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After spending the past two weeks dealing with wasteful government spending and the latest political class insanity, we have not had time to discuss the current status of our economy. Unfortunately, things have not gotten better as the Obama administration, and the Washington political class in general, struggle to figure out how to prevent the economy from getting any worse, never mind making it better.
Unemployment is still unnecessarily high for an economic recovery. More than ten million Americans are unemployed or under employed. Every week about 370,000 Americans are filing for first time unemployment benefits. Our national debt continues to skyrocket. Overall economic growth limps along at far below the historical average. The numbers are not good.
Since the President and Congress seem more concerned on getting reelected than serving the country in 2012, the following opinions and views of various experts are more likely to happen than not, to the detriment of all of us:
- Unless the political class takes action, a number of major financial, tax, and economic hits will occur early next year. These hits include the raising of taxes as the Bush tax cuts expire, the imposition of new taxes under Obama Care, the return of the income tax marriage penalty, the expiration of the temporary payroll tax reduction, government spending cuts, and a host of other issues.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the U.S. economy would contract at an annual rate of 1.3 percent for the first half of 2013 if politicians take no action to prevent the looming tax hikes and spending cuts. This is in turn would likely push the economy into a recession in the first half of 2013.
Now ask yourself: what are the odds that the Washington political class will develop a coherent economic plan, approve a plan, and implement a plan between the election in early November and the end of the year? Given that they will have to contend with Thanksgiving, Christmas, a lame duck Congress, and the lingering bitterness of the election losers, I think it is a good bet we are looking to slip back into a recession shortly after the dawn of 2013.
- As U.S. national debt is fast approaching a mind numbing $16 TRILLION, the bond rating agencies are beginning to hint that they are not ruling out the very real possibility that they will downgrade the quality of our Federal government debt. Standard and Poors already did the first downgrade in the history of the country last August and Moody's and Fitch may follow that lead, according to recent news reports:
- “If Congress doesn’t put in place a process that assures people that this [national debt] will be addressed in a real manner . . . then there is no doubt in my mind that our sovereign debt will be downgraded,” said Steve Bell, the senior director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center. “Markets throughout the world are going to be looking at the action of the United States government.”
- Newsmax reported that "Fitch identified 2013 as a crucial year for the United States to take action on its debt. Currently, it sees better-than-even odds that it will downgrade the United States."
- Senator Tom Coburn was recently quoted in an interview with CBS News: "We’re going to get another downgrade. I can tell you right now. You can have a great legal case for suing the rating agencies for not downgrading us again because we have not demonstrated the political will to solve the problems."
If the downgrade does occur, it will be another body blow to the economy as the cost of servicing $16 TRILLION worth of existing debt will start to climb which will add more debt to our already pile of debt that will require more financing... In other words, we are very close to a debt death spiral.
- Confirming the thought that the United States economy is "queen of the pigs," i.e. well thought of only because every other economy is in worse shape, Euro Pacific Capital president Peter Schiff recently stated in a Business Insider interview the only reason the dollar hasn't collapsed yet is that people think that Europe is in worse shape than the U.S.: "It doesn't mean that we're not going to have a day of reckoning. It just means when it comes, there's a lot more to reckon with. Things always happen to delay the inevitable. Since the dollar is still the perceived safe haven, we benefit from (Europe’s) problems. We end up with more rope to hang ourselves.”
Queen of the pigs and having enough rope to hang ourselves, two phrases you never want to hear that accurately describe our economic situation.
- Speaking at a recent Johns Hopkins University commencement event, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said “paralysis” in the U.S. political system has worsened the nation’s economic challenges:
“Our economic challenges are tough, but the critical test we face is a political challenge. We just need to rediscover the political ability to just need to rediscover the political ability to solve the big problems still ahead of us.”
Given that the political class over the past four decades has not shown the "political ability" to resolve the lost war on drugs, implement a coherent and effective national energy policy and strategy, seal our leak borders and address the illegal immigration problem, tame escalating health care costs, or solve any other major issue in our life times, do we really think that this current set of politicians has the political ability to formulate and implement coherent economic policies and programs? Doubtful.
- Speaking on CNBC recently, Swiss money manager and "Gloom, Boom and Doom" editor Marc Faber predicted the chance that the global economy falls into a recession is a 100% certainty. His expert view is that while investors are currently focused on Greece and impending Euro debacle, there are bigger economic threats beginning to form around the world, most importantly, China and India: "As an observer of markets — whenever everyone focuses on one thing — like Greece and Europe — maybe they miss issues that are far more important — such as a meaningful slowdown in India and China."
He pointed out that factory output in China has been slowing which will have a much greater negative impact on the world economy than the Greece situation. As an example, he quotes the HSBC Flash Purchasing Managers Index which showed that it decreased to 48.7 for China in May, down from 49.3 in April. This became the seventh straight month that the index has come in below 50, a level indicating a contracting Chinese economy.
All right, enough negative news today. We will continue with the gloom and doom tomorrow but maybe provide some solutions so that the Washington political class finally finds some "political ability" to at last understand basic economics and find ways to get the economy rolling again. I am getting tired of being queen of the pigs and am getting real worried about that rope the political class has in their hands, a rope that is definitely long enough to economically hang the entire economy.
Also, keep the following thought in the back of your mind: since we theoretically came out of the recession over three years ago and on average, recessions historically appear every four to six years, if we do not get our debt and economic house in order soon, probability and statistics predict we will enter the next recession in the near future without ever fully recovering from the last one.
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/
All of last week and yesterday we have focused on the enormous amount of taxpayer wealth that the Federal government and the Washington political class abuses and misuses via waste, inefficiencies, and outright criminal fraud. Last week we focused on random wasteful spending which is usually one time, massive wasteful spending on ill thought out and ill executed government programs and projects:
- The Transportation Security Administration overspent $184 million worth of taxpayer funds on airport security equipment it will never use.
- The State Department built a consulate building in northern Afghanistan and THEN decided it was indefensible, wasting the $80 million that went into the construction.
- The State Department spent $500 million since last October to staff a large Iraqi police training program in Iraq, a program that will likely be terminated by the end of the year with little discernible successes or improvements relative to Iraqi police forces.
