Now It Is HUD's Turn To Waste Taxpayer Wealth

Many times we have gone through various Federal government organizations and how they continually waste taxpayer wealth, year in and year out. These recurring sources of spending waste include, but are not limited to, the following government entities and programs:

• Annual Medicare waste estimate: $70 - $90 billion
• Annual Medicaid waste estimate: $40 - $60 billion
• Annual Social Security waste estimate: $100 - $125 billion
• Annual IRS tax evasion estimate: $385 billion
• Annual IRS identify theft income tax filing fraud: billions
• Annual unemployment benefits waste: $19 billion

These are just a sample of the wasteful spending and criminal fraud that the political class and the Federal government perpetuates on us every year. Not to be outdone, a new audit report shows that the Federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) organization can join the list of government entities that can also lose over a billion dollars a year.

A Moneynews report from September 21, 2012 identified the following disgrace from HUD, courtesy of the organization's inspector general's analysis:

• HUD's Pre-Foreclosure Sale Program was supposed to save struggling homeowners from foreclosure.
• However, the Federal government might have paid more than $1 billion to homeowners who didn't qualify for it.
• A sample of claims from the program found that there were problems with more than 75% of the sampled claims.
• The inspector general audit estimated that HUD paid $1.06 billion in fraudulent claims for 11,693 pre-foreclosure sales that did not meet requirements of the Federal Housing Authority (FHA), which runs the program.
• The  Pre-foreclosure Sale Program requirements required that 1) homeowners must be facing an unavoidable financial crisis, 2) live in the home and 3) show they lack income to make monthly mortgage payments. However, the inspector general audit found that some home owners had enough savings for seven to nine months of mortgage payments, many applicants had no unavoidable financial hardship, others were not owner-occupied homes, other applicants had no income verification, and mortgage lenders failed to verify expenses for 60% of the sampled claims.
• As a result of this gross mishandling of the program's specifications and the related taxpayer payouts on claims, the inspector general concluded: "HUD did not have adequate controls to enforce the program requirements, and the requirements were not well-written. HUD did not adequately monitor and enforce the program requirements."
• As result of this incompetence, the article quotes government sources that the entire FHA mortgage effort "will need a government bailout because of poor risk management and its booming loan volumes. Its capital reserves have fallen below its mandated amount of 2 percent of its portfolio."

Great, does anyone in the Federal government know how to do their jobs without screwing up any situation more than before they began? The Federal government has been doing these types of functions for decades, if not centuries, but does no one in Washington know how to run anything efficiently and effectively? Who is responsible for wasting hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars every year and why have they not been fired for gross incompetence? And a screwup rate of over 75% is certainly gross.

Two steps from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" are needed in order to finally bring some competence to Washington:

1. Step 34 would remove Congressional members from their committee posts for such dereliction of duty and the wasting of hundreds of billions of dollars every year. In this instance, politicians sitting  on the committees overseeing HUD operations might be removed for not ensuring that HUD procedures were followed and over a billion dollars wasted. Step 34 proposes some processes that could be used to implement such accountability measures.
2. Step 39 would impose term limits on all Washington politicians. It is obvious that those serving in Congress are part of the problem since they have been unable to get government to function effectively and efficiently. How much worse could it get to get new people in office, people who would not tolerate a 75% error rate from government entities?

The final step that is needed is to get people into office that would actually fire government bureaucracts who do not do their job effectively. In the private sector, if your screwup rate is over 75%, you will not be in that job very long. Same principle should apply to government jobs, screwup like you have been doing and get fired.

I would bet that if a few high ranking bureaucrats actually got fired for wasting taxpayer wealth, the operating efficiency of government would increase dramatically as others finally started dong their job. Not everyone should get a chance to waste taxpayer wealth, from Medicare to HUD, it must stop.


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

The Final Signs The Apocalypse Is Upon Us - The Horrendous Priorities of Barack Obama

As I have honestly stated many times in this blog, up until the November, 2010 midterm elections, I had never voted for a Republican for national office in my life. I am 59 years old. I was so distressed by the George. W. Bush administration that I ended up writing and publishing a book about how to fix what he and the rest of the Washington political class had done to our country, our democracy, and our economy.

