demeaning of Americans for having an opinion to the failures to resolve even minor issues facing Americans today.

There is no need to view the broadcast of the state of the union message. By taking the above quiz, you probably now know how bad the state of the union is, regardless of what bluster the politicians tell us. If you do decide to watch, have a copy of this post with you so that you can check off all of the issues the President addresses with real plans, not rhetoric. I bet you do not make a lot of check marks.


We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of our times.

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

It Is Not Just American Politicians That Are Corruptable And Contemptible

We have reviewed many, many contemptible acts and actions that our political class has perpetrated on us and the nation over the past few years. Just a few of their antics include the following:

• When national unemployment was soaring over 10% and major issues facing Americans were going on unsolved, the politicians in Washington worked at getting legislation passed that allowed the Federal government to control the sound volume on television commercials, displaying a very bad sense of screwed up priorities.
• When the Gulf oil spill was it its sickening height and people were losing their jobs and livelihoods and the environment was taking a beating, President Obama was taking multiple vacations, enjoying multiple rounds of golf and made at least two cross country trips to raise campaign money for fellow Democrats.
• With most Americans no longer able to get a traditional defined benefits pension from where they work, members of Congress get a generous pay check, a generous defined benefits pension, a generous 401k-like retirement account, and participate in Social Security.
• With the Federal government spending 70% more money than it was collecting in taxes and fees in 2011, running up well over a TRILLION dollars in additional debt and endangering the financial viability of the nation Congress decided to take a five week vacation, with pay, last August.
• The political class has slandered and demeaned tens of millions of Americans for simply expressing a difference of opinion with the politicians by calling them racists, smelly, un-American, terrorists, barbarians and a host of other slurs instead of celebrating the nation's diversity of opinion and the freedom that should come with it.
• Former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich was sent to jail for felonies while former Congressman Anthony Weiner went into retirement for pompous, sexist stupidity.
• This administration and the Federal government ran a ridiculously inept gun running sting operation called "Fast and Furious" that resulted in military grade weapons ending up in the hands of the violent Mexican drug cartels and which have been used to kill a U.S. government agent and many Mexican citizens.
• Congress has rigged the process of Congressional salary increases so that they happen automatically and with little fanfare every year, regardless of how incompetently members of Congress performed during the year.

You get the idea. I could go on for a very long while to further verify that our politicians, for the most part, are contemptible. They waste taxpayer money, they focus on very minor issues and never resolve any major issues facing the country, they care more about their vacations and political careers while citizens suffer, and generally do a lousy job of governing the nation, solving problems, and protecting our democracy.

But, misery loves company. Consider how contemptible politicians around the world can also be, as documented in two articles in the January 20, 2012 of The Week magazine:

• Although the Italian federal government has driven the country's financial status to the brink of national bankruptcy, the average legislator in the Italian government earns $20,700 per month. This comes out to almost a quarter million dollars a year. Imagine how much money they would have gotten if they had actually done a good job managing the Italian economy.
• Italian politicians also get free travel anywhere they want within Italy, they get tax free housing allowances, $5,000 a month allowance for secretaries even if they do not have any, and subsidized gourmet dining.
• But the French politicians are not too far behind, on average, making about $217,000 a year.
• If these legislators made the same salaries in the U.S. they would be in the top 1-2% of earners in the country. Imagine how far up the income chain they are in their home countries.
• The Chinese government spends millions and millions of dollars every year by providing luxury cars for thousands of government officials.
• According to the article, Communist Party officials drive $100,000 Audis, police drive Porsche SUVs, and military officials drive half million dollar Bentleys.
• This auto and spending extravagance for the Chinese political ruling class is contrasted with a recent tragic accident where a bus that was supposed carry only nine people crashed with 62 kindergarten-aged children on board because the school could not afford to buy regular school buses. 21 kids died in the accident.

And finally, an article in the January 23, 2012 issue of Business Week that described the basket case that is Iraq, we find that a central government politician can earn up to $22,000 a month while in office. The typical Iraqi is lucky to earn a couple of hundred dollars a month, assuming they can get a job in their wreck of an economy.

An old saying that goes, "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." However, I think a better old saying is "power attracts the corruptible." And the contemptible. Seems no matter where you are in the world, it is probably a safe bet that the political class will be more concerned with their personal enrichment and perpetuating their time in office than serving their country's people.

But at one point in our history's past we probably believed, falsely or truly, that our political system, our political class, and our politicians were better, more virtuous than the typical corrupt banana republic. But it is probably a good assumption that this belief is not valid today.

We have allowed our political processes to be hijacked by the political class for their own benefit and not the good of our democracy. Thus, the only way to return to a place where citizens run for office to serve the country and not themselves is to implement some of the steps put forth in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government,"

1. Step 6 - allow only citizens to contribute to election campaigns, banning donations from unions, corporations, PACs, lobbyists' groups, etc.
2. Step 7 - allow citizens to contribute only to election campaigns that affect them, e.g. people in Kansas cannot direct campaign contributions to New Jersey political candidates.
3. Step 8 -  strengthen FEC enforcement capabilities so that politicians finally obey all campaign finance laws.
4. Step 14- stop gerrymandering Congressional districts that greatly benefit incumbent politicians.
5. Step 37 - base annual Congressional raises on an annual customer satisfaction rating given by American citizens.
6. Step 38 - require every sitting Federal politicians to sign off on a annual shared values pledge that would hopefully guide politicians' behavior and would include such traits as integrity, trust, respect, commitment, and teamwork.
7. Step 39 - implement firm term limits for all politicians, "one and done."

Just because our politicians are like the rest of the world's, generally corruptible and contemptible, does not mean we cannot change it. Wouldn't it be nice to finally respect those that are in office rather than tolerating them because they were the lesser of two evils?



We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of our times.

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