- The Navy almost completed the construction of two brand new Navy ships only to THEN decide they were no longer needed just before their construction was complete, expending another $10 billion to turn the unused and almost completed ships to scrap metal.
- The General Services Administration wasted $832,000 on a Las Vegas party that was thinly disguised as a "conference."
Just these five examples of random wasteful spending totals about $1.075 billion.
However, we made a distinction last week that these one time/random acts of disgraceful wasteful spending are different from the "systemic wasteful spending" acts that occur every day of every year in the same basic manner:
- Medicare and Medicaid lose about $110 to $150 billion annually to waste, inefficiencies, and criminal fraud.
- Social Security loses about $125 billion annually to waste, inefficiencies and criminal fraud.
- We have documented how just one of the Federal government's unemployment programs loses $19 billion annually to waste, inefficiencies, and criminal fraud.
- The IRS admits it does not collect about $385 billion every year that is legally due to the Federal government but is not collected from tax evaders.
- The National Science Foundation has an annual budget of about $6.9 billion but wastes most of that on idiotic projects (e.g. studying when dogs became man's best friend).
These systemic wasteful spending effort costs the American taxpayer about $665.9 billion a year. Since the beginning of the Obama administration three and a half years ago, this annual estimate comes out to about $2.331 TRILLION in total.
Thus, just these two types of wasteful spending examples over the past three and a half years comes out to about $2.332 TRILLION. Keep this $2.332 TRILLION in the back of your mind, we will come back to it shortly.
Last October 26, 2011, we did a post on solar energy and the disgrace that is Solyndra:
(http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2011/10/one-last-look-for-now-at-solyndra.html).
Within that post we discussed a NOVA television report on how a California family had taken a typical suburban home and had retrofitted it with solar technology to make it near energy independent (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/solar/house.html). The bottom line of the program's episode was that for about $60,000, at the time of the show, a house could almost be taken off the grid and be made nearly energy independent.
Last year in the midst of the Solyndra debacle, it was widely reported that the Chinese had reduced their solar panel expense by about 30%. If we assume that the NOVA house solar energy retrofit cost of $60,000 consisted of $40,000 in equipment costs and $20,000 in installation costs, that house retrofit today would cost about $48,000 ($20,000 plus a 30% reduction in the $40,000 equipment cost).
Now let's take this new cost estimate and combine it with the $2.332 TRILLION in waste we identified above. If we divide the $2.332 TRILLION by the $48,000 unit cost of retrofit, if the political class and Federal government had been totally efficient, effective, and forward thinking, we could have used the $2.332 TRILLION to retrofit almost 49,000,000 U.S. homes with enough solar technology to make them almost totally energy independent.
If you look at U.S.Census data from 2009 (http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0988.pdf), you will see that there are about 73,000,000 million single family, detached home in the United States. This becomes the most damning piece of wasteful spending information we could ever provide: if the government had funneled is wasted spending from just the past three and a half years into solar retrofits, about two thirds of every single family detached home in the COUNTRY would now be almost totally energy dependent.
What would that have meant for every American and our nation:
- Household energy costs would be substantially reduced, freeing up household income to be used to grow the economy.
- Untold number of jobs would have been created to install and service the new solar energy infrastructure.
- If global warming actually exists, turning just about every single American family home into a solar energy generator would greatly have reduced our carbon footprint.
- From a foreign policy perspective, we could care less about what happened in the Middle East since the need for their petroleum would have vanished.
- There would no longer be a need for politicians like Obama to give away taxpayer wealth to non-viable alternative energy companies that also just happened to raise campaign cash for himself and other politicians.
Unbelievable. How much better would we be if the political class had any kind of ability to lead, govern and set good priorities? Within four years, wasteful government spending could have been funneled into making the U.S. energy independent.
But let's keep going. Last Thursday, we listed out dozens and dozens of wasteful Federal government expenditures over the past few decades on just ridiculous projects. Some of those expenditures included spending from The National Endowment for the Humanities for a $25,000 grant in 1977 to study why people cheat, lie and act rudely on local Virginia tennis courts, the Office of Education for spent $219,592 in 1978 to develop a curriculum to teach college students how to watch television, and the Environmental Protection Agency spent an extra $1.2 million in 1980 to preserve a Trenton, New Jersey sewer as a historical monument.
In that blog, our source data found $1,230,956,867,592 in wasted spending on similar types of stupidity. This money, if it had been diverted to retrofit U.S. homes for solar independence, would have been able to convert 90% of the single family detached homes in what the Census classifies as the South region of the United States.
Let's continue with more waste. Last week we showed how the Obama administration has spent at least $3.469 billion on crony owned alternative energy companies that have all either gone bankrupt or are in the process of going bankrupt. If that $3.469 billion had been used to retrofit U.S. homes for solar independence, rather than be totally wasted on failing and failed companies, the entire city of Tallahassee, Florida would now be mostly off the grid and would be mostly energy independent. This accomplishment would dwarf all of the non-accomplishments of the failed companies Obama gave Federal dollars to.
Rather than focusing on efforts like those covered above to make taxpayer wealth useful in making the U.S. a better country, in this case energy independent, the political class focuses only on their own careers, self interest, and personal enrichment. I never understood why they never address the issue of wasteful spending: is it because they do not know how to, they do not want to, and they do not care to, given the good that could come from cleaning up the waste and fraud.
Whatever their reason, we are living with their apathy, lack of leadership, and lack of positive results everyday. No problems solved, massive amounts of wealth wasted. Term limits and dumping out all incumbent politicians at every election cannot come soon enough. We need people in D.C. that can do the simple math above, formulate plans, and then clean up the horrific mess the current set of politicians have left us with with nothing to show in return for TRILLIONS of our tax dollars.
Please take note: the above exmaples of waste and how that could have been translated into energy independence efforts does not include the spending waste that is probably rampant in the bloated Defense Department budget, food stamp, and other large Federal departments. Thus, the lost opportunity is actually far worse than the examples outlined above.
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/
Last week we spent the entire week talking about different types of government waste and wasteful spending, recommending several ways to cut down on the disgraceful misuse of taxpayer wealth. From Afghanistan to Iraq to U.S. Navy yards to Washington D.C., there does not seem to be any Federal action or program that is exempt from wasteful spending. The waste we identified came out to more than a TRILLION dollars, waste that will continue to diminish the country and its wealth and potential unless something is done soon.