 But after the first three and a half years of the Obama administration, especially the signs of the apocalypse that he has wrought on this country over the past two weeks with his horrendous set of priorities and selfcenteredness, I  am sure that I have never been so scared and discouraged about the future of our nation and our democracy as I am now.

However, before we review the signs of the apocalypse, let's review what has been going on in the world and the country over just the past few weeks:

• The Prime Minister and leader of possibly our only true ally in the Middle East, Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, had asked for a meeting with President Obama to discuss the continuing danger and growing nuclear threat of Iran. He was told that a Presidential meeting was not possible due to "scheduling conflicts."
• Iran has continued to rapidly approach the ability to produce nuclear weapons and recently declared it will attack its enemies presumptively if it feared they were poised to attack. Any such military action by any side of the conflict would surely send gas and oil prices through the roof and likely push the world and the United States back into a major recession.
• A U.S. ambassador was killed along with three other Americans when American soil, in the form of a U.S. consulate facility in Libya, was stormed and destroyed by terrorists. This was the first time in 33 years that a U.S. ambassador, a representative of the government and the country, had been killed doing his job.
• These murders were just one part of a series of unprecedented assaults on U.S. embassies, U.S. soil, and U.S. interests around the world.
• The number of Americans applying for first time unemployment benefits this week  was 359,000, consistent with the long term trend of a continued weak economy.
• The government also announced that the new estimate for annual GDP growth for the second quarter was reduced to only 1.3%, down  from its original estimate of 1.7%, and U.S. manufacturing levels also decreased, not good signs for any improvement in the short term unemployment picture.
• One credit rating agency has explicitly threatened to downgrade the nation's credit rating as the national debt soars above $16 TRILLION, with no plan in sight to get government spending under control, and other credit rating agencies are implying they may follow suit.
• The inspector general off the Justice Department released a report regarding the Obama administration's bungled Fast and Furious gun running operation. Recall that Fast and Furious did not meet any of it's objectives of tracking the pipeline of weapons to the Mexican drug cartels. However, the program did break domestic laws, did break international treaties, and resulted in a U.S. Federal agent and numerous innocent Mexican citizens being killed with Fast and Furious guns. The report faulted the Justice's  ATF agency for misguided strategies, errors in judgment and management failures during a bungled gun-trafficking probe in Arizona that resulted in hundreds of weapons turning up at crime scenes in the U.S. and Mexico. The report strongly suggested that 14 senior government officials be disciplined and/or fired. 

This is where the signs of the apocalypse come in. In the face of this sour economy, an illegal gun running calamity, Middle East tensions, assaults on U.S. embassies, etc., what has President Obama been doing in the past few weeks:

1. He attended another campaign fund raiser in Las Vegas very shortly after the Libyan terrorist attack, bypassing his daily intelligence briefing despite the attack and death of Americans.
2. He had an interview with a pirate on National Pirate Day, a celebration that has absolutely nothing to do with the economy, foreign affairs, or any other topic of national importance.
3. He flew to New York City to be interviewed on "The View" television show, a show that has absolutely nothing to do with the economy, foreign affairs, or any other  topic of national importance.
4. He flew to New York City to be interviewed on the "David Letterman Show," a television show that has absolutely nothing to do with the economy, foreign affairs, or any other topic of national importance.
5. He weighed in with an official Presidential press release regarding the NFL's use of replacement referees, a topic that has absolutely nothing to do with the economy, foreign affairs, or any other topic of national importance.
6. He did not have time, due to "scheduling conflicts," to meet with the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, whose nation is extremely worried about a nuclear attack from Iran.
7. He did not have time to meet with the Lebanese Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, who was in the country and is the leader of a country that is in a pivotal position in the Middle East, bordering Israel and the civil war wracked country of Syria, sending Hillary Clinton instead to meet with him.
8. He did not have time to meet with the Yemeni President, Abdo Rabo Mansour Had, who was in the country and who is an ally that is fighting a major terrorist organization in his country, sending Hillary Clinton instead.
9. He did not have time to met with the Iraqi Vice President, Khudayr Musa Jafar Abbas Al-Khuzai, who was in the country and helps lead a pivotal country in the Middle East, just across from Iran, sending Hillary Clinton instead.
10. He did have time to meet with Arab League Secretary General, Nabil Al-Araby, who was in the country and who is a key diplomat relative to the entire Middle East, sending Hillary Clinton instead.

