Unfortunately, as we have gone through time, we have not been able to fit the monthly political insanity into just one blog post, the amount of monthly idiocy has become too much. Sadly, this is the case again this month as we will need the next two days to get all of the latest insanity in.
1) Let's start with some examples from our best source for political class insanity, our monthly edition of Reason magazine:
- Many times we have reviewed the tremendous amount of taxpayer wealth that has been flushed down the drain by the Obama administration and its continual funding of solar and alternative energy companies in this country, the vast majority of which were never viable businesses to start with and most of which have gone bankrupt, taking down taxpayer investments with them. Billions expended and nothing to show for them, whether in the area of newly "created" green jobs or the creation of green energy.
Now, research and actual results show that this was never a viable strategy to begin with, i.e. the Federal government subsidizing alternative and solar energy's growth:
- Phillipp Rosler, Germany's minister of economics and technology points out in the Reason article that subsidizing solar energy with government (taxpayer) money is actually "a threat to the economy"
- Since 2003, Germany has spent $130 billion on solar energy that produces just 3% of the country's electricity while increasing the overall cost for German electricity by $14 a month.
- In 2010, Spanish researchers calculated that nearly nine jobs are destroyed in the rest of the Spanish economy for every one created by government solar subsidies.
- Researchers at an Italian think tank, Bruno Leoni Institute, found that each green job subsidized and created in the Italian economy cost five others outside of the solar industry.
- Similarly, a German think tank, the Rhine-Westphalia Institute For Economic Research, concluded that government solar subsidies "resulted in massive expenditures that show little long term promise for stimulating the economy, protecting the environment, or increasing energy security."
Meanwhile, the American political class and the Obama administration continue to think that giving away taxpayer money to selected cronies and pet projects in the alternative energy field is a good idea. Europe figured it out: if a technology, product, or service is a worthwhile economic endeavor, no government subsidies are needed. If it is not a worthwhile or viable economic endeavor, no amount of government subsides and support will make it viable.
The Chevy Volt, Solyndra, Beacon, Spectra, A123, ENER1, and many other heavily subsidized, U.S. alternative energy companies have been multi-billion dollar American failures. The insanity is that the politicians in this country do not realize they are insane yet, unlike their European counterparts who have recognized their own insanity.
- The IRS has just established a new set of regulations that forces income tax preparers who fill out income tax forms for Americans to pay $50 to obtain a license from the Federal government before they can complete any tax returns in the future. According to Reason, this is the first time ever that the IRS and the Federal government have come down so hard financially on those that prepare income taxes.
But is this a worthwhile regulation? It raises many more questions about why it is needed than it answers:
- Apparently you do not have to prove you are capable of correctly completing someone else's income tax forms. You just have to pay the government $50 for the privilege of getting a license, the overall quality of the tax preparation business does not appear to be improved.
- If you have a family member or friend who prepares your taxes and you are comfortable with how well they have done it in the past, you may lose that comfort zone if that preparer decides it is not worthwhile paying the annual $50. In this case, your life has been disrupted by unnecessary government interference into a process that will not be improved by that government interference.
- How would they ever enforce such a statute, especially if a friend or family member helped you prepare your taxes? All the two of you would have to do is agree that you prepared the taxes yourself, the government would be none the wiser. Thus, not only is it unnecessary and costly, the intent of the law is easily eluded.
- Shouldn't individual Americans be the ones to decide who completes their taxes? If I trust my neighbor to do my taxes, that is the risk I should take. If I feel I need a big tax company to complete my taxes, that is the decision I should decide to make and pay the likely higher cost of tax preparation for a less risky approach to my tax preparation.
2) Let's be honest, the country is facing many dangerous and difficult situations. We have skyrocketing debt, our schools under educate our kids, the war on drugs continues to be lost, Iran and North Korea are steadily approaching the day when the will be nuclear armed countries, health care costs continue to increase year over year, our borders still leak, etc.