However, we could not get through all of the wasteful spending in one week, requiring us to go two more blog posts to cover everything. Today we will give a simple, everyday example of how ridiculous our government and political class has become when it comes to destroying wealth in this country.
It becomes a little difficult to understand the magnitude of the waste when the zeros start to pile up (e.g. one TRILLION dollars is a one followed by 12 zeros). It is a little difficult getting one's arms around that since for many of us it is a foreign and unknown concept, TRILLIONS. Today's post will try to make a TRILLION dollars relevant via a household purchase example.
But first, let's set the stage by reviewing some statistics:
- Annual amount of waste, inefficiency, and criminal fraud in the Social Security program = $125 billion
- Annual amount of waste, inefficiency, and criminal fraud in the Medicare and Medicaid programs = $110 to $150 billion (let's use the middle of the range, $130 billion)
- Annual amount of waste, inefficiency, and criminal fraud in just one Federal government unemployment insurance program = $19 billion
- Annual amount of waste, inefficiency, and criminal fraud in the above four government programs = $274 billion
- Annual amount of uncollected taxes the IRS annually fails to collect from American tax evaders = $385 billion
- Estimated Federal government taxes and fees to be collected in 2012 = $2.47 TRILLION (http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/federal_revenue)
- The ratio of uncollected taxes and fees to estimated amount of collected taxes and fees in 2012 = 15.6%
- The ratio of annual waste and fraud in the four social support government programs listed above to the estimated amount of collected taxes and fees in 2012 = 11.1%
Okay, let's make all of this waste relevant to a typical household purchase. Let's assume that your household needed/wanted to buy a new car. If you are like most consumers, you have done your research of prices, safety, style, resale value, etc. Let's assume that you have decided on a car model and you and the dealer have agreed to a price, say $20,000 to keep the math simple.
You sign the papers and agree to return in a few days with a check for $20,000, during which time the dealer preps the car for sale. However, when you arrive to pick up your new car, along with your check of $20,000 you are hit with some extra charges:
- Since the dealer has had problems collecting car payments from other customers, according to the dealer, you have to make him whole. If the dealer is the Federal government who is so incompetent that it fails to collect 15.6% of the taxes and fees legally due under our tax code, you now have to pay the car dealer an additional $3,117 (15.6% of the $20,000) to cover up the dealer's inability to collect what he should have been paid by others.
- But we are not done. Not only has this dealer not collected over 15% of what he should have been paid by other customers, he has somehow lost 11.1% of the money he had already collected due to waste, inefficiency, and criminal fraud, just like what happens with Social Security, Medical, et al. Thus, he wants you to pay another $2,219 (11.1% of $20,000) to cover his misuse of funds in his possession.
Thus, rather than pay the $20,000 for the new car that you agreed to with the dealer, if that dealer operates like the Federal government, you would have to pay an extra $5,336 (about 26.7%) more because of the incompetence of the dealer who loses wealth that the dealer already possessed or failed to collect payments that were due to him.
Obviously, we would never allow this to happen to us in a new car transaction. We agreed to a price, if the dealer tried to up that price by almost 27% we would walk away and never deal with that car dealer again.
And we should do the same thing with the Federal government and the political class that operates it. We should not have to pay a 26.7% premium in taxes to a government that is so incompetent that it loses, wastes, or fails to collect 26.7% of the taxes and fees we agreed to pay the government, just like we agreed to $20,000 with the hypothetical car dealers.
Federal bureaucrats need to be fired for wasting taxpayer dollars. Federal bureaucrats need to be fired for not doing their jobs, such as not collecting $385 billion in taxes every year. Politicians need to be removed from committee posts for allowing the waste and criminal fraud to continue unabated every year. New politicians assigned to those posts need to focus their efforts on plugging the leaks and collecting what is due rather than continuing to harp on nonsense and non-starters like the idiotic "Buffet Rule."
No American, rich or poor, should pay a cent more in taxes until there is a successful operational plan in place to bring that disgraceful 26.7% figure down to zero. We would not stand idly by if that car we wanted had a 26.7% surcharge, we should not stand idly by if our government also comes with a 26.7% surcharge. No car is worth that much of a surcharge, no government and political class deserves that much of a surcharge.
P.S. the 26.7% is probably a conservative estimate of the Federal government's waste. None of the figures we discussed above include waste and inefficiencies that are very likely present in the Defense Department budget, the food stamp program, etc. and excludes the random wasteful spending we discussed in detail last week like the $80 million Afghan consulate that was built and never used, the $184 million spent on unsued and unwanted TSA airport security equipment, etc.
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/
This post originally appeared on Memorial Day, 2010. However, the thoughts expressed then are just as relevant two years later as we honor those that have served and who are currently serving our country in our armed forces to protect ourselves and our freedom.
No political ranting and raving today. No pointing out how the politicians continue to screw up the country, constantly denying and depriving us of our freedoms and liberties to the benefit of their political careers. Today is a day of remembrance, of the millions of Americans that have served the country in the past and in the present, many times sacrificing their lives for our freedom and liberty. Please spend a few minutes today thinking of them in any way possible and remembering that many of our fellow citizens and family members are on the front lines around the world today, facing serious danger, but unselfishly protecting us.
One soldier in particular is on my mind today. My father served in World War II with the 203rd Engineer Combat Battalion. It is my understanding that the 203rd came ashore at Omaha Beach in June, 1944, served across France, was involved in the Battle Of The Bulge in late 1944 and eventually made its way into Germany. It was destined for the Pacific Theater but had those plans cancelled when Japan surrendered. He was honorably discharged in late 1945.
I say that it was my understanding because my father rarely spoke of the war, I had to find out this information from secondary sources. He did not brag about his service, he did not boast of the battles he may or may not have seen, he did not regale us with tales of heroism.
It is also my understanding that he is not alone in this approach. Stories abound of similar attitudes among World War II veterans. They did what had to be done, often at great cost, to protect the country and the ideals it stands for. They did not consider themselves heroes, they just did what had to be done. They then returned to become regular citizens and got on with their lives. No egos, no self-centeredness, just a dedication to country and family.