When you have a President who behaves more like a Prince than a leader or President, a President  who is more involved with television shows and NFL issues, a President who should be leading the cause for peace and freedom in the Middle East but has no time for such diplomacy or leadership, you surely have numerous signs that the apocalypse is upon us. When the welfare and national security of the nation takes a back seat to late night and morning television shows, the four horsemen cannot be to far be too far behind.

This Princely vs. Presidential behavior should not be confused with the behavior of those in Congress who have decided to take the second half of September off and most, if not all, the whole month of October off despite the crises listed above. Never have Obama and the incumbents in Congress proven so vividly that we need to implement term limits for all Federal politicians as outlined in Step 39 of "Love My Country, Loathe My Government,"  as soon as possible. The current politicians in Washington have proven that their own selfish needs take priority over economic crises, foreign affairs, and national security. 


Short term, we need to purge them all, starting in November, by sweeping out all incumbents and long term, by amending the Constitution to install term limits. If we do neither of these steps, the signs of the apocalypse will turn into the reality of the apocalypse.

September 28, 2012 update: President Obama will attend three political fund raising events today but still does not have time to meet with Netanyahu.

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

Bailout Review - TARP, Too Big To Fail, Fannie, Freddie, Chrysler, and The General Motors Con Job

CNNMoney recently published some analysis that they had completed using the latest U.S. Treasury information. They went through the history and payback, or lack of payback, behavior of those entities that had been fortunate enough to receive taxpayer bailout money, courtesy of the Washington political class.

The results of their investigation are not pretty and include the following conclusions:

• The government has already written off some of its losses on the Chrysler bailout. Chrysler, which is now owned and  controlled by Italian automaker Fiat, left behind an unpaid tab of $1.3 billion for U.S. taxpayers to pay off from its total infusion of $12.4 billion.
• The former financing arm of General Motors, GMAC, which is now known as Ally Financial, received $16.3 billion of taxpayer wealth but has only paid $5.7 billion so far. The CNNMoney analysis concluded that Ally may never be able to pay the remaining $10.6 billion without a successful IPO.
• Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Federal government's housing subsidy disasters received about $187.5 billion of bailout money but have only paid back $70.7 billion. Independent analyses have proven that the difference, $116.8 billion, is unlikely to ever be repaid and will probably continue to get worse over time.
• While the biggest banks in the country have paid back their TARP funds, about 400 smaller banks still owe the American taxpayer $35 billion from various TARP programs.
• General Motors received $51 billion in bailout funds from the American taxpayer and has repaid about $24 billion so far. However, the GM stock price would have to increase about 150%, from the current price of about $23 to $57, highly unlikely, for the taxpayers to just breakeven.
• Thus, the article's analysis leads to the conclusion that each American household, on average, is still owed about $1,750 each for the unpaid balance of the bailout funds.

Disgraceful waste of taxpayer wealth. Chrysler is no longer an American company and the American taxpayer paid over a $1 billion to make it so. Poorly performing banks are still around, not due to the great leadership of their management, but the $35 billion American taxpayers gave them to cover their mistakes and mismanagement. Fannie and Freddie are still eating up taxpayer wealth with no reformation or termination plans underway.

But the greatest sham pulled on the American taxpayer is General Motors. The Obama political campaign continues to boast that "Bin Laden is dead but General Motors is alive" but considering the GM facts above and the following facts, you consider if this is really "living:"