Given these major problems, what is a major political figure in Washington worried about? According to a May 27, 2012 Associated Press report: "Senator Charles Schumer is urging airlines to allow families with young children to sit together without paying extra." If polled, how many Americans do we think would put this issue in their top ten list of worries for their family and the country? Would it even make the top 50 or top 100? Ridiculously bad priority setting.
I would like to make a deal with the good Senator: Mr. Schumer, you worry about the big issues facing America with your colleagues in Washington and maybe resolve one or two of those, and I will worry about my relationship, customer service wise and price wise, with a private company such as an airline. I would much prefer that you improve the education of American kids, for example, than focus on where American kids sit on an airplane.
Just another horrific example of politicians working on the wrong issues. This continues to indicate to me that they do not really know how to fix the major issues of our day, forcing them to work on trivial stuff to reinforce their self image that they are at least working on something, no matter how trivial.
3) According to an article at http://www.examiner.com/ on May 16, 2012, a local Illinois taxpayer advocate group, Illinois For the Good of Illinois, was looking into the spending history of the Chicago city government when they came across some interesting findings. The group had been looking at every single check the Chicago government had written over the past ten years to vendors.
The group found $74 billion worth of vendor checks had been written over that time frame. One of those vendors turned out to be very interesting and somewhat distressing. Sixteen of those vendor checks, totally about $5,200, were directly made out to the Admiral Theater strip club in Chicago.
Now, there may be legitimate reasons why the City of Chicago had to send the Admiral Theater strip club at least 16 different checks at different times. I cannot possibly think of what those reasons might be but maybe they exist. The bigger concern I would have as a Chicago taxpayer is were there only 16 checks and only one strip club involved? Or where other, similar checks written to other "endeavors" like the Admiral but their existence was covered up with accounting tricks and deceit?
4) A May 17, 2012 online article at the Fox News Latino website reported that the state of Florida believes that it has about 53,000 dead people on its voting rolls. 53,000 people, or people impersonating them, are currently eligible to vote in Florida unless the political class and state government can clean up those voter files within the next few months.
After hundreds of years and thousands of elections, one would have hope that the political classes around the country, at the local, state, and national levels, would have already figured out and implemented the processes needed to ensure that elections are clean, accurate, and supportive of a very basic tenet of our democracy, one vote and one vote only for every citizen. Apparently, at least in the state of Florida, and likely in many other places, it is insanity to believe our politicians can actually deliver on that voting promise in 2012.
Maybe they are too busy worrying about seating arrangements on airlines.
5) According to a New York Times article that was summarized in the June 8, 2012 issue of The Week magazine, Afghanistan produces about 375 tons of heroin for export every year. Of the 375 tons, only about 3.5% of it is ever intercepted by Afghan authorities, according to the United Nations.
Makes you wonder if it is time for the political class and the nation to take a good, hard look at our failed war on drugs if well over 350 tons of heroin are flowing into the world every year, an amount that is highly likely to go up once Western troops Afghanistan. Continuing to try and win this war by intercepting illegal drugs is probably going to continue to be a losing proposition.
6) Under Federal law and nutritional guidelines, it is illegal to allow kids to purchase soda during lunch from a school vending machine. Kids can purchase the soda before the lunch period and drink it during lunch, they can purchase a soda before the lunch period and drink it after lunch, they can purchase a soda after lunch and drink it after lunch, they just cannot purchase during the lunch period and consumer it during the lunch period. Sounds silly, doesn't it?
But it is not silly to Davis High School in Utah, which was recently fined $15,000 for violating this bizarre and silly set of guidelines. Rather than make it simple, and more effective, why not just ban the sale of soda in public schools altogether? Setting the above conditions just makes the feds look like idiots since the regulations can be beat so easily by the kids.
Bad priorities from Schumer and airline seating, bad alternative energy economic policy from the Obama administration, bad soda consumption rules, bad election process management, bad check writing in Chicago, and bad bureaucracy growth in the tax preparation arena from the IRS. It is a BAD time to be an American citizen and taxpayer under the current dark cloud of the current political class. Unfortunately, the bad times will continue to roll along, along with the associated insanity, when we finish up with similar instances of political class insanity tomorrow.
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/
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