I never thanked my father for his service in the fight for liberty and freedom, not sure growing up that I fully understood the sacrifices he and others made for us. I would like to do that today, seventeen years after he passed away. I would also like to hope that our politicians eventually realize what great costs have been expended to keep us free and that they re-dedicate themselves to maintaining freedom, for all Americans in so many different ways. Making freedom the core of their service in politics and government should be their highest priority, not their re-election. May they for once forego their own egos and selfcenteredness, for the good of the country, like our military peple have done for centuries.
Our focus this week has been on what we classify as "random wasteful spending." These instances occur throughout the Federal bureaucracy on a regular basis but usually happen only once on specific initiatives or projects. Examples we have already spoken about include:
- $80 million that was spent to build a consulate building in Afghanistan that was abandoned before it was used since it was indefensible against attacks.
- $300 million that was spent to build two Navy ships that were immediately scrapped before they were ever used.
- $500 million that was spent in a program to train Iraqi police officers, a program that is likely to be shut down within a year of starting and be forever known as a failure.
- $184 million that the TSA spend on airport security screening equipment that will never be used and will continue to cost over $2 million to store.
These programs are different from what we call "systemic wasteful spending." Systemic wasteful spending occurs every day of every year and includes the waste, inefficiencies, and criminal fraud that constant destroy taxpayer wealth in the Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamp, and unemployment insurance programs.
Today's discussion on government waste is sort of a hybrid between these two categories. The National Science Foundation (NSF) wastes millions of dollars every year on idiotic and useless research programs. Thus, this type of government waste is random in that the inane research programs vary year to year but systemic in that the NSF is around every year to approve these inane research programs.
We had previously covered the NSF waste but will review it below as a close to this week's tribute to wasteful government spending (http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2011/06/national-science-foundation-wasting.html). While reading the following NSF disgraces, keep in mind that at the time of our original blog, the NSF had an annual budget of $6.9 billion. However, there was a move afoot last year to more than double that to $14 billion. It makes you wonder how this is possible, given the lackluster historic and current performance of the NSF.
According to an investigation by the Senate last year and it's final report, the NSF has spent taxpayer money on the following programs through the years:
- How to ride a bike.
- When did dogs become man's best friend?
- Are political views genetically determined?
- How to improve the quality of wine.
- Do boys like to play with trucks and girls like to play with dolls?
- How rumors get started.
- Do parents choose trendy baby names?
- When is the best time to buy a ticket to a sporting event?
- How much housework does a husband create for his wife?
- A virtual recreation of the 1964/1965 World's Fair.
- Sponsorship of a YouTube rap video.
- A review of event ticket prices on Stub Hub.
- What motivates people to make political donations.
- How politicians use the Internet.
- The impact of YouTube on the 2008 U.S. elections.
- A study to determine if playing Farmville helps adults develop and maintain relationships.
- A study on why the same college basketball teams seem to dominate March Madness.
- A study on whether or not online dating site users are racist in their dating habits.
In a time of record budget deficits and almost $16 TRILLION in national debt, do we really want to spend our limited taxpayer dollars on these kinds of research projects? In these days of high gas prices, do we really want to spend our limited taxpayer dollars on Farmville research? In these days of terrorism, do we really want to spend our limited tax payer dollars on anything related to the 1964/1965 World's Fair?
Did neither the NSF Director or any of his 24 member Board know what was going on and what was being funded or did they actually think these were good expenditures? If they did not know what was going on, they should be fired for dereliction of duty. If they did know what was going on relative to these projects, they need to be fired for dereliction of duty and wasting taxpayer money.
But the insanity, incompetence, and waste does not stop with the stupid projects funded above. Misuse of Foundation funds and mismanagement of Foundation operations is also a big waste of taxpayer wealth:
- According to the Senate investigation, the NSF "lacks adequate oversight of its grant funding, which has led to significant mismanagement, fraud, and abuse."
- Internal reports and audits identified various types of mismanagement which resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars being lost to ineffective contracting.
- Rather than being the single government entity responsible for scientific research, the NSF is one of at least 15 Federal departments, 72 Federal agencies, and 12 independent Federal agencies that engage in research and development. These multiple agencies lead to extensive mismanagement, fraud, inefficiencies, and duplication.
- The Senate investigation into these multiple research agencies found there was at least $65 million wasted on low priority projects (see list above), $19 million lost to outright fraud, $1.2 billion wasted because of duplication, and another $1.9 billion wasted because of other forms of mismanagement.
- The Federal Office Of Inspector General (IG) found that the NSF does not have a good process or track record in overseeing how taxpayer money is spent by the grantees receiving it.
- The IG found that many NSF researchers and grantees fail to submit final and annual reports of progress as required, with a 2005 audit calculating that approximately 47% of the 151,000 required project reports were submitted late or never at all.
- Although the NSF has a policy that prevents a researcher getting new NSF funding if the previous project's final report has not been submitted, the audit found that almost 13% of researchers who did not submit a final report did indeed receive new grant money.
- The Inspector General (IG) concluded that while the NSF has tried to improve its management processes, "the IG believes that grant oversight remains as an ongoing management challenge at NSF." In other words, it still stinks.
- Some NSF employees are spending more time searching the Internet for pornography on the job rather than actually doing their job. One senior NSF employee was found to have spent at least 331 days looking at pornography on his government computer and chatting online with nude or partially clad women.
- These pornography escapades by just this one NSF employee cost the American taxpayer between $13,800 and $58,000.
- In one year, ten NSF employees have had misconduct cases brought against them and seven of the ten were for pornography surfing on the job.
- The administrative misuse at the NSF has become so bad that the NSF Inspector General could not even estimate how much money was lost to these types of behavior.
- Not to be outdone by simple Internet pornography surfing, an NSF employee was fired when he organized a jello wrestling event at the NSF's Antarctic research station. These jello wrestling employees were supposed to be looking after the $451 million annual investment the NSF has in Antarctica.
- A pair of NSF employees who were romantically involved were found to have fraudulently run up $144,152 in expenses as a result of their 47 trips taken together.