• As mentioned above, General Motors and its former financing arm, GMAC, are alive today and in  their present format only because of the unpaid $35 billion or so they owe the American taxpayer.
• Delphi was once a subsidiary of GM. News reports, based on actual released government email communications, show that Obama's Treasury Department was instrumental in deciding that thousands of non-union Delphi employees would have their pensions terminated while union employees at Delphi would have their full pension rights maintained in the auto bailout plans. How sad that Ameircans' futures are determined not on fairness but on political favors and potential votes.
• The CNNMoney website reported in February, 2011 that The U.S. Treasury forgave $14 billion in tax revenue because of unconventional deal it granted to General Motors. Although GM has had profitable periods since the bailout, it will not have to pay taxes since the Obama administration allowed GM to maintain past financial losses on its book to offset future profits for years to come. According to CNNMoney, this tax break is completely against standard bankruptcy proceedings and laws and will reduce GM's U.S. tax bill by an estimated $14 billion in the coming years, and its global taxes by close to $19 billion, according to a company filing. Another favor to Obama's political supporters at the expense of Ford and other honest carmakers and other American companies.
• In June of this year the current GM, Dan Akerson, gave a speech where he bragged how now seven out of ten GM cars are now made by factories outside of the United States, mostly China, and that GM was also moving research and development resources overseas.

Thus, who still thinks that this bailout was a good idea to pay tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer wealth so that the recipient of that wealth could build up its business overseas? Insanity.

No matter how you cut it, none of these bailouts were good ideas. The government should never have gotten involved. It should have allowed normal bankruptcy laws/procedures and market forces shape the events  that have unfolded over the past few years. It would have resulted in fairer treatment of investors, employers, and taxpayers and not rewarded incompetent business managers and political cronies.

When government gets involved, it gathers control over the nation and its people. And government control not only wastes taxpayer wealth it also destroys freedom when petty politicians get to choose winners and losers in life.


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

The following words are something I have never done before. My blog posts are always based on as unbiased mews sources as possible. These almost always include actual government reports and statistics, Associated Press reports, Bloomberg news reports, Reuters news reports,Wall Street Journal reports, USA Today reports, New York Times reports, and other main stream media reports.  

I do not include Fox News reports or conservative blog reports since I find liberal leaning friends and family will automatically reject those reports, not because they are wrong,  but solely because of their source. This sometimes makes verifying government misconduct difficult since many of the main stream news sources do not always follow up, investigate, and report on Obama administration shenanigans.

Given today's topic, government mishandling and biases in bailout decisions, I have included a report that came through my email about how badly the Chrylser bailout and process was handled from a political and cronyism perspective. I never use emails that come floating in but this one looks interesting from a sourcing perspective, it names names, and certainly has a ring of truth to it, given what we discussed above. 

I present it below and ask any readers if they can come up with reliable sources to prove or disprove that this disgraceful behavior actually happened relative to the Chrysler. If we can find some sources, I will put it into a regular blog post in the near future. If true, than we have fallen down the corruption rat hole further, deeper, and faster than even I imagined.

Chrysler's Railroad

This could be a scandal of epic proportions and one that makes Nixon's Watergate or Clinton's Monica Lewinsky affair pale by comparison. Why was there neither rhyme nor reason as to which dealerships of the Chrysler Corporation were to be closed?

Roll the clock back to the weeks just before Chrysler declared bankruptcy. Chrysler, like GM, was in dire financial straits and federal government "graciously" offered to "buy the company" and keep them out of bankruptcy and "save jobs." Chrysler was, in the words of Obama and his administration, "Too big to fail," same story with GM.

The feds organized their "Automotive Task Force" to fix Chrysler and GM. Obama, in an act that is 100% unconstitutional, appointed a guy named Steve Rattner to be the White House's official Car Czar - literally, that's what his title is. Rattner is the liaison among Obama, Chrysler, and GM.

Initially, the national media reported that Chrysler 'had made this list of dealerships. Not true! The Washington Examiner, Newsmax, Fox News and a host of other news agencies discovered that the list of dealerships was put together by the "Automotive Task Force" headed by no one other than Mr. Steve Rattner.

Now the plot thickens. Remember earlier we said that there was neither rhyme nor reason why certain dealerships were closed?

Actually there's a very interesting pattern as to who was closed down. Again, on May 27, 2009, The Washington Examiner and Newsmax exposed the connection. Amazingly, of the 789 dealerships closed by the federal government, 788 had donated money, exclusively to Republican political causes, while contributing nothing to Democratic political causes. The only "Democratic" dealership on the list was found to have donated $7,700 to Hillary's campaign, and a bit over $2,000 to John Edwards. This same dealership, reportedly, also gave $200.00 to Obama's campaign. Does that seem a little odd to you?

Steve Rattner is the guy who put the list together. Well, he happens to be married to a Maureen White.

Maureen happens to be the former national finance chairman of the Democratic National Committee. As such, she has access to campaign donation records from everyone in the nation- Republican or Democrat. But of course, this is just a wacky "coincidence," we're certain.

Then comes another really wacky "coincidence." On that list of dealerships being closed down, a weird thing happened in Arkansas, North Louisiana and Southern Missouri. It seems that Bill Clinton's former White House Chief of Staff, Mack McClarty, owns a chain of dealerships in that region, partnered with a fellow by the name of Robert Johnson. Johnson happens to be founder of Black Entertainment Television and was a huge Obama supporter and financier.

These guys own a half dozen Chrysler stores under the company title of RLJ-McClarty-Landers. Interestingly, none of their dealerships were ordered closed - not one!

While all of their competing Chrysler/Dodge and Jeep dealership were! Eight dealerships located near the dealerships owned by McClarty and Johnson were ordered shut down.

Thus by pure luck, these two major Obama supporters now have virtual monopoly on Chrysler sales in their zone. Isn't that amazing?

Go look in The Washington Examiner, the story's there, and it's in a dozen or so other web-based news organizations; this isn't being made up.

Now if you thought Chrysler was owned by Fiat, you are mistaken. Under the federal court ruling, 65% of Chrysler is now owned by the federal government and the United Auto Workers union! Fiat owns 20%. The other 15% is still privately owned and presumably will be traded on the stock market. Obama smiles and says he doesn't want to run the auto industry. 

As horrifying as this is to comprehend, and being as how this used to be the United States of America , it would appear that the president has the power to destroy private businesses and eliminate upwards of 100,000 jobs just because they don't agree with his political agenda.

This is Nazi Germany stuff, and it's happening right here, right now, in our back yard. There are voices in Washington demanding an explanation, but the "Automotive Task Force" has released no information to the public or to any of the senators demanding answers for what has been done.

Keep your ear to the ground for more on this story. If you've ever wanted to make a difference about anything in your life, get on the phone to your national senator or representative in the House and demand an investigation into this.

Benjamin Franklin had it right when he said, "All that's necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

An amazing thing happened as this story was going to press. Obama's Car Czar, Steve Rattner, resigned on July 13 and was promptly replaced by former steel workers union boss Ron Bloom.

According to CBS News, Rattner left "to return to private life and spend time with his family."

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said, "I hope that he takes another opportunity to bring his unique skills to government service in the future."

By the way, Rattner is under investigation for a multi-million dollar pay-to-play investment bank scandal in New York ....

Uh-oh! But, we're certain that had nothing to do with his resignation. And, according to several news sources out there, there are rumors he's being investigated for what could be pay-to-play scandal involving the closing of Chrysler and GM dealerships. Really? Again, that couldn't have anything to with his resignation -- that's ridiculous! Like CBS said, this guy just wants to "spend more quality time with his family."

Obama has 32 personally appointed "czars" who answer to no one but him, all of whom are acting without any Constitutional authority.

But hey, we're sure they all have "unique skills"......as Tim Geithner likes to say!

SOOOOO. HOW'S THE HOPE/CHANGE WORKING FOR YOU?..

This goes beyond corruption in high places - to gross criminal actions on the part of our government!

I hope you will spread this far and wide, and hopefully the taxpaying public will demand some of that transparency we were promised ... followed by criminal prosecution of the perpetrators!

What a crooked government we have!!!!! Vote 'em all out ... November, 2012
******************

Despicable if true? Anyone find any sources that liberal friends and family could not reject outright?