- Audits found that millions of dollars were misspent on alcohol and other unauthorized, non-research costs.
- And the most damning opinion of all comes from a well know science policy analyst, Daniel Sarwwitz. He is quoted in the Senate report as saying: "The NSF and other civilian research agencies lack the attributes necessary for success, including a focused mission." Well said.
I do not know from the Senate report if anyone at the NSF was fired for this type of wasteful behavior and spending. However, given the recent firing of GSA employees for wasting $832,000 worth of taxpayer wealth on a Las Vegas party, one would hope that many NSF employees were fired for wasting millions of dollars on pornography, romantic trysts, and alcohol. If they have not been fired, they should have been fired since it appears that NSF personnel wastes far more than $832,000 every year, not just one time.
As we have stressed many times this week, not only should the offending and wasteful Federal employees be fired but the Congressional committee members who oversee the NSF should be removed from their committee posts and replaced with people that will not tolerate spending taxpayer money on Farmville, dating site, World's Fair, and other idiotic projects.
One of two things need to be done relative to this waste:
1) Totally eliminate the NSF, and the other Federal research programs that seem to accomplish very little, and return the wealth to the taxpayers. At $6.9 billion a year, every American household would theoretically receive about $60 every year to do with as the want. If the proposed budget went through and this dysfunctional organizations actually got its budget doubled, that $60 a year would turn into an annual windfall of about $120 for every American household. I am positive this approach would result in more positive good for the entire country and its economy than finding out if when dogs became man's best friend.
2) The second option is actually the adult, mature thing to do but I am not sure it is within the realm of possibility and ability of our political class. This country is facing some real and challenging problems, problems that have been with us for decades but seem beyond the reach, the ability, or the brain power of the political class to solve:
- We have been losing the War On Drugs since the Nixon administration.
- We have been without a national energy plan and strategy since the oil shocks and embargoes of the Nixon and Carter administrations.
- We have had an under performing public education system and related processes since the problem was identified and studied early in the Reagan administration.
- We have had an illegal immigration and leaky borders since at least the middle of the Reagan administration when Congress ordered the Defense Department to seal the border within 45 days (never quite finished that assignment, did we?).C
- We have had the problem of ever escalating health care costs since who knows when, a problem that has and will be exacerbated by Obama Care if it is allowed to continue.
- Our country and its citizens have grown steadily more unhealthy as most Americans continue to eat too much, eat too much of the wrong kind of food, do not exercise enough, smoke too much, and as the Baby Boomers mature into their Golden Years, the propensity and incidence of aging diseases (e.g. dementia, Parkinsons, cancers, etc.) become more and more prevalent.
Thus, this second option would put in place a set of strict rules, criteria, and review processes for all Federal research organizations but certainly the NSF, given its atrocious track record of bad priorities. No Federal research money would ever be granted for an research project unless you could draw a straight line from the potential findings of that research to helping finding solutions to any of the six major issues listed above.
If a proposed research grant in the future was to study how to improve wine, it would not even make it through the first review. Trying to find out how much housework a husband creates for his wife? Do not even bother sending in the grant paperwork since it has no direct connection to the six problems listed above.
Federal research should help citizens overcome the challenges in their lives whether it is with an under performing public education system, the unaffordability of health care insurance, etc. It should not be used to satisfy some private intellectual curiosity of some researcher, a curiosity that will have an extremely minimal impact on American families and businesses.
No more researching Farmville, no more researching World's Fair re-creations, no more researching kids' names. Either focus the attention or return the money to the taxpayers, its the only honorable thing to do. And if the Federal government is going to remain in the research business, find people, both administrators, employees, and Congressional members who will treat it like a well run business and not a cesspool of waste like it is now.
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/
This week we have diligently been going through all types of government waste from all corners of the Federal bureaucracy. We discussed the $80 million wasted on an unused State Department consulate in Afghanistan, $184 million of wasted airport security equipment purchases that are likely to never be used, over $3 billion wasted on failed green energy companies, etc.
Today, we will take a more historical perspective. The following Federal government spending instances go back over the past three decades or so. They come to us today courtesy of the website, www.boycottliberalism.com. I do not know if all of this information is correct but since I recognize many of these unnecessary expenses from other research I have done, it would not surprise me that these are actual, and unneeded, previous random wasteful spending examples.
After the examples from http://www.boycottliberalism.com/ listed below I have included more examples of unneeded spending by the political class at our website, http://www.loathemygovernment.com/. You can actually visit that website and vote on whether the forty or so expenditures were worthwhile use of taxpayer dollars. So far, those that have voted have overwhelmingly rejected the notion that these are worthy of taxpayer wealth.
The very sad part about today's waste is that it comes out to over $1.2 TRILLION worth of misused taxpayer wealth. Over a roughly thirty year period, this waste averages out to about $60 billion a year, or about $348 a year for every current American household. Imagine how much more robust our economy would be if every household had an extra $348 or so each year to spend, rather than have it wasted on the idiotic expenditures listed below.
The cumulative running total of government waste as identified by the website:
$1,230,956,867,592.00:
The National Institutes of Health spent more than $400,000 in taxpayer money by paying researchers to cruise six bars in Buenos Aires to find out why gay men engage in risky sexual behavior while drunk -- and just what can be done about it.
The U.S. government spent $2.6 million to make sure prostitutes in China consume less alcohol while working. As part of the five-year study that the National Institutes of Health bankrolled, researchers are visiting more than 100 houses of prostitution to monitor their employees, designated as FSWs, or female sex workers.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is funding a study on the use of ecstasy, LSD and other “party drugs” in Porto Alegre, Brazil. To do this, U.S. taxpayers will invest $117,876 for the three-year study, conducted by researchers from the University of Delaware, who will work in collaboration with researchers from Brazil's Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul.
Federal employees wasted at least $146 million over a one-year period in business- or first-class airline tickets bought in violation of travel policies, Congressional investigators say.
It looks like Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., is going to get his wish – $2 million in taxpayer funding for a library commemorating his 37 years in the House of Representatives. The Charles B. Rangel Center for Public service will serve as a repository for his "papers," and the Congressman will have his own office in the Harlem complex.
The earned income tax credit (EITC) provides $31 billion in refundable tax credits to 19 million low-income families. The IRS estimates that $8.5 billion to $9.9 billion of this amount—nearly one-third—is wasted in overpayments.
A recent audit revealed that between 1997 and 2003, the Defense Department purchased and then left unused approximately 270,000 commercial airline tickets at a total cost of $100 million.
Since World War II, the U.S. has spent $1.2 trillion on foreign aid to 70 countries – and all are worse off than they were in 1980, according to the U.N.
For the Department of Commerce for giving the City and County of Honolulu $28,600 in 1981 to study how they could spend another $250,000 for a good surfing beach.
For the Health Care Financing Administration for Medicaid payments to psychiatrists for unscheduled, coincidental meetings with patients who were attending basketball games, sitting on stoops, etc. -- the cost of which was between $40 and $80 million from 1981 to 1984.
The National Endowment for the Humanities for a $25,000 grant in 1977 to study why people cheat, lie and act rudely on local Virginia tennis courts.
The Office of Education for spending $219,592 in 1978 to develop a curriculum to teach college students how to watch television.
The Environmental Protection Agency for spending an extra $1 million to $1.2 million in 1980 to preserve a Trenton, NJ sewer as a historical monument.
In 2005 - $469,000 for the National Wildlife Turkey Federation in South Carolina.
In 2005 - $100,000 for the Punxsatawny Weather Discovery Center Museum.
In 2005 - $350,000 for the Inner Harmony Foundation and Wellness Center in Scranton, Penn.
In 2005 - $1,430,000 for various Halls of Fame, including $250,000 for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tenn., and $70,000 for the Paper Industry International Hall of Fame in Appleton, Wis.
Medicare, the U.S. health-insurance program for the elderly and disabled, erroneously paid out $19.9 billion during fiscal 2004, up from $19.6 billion a year earlier, because of mistakes, waste and fraud, a government report said. In most cases, hospitals and doctors billed for medically unnecessary services or didn't provide proper documentation to support the fees for services.
The GAO estimated that between 1997 and 2003, the Defense Department spent an estimated $100 million for airline tickets that were not used over a six-year period and failed to seek refunds even though the tickets were reimbursable.
While Andrew Cuomo was HUD Secretary under Bill Clinton, the agency set up a "Creative Wellness" program that spent $1,100,000 million taxpayer dollars on “gem” bags and taught public tenants to burn incense.
The study, titled "Status/Dominance and Motivational Effects on Nonverbal Sensitivity and Smiling," attempts to find out if it's really true that women smile more than men, and if people of higher status smile less. Judith Hall, a highly respected researcher at Northeastern University in Boston, is conducting the smile study — and it is not her first. Since 1993, she has been awarded more than $500,000.
A National Science Foundation study looking at whether White House reporters have become more adversarial sounds a bit strange to reporters and critics. Even more surprising: the study cost taxpayers $180,000.
In 2001 more than $600,000 in tax money was spent on researching the sex lives of South African ground squirrels.
The head of the IRS sent out a notice to every person advising them that they would be receiving a tax refund in 2001 - the estimated cost $30,000,000.
In 1998 more than $800,000 was approved for a coal library in Pennsylvania. Defenders stated that it would provide historical insight into a very important part of Pennsylvania and history.
In 2001 the U.S.. Government gave $5,000,000 to the University of Alaska, North Pacific University, and the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation to fund the "stellar sea lion recovery plan."
In the year 2001, Congress appropriated $340,000,000 in federal tax dollars to PBS (Public Broadcasting Services).
In 1999 the U.S. government spent $500,000 for a Mississippi research project on "manure handling and disposal".
In 1999 the U.S. government spent $1,500,000 million to promote silk production in Laos.
In 1999 the U.S. government spent $1 ,000,000 for the "eradication of Brown Tree Snakes" (Hawaii).
In 1999 the U.S. government spent $1,000,000 to "develop and train Alaska natives for employment in the petroleum industry."
In 1999 the U.S. government spent $500,000 for water taxis in Savannah (Georgia).
In 1999 the U.S. government spent $200,000 for a transit center for the Toledo Mud Hens minor league baseball team.
In 1999 $1,200,000 million to subsidize a park on the Galapagos Islands.
In 2000 the U.S. government spent $100,000 to study the causes of sediment buildup at a Santa Cruz, New Mexico dam.
In 2002 the U.S. government spent $50,000 for a tattoo removal program in San Luis Obispo, California.
In 2002 the U.S. government spent $400,000 for the Montana Sheep Institute to improve the profitability of the state's sheep industry.
In 2002 the U.S. government spent $273,000 for the Blue Springs (Missouri) Youth Orchestra Outreach Unit for educational training to combat Goth culture.
In 2003 the U.S. government spent $1,000,000 appropriation for the Center for Public Service and the Common Good (a think tank) at the University of San Francisco.
In 2002 the U.S. government spent $400,000 for manure management research at the National Swine Research Center.
In 2002 the U.S. government spent $1,100,000 for the Mountain Made Foundation in Thomas, West Virginia for business development and the education of artists and craftspeople.
In 2002 the U.S. government spent $4,000,000 to implement the forest and fish report of the Washington State.
In 2002 the U.S. government spent $500,000 for exhibits on the Sullivan brothers at the Grout Museum in Waterloo, Iowa.
In 2002 the U.S. government spent $61,000 for the State Historical Society to archive the history of Iowa workers.
In 2002 the U.S. government spent $1,200,000 for the Ohio Arts Council to expand international programs.
In 2002 the U.S. government spent $2,900,000 for the Mountaineer Doctor Television program at West Virginia University.
In 2002 the U.S. government spent $2,000,000 for an educational mall at the Raleigh County Commission in Beckley.
In 2002 the U.S. government spent $2,000,000 for West Virginia University to establish a Center on Obesity.
In 2002 the U.S. government spent $260,000 for asparagus technology in the state of Washington.
In 2002 the U.S. government spent $1,200,000 for music education at the GRAMMY Foundation.
In 2000 the U.S. government spent $50,000 for the development of a Welcome Center Facility City for Enumclaw, Washington.
In 1997 - $4,000,000 for the Gambling Impact Study Commission.