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

The Fiscal State Of The Country - Even Politicians Are Admitting To Their Crime Of National Bankruptcy

We have reviewed many of the commonly published statistics regarding our ailing economy numerous times in this blog:

1. 42 consecutive months of the official unemployment rate greater than 8%.
2. A combined unemployment and underemployment rate of almost 15%.
3. Household income that has dropped more in the three years since the recesson ended vs. the two years of the actual recession.
4. Household wealth that has retreated to levels last seen 17 years or so ago.
5. Millions of homes under water or in foreclosure proceedings.
6. Gasoline prces that have more than doubled since January, 2009.

Okay, enough is enough. But consider some other bad economic trends and situations that have recently been gathered from official government sources and published by the Bankrupting America organization's website, along with my Comments and observations:

 (http://www.bankruptingamerica.org/fact-sheet/by-the-numbers-breakdown-september-edition/?direct):

September, 2012 Monthly SnapShot:
Federal Spending, the Economy, the Budget And Economic Facts

The numbers say it all: Washington has spent its way into a fiscal crisis. This unsustainable habit will have consequences on future generations unless Congress can work together and enact lasting change.

State of the Federal Debt

 -National Debt: $16.06 trillion - Comment: please visit the following post to understand just how astronomically huge 16 trillion is:

http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/09/fun-with-math-making-our-16-trillion.html

- Debt per American including infants and kids: $51,071

- Debt per Household: $140,586

- Net Interest on the Debt: $343.1 billion (first 11 months of fiscal year) - Comment: at this rate, every American household has already paid about $3000 to the Federal government this year alone just to finance the runaway interest payments on the Federal government's deficits.

State of the Budget

- Budget Deficit (September, 2012): $190.5 billion: Comment - this one MONTH'S worth of Obama budget deficit is actually greater the the ANNUAL spending deficit that Bush ran up in two years of its administration (2002 and 2007).

- Budget Deficit (FY2011): $1.297 trillion: Comment - in 2011, the Federal government spent about $148 million a DAY that it did not have revenue to cover, requiring increases in the national debt.

- Revenue (Fiscal Year to Date): $2.188 trillion: Comment - The Federal government would have to reduce its spending 8.2% a year for five straight years to just get its spending in line with its revenue/tax stream. Imagine how far out of control spending is if you had to reduce your own spending that amount for five years in a row to attain that same status.

- Spending (Fiscal Year to Date): $3.354 trillion

- Budget Deficit (FY2012 to Date): $1.164 trillion: Comment - in 2012, the Federal government spent about $132 million a DAY that it did not have revenue to cover.

- Under Harry Reid's leadership, the U.S. Senate has failed to produce a detailed budget, as required by the Constitution, in over 1,200 days, over three years.

State of the Economy

- Annualized Economic Growth: 1.7 percent (second quarter preliminary): Comment - average long term annual growth of the U.S. economy is about 3.4%, more than double the current anemic economic growth of this economy.

- Trade Deficit: $42.0 billion (July 2012): Comment - Using rough estimates by extrapolating the July results, in all likelihood over $400 billion of wealth leaves this country every year due to the ongoing trade imbalance.

- Unemployment: 8.1 percent (August 2012)

- Jobs Created in 2012: 1.114 million (first eight months of 2012): Comment - every week this year about 360,000 Americans filed for first time unemployment benefits every week, dwarfing the 1.114 jobs created.

- States with the Highest Unemployment Rates:

• NV (12.0 percent)
• RI (10.8 percent)
• CA (10.7 percent)
• NJ (9.8 percent)
• SC (9.6 per cent)
• NC (9.6 per cent)

- States with the Lowest Unemployment Rates:

• ND (3.0 percent)
• NE (4.0 percent)
• SD (4.4 percent)
• OK (4.9 percent)
• VT (5.0 percent)

Comment - Unfortunately, the states with the highest unemployment rates tend to be bigger, more populous states while the states with the lowest unemployment rates tend to be smaller, less populous states.

Horrific numbers and a horrific economic situation our political class has gotten us into. And if you look closely, you see that many of these politicians actually recognize what they have done to us and the country:

Colorado Senator Michael Bennet as quoted in the Washington Post on September 3, 2010: "We have managed to acquire $13 TRILLION of debt on our balance sheet. In my view, we have nothing to show for it." Unfortunately, about two years later, we have put another $3 TRILLION onto the national debt and still have nothing to show for it.

Former U.S. Senator John Danforth: "I have never seen more senators express discontent with their jobs. I think the major cause is that, deep down in our hearts, we have been accomplices to doing something terrible and unforgivable to this wonderful country. Deep down in our hearts, we know that we have bankrupted America and that we have given our children a legacy of bankruptcy. We have defrauded our country to get ourselves elected."

Former U.S. Senator Evan Bayh: "Even at a time of enormous challenge, the people’s business is not being done. Two weeks ago, the Senate voted down a bipartisan commission to deal with one of the greatest threats facing our nation: our exploding deficits and debt. The measure would have passed, but seven members who had endorsed the idea instead voted ‘no’ for short-term political reasons."

Yes, most Ameircans are aware of how precarious our fsical health and direction has become, getting worse everyday. Hyperinflation, government default, credit worthiness downgrades, loss of freedom and liberty, reductions in entitlement budgets, etc. are coming at us unless the Federal government and the political class that operate it do something coherent and fast.

It is such a shame that current and former Washington politicians actually know the truth of how bad the situaiton is and what is in store for the nation, as shown in their statements above. The bigger shame is that they were part of the problem that got us a $16 TRILLION national debt and were not part of the solution.

However, we have two appoachess to resolve the problem:

1. First, execute Step 1 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government." This step would reduce Federal spending 10% a year for five years to finally get government spending in line with government tax revenue. You cannot start reducing your national debt until you get to a balanced budget.
2. The following blog laid out a detailed plan on not only to get to a balanced budget but also how to reduce spending and debt by upwards of $9 TRILLION over the next ten years:

http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/09/fun-with-math-making-our-16-trillion.html

Let's resolve the crime of our national debt before it resolves our future for us.

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

Obama Care - Still Constitutional and Still A Disaster: Wasting $730 Billion A Year, 18 Pages To Define One Term, and America, Home of the Obese

Beginning on August 22, 2012, we did a four part series which pretty much proved that Obama Care was and is the worst piece of legislation ever written. It never understood or addressed the various root causes of our skyrocketing national health care costs and thus, has no chance of ever resolving those root causes and bringing down the high cost of health care in this country.

It was a piece of legislation whose primary purpose was to at least get every American into a health care insurance program within ten years. However, the latest Congressional Budget Office analysis forecasts that well over 20 million Americans will still be without health care coverage ten years after the enactment of the law.

That CBO analysis does not take into account the millions of more Americans that will lose their existing workplace insurance coverage because the legislation was written so badly that companies will find it less expensive to terminate their current employee health care coverage and pay a smaller Obama Care fine than to continue offering their employees health insurance coverage.

The legislation has introduced almost 2,000 more regulations and dozens of taxes into our lives, creating uncertainty and confusion that is resulting in businesses cutting back on expansion and hiring.  They do not know if they can afford to grow and hire in the midst of the chaos caused by the law. Makes one wonder if the stagnant, above 8% long term unemployment rate is really a product of Obama Care chaos.

The legislation makes no concerted effort to reduce the hundreds of billions of dollars lost to waste and criminal fraud over the years, wasteful spending that could have been used to expand current government programs on health care without introducing 2,700 pages of Obama Care into the world. Credible sources put Medicare and Medicaid's annual waste at well over $100 billion a year, money that could take care of a lot of vaccinations, mamograms, and other health needs without 2,000 more regulations and dozens of more taxes.

I could go on and on about how bad this legislation is (e.g. ignoring tort reform, not encouraging and allowing cross state border health insurance company competition, adding trillions of dollars to the national debt, etc.) but the details and justification for each reason on why this is terrible law can be found in the posts put out during the week of August 22, 2012. Unfortunately, since then, we have come across more bad news that just reinforces our conclusions that this is one bad piece of law writing:

-   New analyses results from the Institute of Medicine found that the U.S. health care system annually wastes 30 cents out of every dollar spent in the health care field. How much does that work out to in total across the land? An unbelievable $765 billion a year, year in and year out. This would be like putting about $6,700 back into the health care budget of every American household every year, money that could buy a lot of health care coverage.