In 1997 - $330,000 for Stellar Sea Lion research of the North Pacific Universities Marine Mammal Consortium.
In 1997 - $785,000 for bluefish/striped bass research by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
In 1997 - $2,700,000 added by the Senate for the Animal Resource Wing at South Dakota State University.
In 1997 - $4,000,000 added in conference for the Discovery Center of Science and Technology.
In 1997 - $19,600,000 added by the House for the International Fund for Ireland, a program that tries to aid the peace process in Ireland by paying for golf videos, pony trekking centers, and sweater exports.
In 1997 - $16,369,000 added by the Senate for public library construction.
In 1997 - $9,469,000 added in conference for Migrant Education programs including: $7,441,000 for the High School Equivalency Program; and $2,028,000 for the College Assistance Migrant Program.
In 1997 - $3,100,000 added by the Senate for the National Writing Project.
In 1997 - $8,200,000 for a new classroom building at the Rowley Secret Service Training Center in Beltsville, Maryland, which is the district of House Treasury, Postal Service and General Government Appropriations subcommittee member Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and the state of Senate appropriator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.).
In 1998 - $220,000 added by the Senate for lowbush blueberry research in Maine.
In 1994 - $221,000 for lowbush blueberry research at the University of Maine in the state of Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-ME).
In 1998 - $150,000 added by the House for the National Center for Peanut Competitiveness.
In 1998 - $127,000 added by the Senate for global marketing support services in the state of Senate appropriator Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.). According to testimony, the goal of this research is to identify “potential foreign markets for Arkansas products….”
In 1998 - $32,000 added by the Senate for the Center for Rural Studies in the state of Senate appropriator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). A portion of this grant money is used for analytical reports to guide the development of Vermont retail shopping areas.
In 1998 - $500,000 added by the House in the district of House appropriator Richard Durbin (D-IL) for the construction at the Lincoln Home National Historic Site, Illinois, of Charles Corneau’s house, a neighbor and friend of Abraham Lincoln.
In 1998 - $10,912,000 added by the Senate for foreign language assistance.
In 1994 - $200,000 for locoweed research at New Mexico State University in the state of House appropriator Joe Skeen (R-NM). Since 1992, $716,000 has been appropriated, and there is no expected completion date for this research.
In 1994 - $1,000,000 added in the Senate for the Multispecies Aquaculture Center in the state of Senate appropriator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ).
In 1994 - $19,600,000 added in the House for the International Fund for Ireland. The conference report “restores language stricken by the Senate and appropriates up to $19,600,000 for the International Fund for Ireland.” In the past, this program has used American taxpayer dollars for a golf video and pony trekking centers.
In 1993 - $19,704,000 for the International Fund for Ireland requested, according to committee sources, by House Speaker Thomas Foley (D-WA).
In 1993 - $9,170,000 added in conference for the Southwestern Pennsylvania Heritage Preservation Commission in the district of House appropriator John Murtha (D-PA).
In 1992 - $2,000,000 added in conference by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) for a New York Bight Center for undersea research.
$1.2 TRILLION spent with very little societal benefit to show for it except the ability of incumbent politicians to use taxpayer money to fund their continual reelection. The following random acts of wasteful spending come from the "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" website (http://www.loathemygovernment.com/):
1. $500,000 for a “Teapot Museum” in North Carolina.
2. $3,000,000 to the First Tee Organization whose mission is to “promote character development and life enhancing values through the game of golf.”
3. $500,000 to buy 21 train cabooses to be repurposed for a “caboose motel” in Titusville, Pennsylvania.
4. $150,000 to fix plumbing in Bronx, New York Italian restaurants.
5. $5,600,000 to fix the Anaheim Angels (a major league baseball team and a privately owned and operated company) scoreboard after an earthquake.
6. $5,000,000 to build a new Parliament building in the Solomon Islands, a part of the British Commonwealth.
7. $1,500,000 for a Federal study of parking at truck stops.
8. Over $200,000 for a cat and dog census in a California county.
9. $445,000 for a Hudson River scenic overlook from Route 9 to the waterfront in Poughkeepsie, New York.
10. $77,826 for the study, “Coping With Change in Czechoslovakia.”
11. $125,000 to compile a “Simo-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus.”
12. $400,000 to study the “The Expressive Culture of the San Blas Islands” in Panama.
13. A $1,000,000 Utah study on how to cross the street.
14. $250,000 for research to cut asparagus industry labor costs.
15. $200,000 to Ocean Spray to market white cranberry juice in Great Britain.
16. $2,000,000 to construct a parking facility at the University of Incarnate World, a Catholic institution in San Antonio despite adequate existing parking facilities.
17. $70,000 for a Paper Industry Hall of Fame in Wisconsin.
18. $26,000,000 to operate the selective Service even though there has not been any military draft since 1973.
19. $519,000,000 in farm subsidies in the 1995 - 2003 period, to Riceland Foods in Arkansas. Riceland receives more Federal money in a typical year than all the farmers in 12 other states combined.
20. $300,000 for a feasibility study for the world’s first fully enclosed motor speedway in Ohio.
21. $150,000 to the Grammy Foundation to support Grammy Camp where 60 students learn the music business.
22. $775,000 to the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, Florida - part of a project to provide economic opportunity in areas of low or moderate income. However, Coral Gables’ per capita income is almost 20 percent above the national average.
23. $213,000 for olive fruit fly research in France.
24. $1,900,000 for the Center For Grape Genetics in New York.
25. $2,500,000 for fish waste research in Alaska.
26. $1,200,000 for cormorant control in several states (cormorants are birds - this is one example where you honestly say your taxpayer money is “for the birds”, “flying the coop”, etc.).
27. $750,000 for the World Food Prize in Des Moines, Iowa.
28. $350,000 for the Museum Of Aviation in Warner Robins, Georgia.
29. $250,000 for a bike path between Lexington and Port Sanilax, Michigan.
30. $350,000 to widen Bristol Street in Santa Ana, California.
31. $1.8 million to renovate the Historical Fort Hamilton Community Club in the New York City area.
32. $18.9 million for a center at the University of Massachusetts "dedicated to educating the general public, students, teachers, new Senators and Senate staff about the role and importance of the Senate."
33. $200,000 for the Arkansas Commercial Driver Training Institute.
34. $150,000 for education programs and exhibitions at the Washington DC National Building Museum.
35. $134,000 for the Montana World Trade Center.
36. $100,000 for the Myrtle Beach International Trade and Conference Center.
37. $500,000 for exhibits at the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium in Dubuque, Iowa.
38. $150,000 for exhibits and interactive displays at the Teddy Roosevelt Inaugural Site Foundation.
39. $250,000 for construction of the Monroe County Farmer's Market in Kentucky.
40. $250,000 to renovate the Murphy Theater in Ohio.
41. $194,000 for restoration of the Slater Mill in Rhode Island
42. $150,000 to renovate the Pregone Theater in the Bronx.
43. $100,000 to build the Santa Ana River Trail in California.
What a shameful waste. A few observations and suggestions come to mind:
- When the Statue of Liberty was badly in need of refurbishment back in the 1970s, no taxpayer money was used to fix it up. It was all financed by citizen and corporate donations. Going forward, the political class should not be able to allocate any money for local projects like the dozens listed above unless that project was more important than the Statue Of Liberty, one of the shining examples of liberty of our country. Thus, if this rule was in place, no Federal taxpayer money would ever be wasted on bike trails, repurposed cabooses, etc. since none of those projects are more worthy of government financing than the Statue of Liberty.
- Step 44 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" should also be deployed to eliminate the trillion dollars of wasteful spending highlighted above. Step 44 would not allow any Federal money to be used on any project unless that project had a substantial impact on a significant number of citizens from at least five states. For example, Federal money would continue to be used to support Amtrak since that affects many states and many states' citizens across the country, However, under Step 44's criteria, no Federal dollars would ever be used again to build a local river trail, build a local farmers' market, etc., since these types of projects should all be handled with instate tax dollars.
- And our favorite step from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" also comes into play here. Step 39 would impose term limits on all Federal politicians, "one and done," Many of the above examples of wasteful spending are done by incumbent politicians to show the back home voters how they can get Federal dollars flowing back to their states and Congressional districts, no matter how stupid the projects being funded are. If incumbents knew that they had no chance of being reelected due to term limits, the need to funnel money back home to support their reelection chances goes away.
As we stated above, for those examples of wasteful spending from our website, the vast majority of them get 100% negative ratings from the visitors to the site that vote on each one. Those that do not get 100% negative votes get very few positive votes. Thus, most Americans recognize the insanity of wasting their tax dollars on these types of programs and projects, makes you wonder why the political class does not see it the same way.
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/
This week we have been reviewing random acts of wasteful spending, courtesy of the Federal government and the American political class. Random acts of waste involve one time instances of miscellaneous misspending of taxpayer money in foolish, ineffective, or just plain idiotic ways. This is different from systemic wasteful spending that occurs on a regular, recurring basis and includes such examples of waste and criminal fraud that happens every day in the Social Security and Medicare programs, just to name a few.
However, random acts of wasteful spending are no less important than systemic acts of wasteful spending since their toll eventually gets well up into the billions of dollars. This week we have already discussed the $80 million the State Department wasted BEFORE they realized the the U.S. consulate building they built in northern Afghanistan was not defendable against Taliban and terrorist attacks.
This week we also talked about the $300 million the U.S. Navy spent to build two ships BEFORE they realized those same ships were not needed. Adding insult to injury, the Navy then spent another $10 million to dismantle the same ships that were never used.
This week we also reviewed the totally unnecessary expenditure that the House Of Representatives granted itself where House members can get free auto leases and free gas, courtesy of the American taxpayer.
The list goes on and on of these types of random wasteful spending situations. But today let's focus on a newly discovered piece of waste, courtesy of our ill-advised and ill-executed mission in Iraq, as outlined in a New York Times article that was reprinted in the May 12, 2012 issue of the Tampa Bay Times:
- According to the article, the U.S. and Iraqi governments planned to jointly implement a massive police training program which was to include 350 U.S. law enforcement personnel that was supposed to be "the centerpiece of a hugely expanded civilian mission here [in Iraq]."
- The program has already spent $500 million but has fallen well short of its goals with only 50 law enforcement personnel having actually been deployed, vs. the planned 350. And it is quite possible that even those 50 might not make it in place by the end of the year.
- The $500 million has been spent only since last October, about $71 million a month on average, with virtually nothing to show for it.
- But it gets worse. The article goes on to explain that another large program with the Iraqi government, budgeted at $343 million, was supposed to be used in the construction of physical facilities that would be used to train the in-country police forces. These facilities were supposed to accommodate more than a thousand trainers and staff people for the next five years.
- The article does not provide any information on how much of the $343 million has already been spent but makes it quite clear that this program is also falling apart: "But like so much else in the nine years of war, occupation, and reconstruction here, it has not gone as planned."
- This conclusion is verified by a quote in the article from Robert Periot, director of the Security Sector Governance Center Of Innovation at the U.S. Institute of Peace; he called the project a "small program for a lot of money."
The waste just keeps on coming. Whether in Afghanistan, U.S. Navy yards, the House of Representatives, or now in Iraq, it seems that the political class and the Federal bureaucracy it oversees adhere to the old, wasteful saying: Ready! Fire! Aim! Why do these people always find out how bad and wasteful their efforts are AFTER they spend the taxpayers' wealth?
As we discussed all this week, if Federal employees and managers lost their jobs for wasting $832,000 on a Las Vegas conference, somebody in the Defense Department and/or State Department needs to lose their jobs for wasting many times $832,000 and have very little to show for the expenditures.
In addition, Step 34 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would come in very handy in this disaster also. Step 34 would provide an orderly, predefined process to remove those members of the Congressional committees that oversaw the government organizations that wasted possibly up to $843 million on this failed police training and police facilities program.
Firing bureaucrats and removing politicians from committee posts would probably cause others in the Federal government to more fully think through their budgets and associated expenses lest they too get a pink slip for incompetence. Only then would we finally return to the sanity approach of: Ready! Aim! And Maybe Fire, assuming that all of the contingencies and cost/benefits have been explored, BEFORE the order to Fire is executed.
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/