As reported at the Bankrupting America website, the analyses and report found that there were six areas where major waste exists in the health system:

1.Unnecessary services: $210 billion
2.Administrative costs: $190 billion
3.Inefficient delivery of care: $130 billion
4.Price inflation: $105 billion
5.Fraud: $75 billion
6.Failure to provide preventative care: $55 billion

While the report did not provide a detail plan on how to realize these savings, "all of these costs have the potential to be minimized through better incentives and more efficient medical practices. Not all health care costs in the U.S. fall directly on the individual taxpayer, but considering 20 percent of the federal budget accounts for Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), combating the waste that exists in the health care system would be a significant step in reducing the budget deficit without necessarily reducing health care benefits."

Wouldn't this have been a better approach vs. the Obama Care approach? Wring out the waste and inefficiencies of what is currently going today and direct those new found monetary resources to laser fix what is broken rather than upending the entire health care industry in the country? Obama Care just expands the current processes, along with the inefficiencies cited above, which will end up wasting even more than $765 billion every year. Insanity.

- It is no secret that many businesses, especially small businesses, will not be able to afford the burdensome taxes and regulations that Obama Care imposes. However, for smaller businesses, there is a way out of the regulations by insuring that the number of full time workers is less than 50. The legislation exempts these sized businesses from providing health care coverage to their employees, allowing these businesses to survive.

It has been reported in many places, including in this blog, that many businesses are either turning some of their full time employees into part time employees in order to fit into this definition or are not expanding their businesses and hiring more staff. The reason for their contortions is that once they hit the magic 50 number, a large Obama Care financial burden drops onto their shoulders. In either case, Obama Care is causing business to stifle work hours or stifle hiring, two very negative consequences in this economy of low economoic growth and high unemployment.

And this approach for survival just got even worse, both for employees and their employers. The Health and Human Services Department and the IRS recently issued an 18 PAGE definition of what a "full time" employee is. 18 pages for one definition.

Not only is that ridiculous, the new definition of what constitutes a full time employee is even more preposterous. The new guidelines define a full time employee as one who works 30 hours a week, not the traditional 40 hours a week.

Thus, what is likely to happen in the real world, the world outside of Washington, D.C.? The need for many small businesses to survive and avoid the Obama Care financial burden will obviously result in many small businesses reducing the number of hours their employees work by 25% or more in order to conform with the inane definition of full time employee coming out of Washington. Thus, those fortunate enough to have a job, in an economy without a lot of excess jobs, will suddenly find themselves 25% or more less flush with cash every week.

Again, what planet to these bureaucrats live in where a full time job is working 30 hours a week?

- According to a September 18, 2012 Associated Press article, the findings from a large study from the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation predicts that by 2030, more than half the people in the vast majority of states will be classified as obese, i.e. extremely overweight. Their analysis is based on large part on official Federal government statistics and findings including work done by the Centers For Disease Control. Details from the study include the following depressing facts:

1. Mississippi is expected to remain the most obese state in the nation for at least two more decades, predicting that 67% of that state's adults will be obese by 2030. That would be an unbelievable growth from Mississippi's current 35% obesity rate
2. The study predicts every state would have obesity rates above 44% by 2030.
3. According to the article, about two-thirds of Americans are overweight now and 36% of American adults are obese.  Obesity is defined as having a body-mass index of 30 or more, a measure of weight for height.
4. The study projects that by 2030, 13 states would have adult obesity rates above 60%, 39 states might have rates above 50%, and every state would have rates above 44%.
5. While Mississippi will retain its status as the most overweight state, the study projects that even the thinnest state, Colorado, will face an obesity rate of 45% by 2030.
6. The article cites comments by Jeff Levi, executive director of Trust For America's Health that "it's clear that the nation's weight problem is going to continue, escalating the number of cases of diabetes, heart disease and stroke." and "the focus of so much of the ongoing debate about health care is over controlling costs. We can only achieve it by addressing obesity. Otherwise, we're just tinkering around the margins." Well said, Obama Care focused on everything but the root causes of our high health care costs, in this case, obesity.
7. The top ten, most obese states by 2030 are predicted to be Mississippi, Oklahoma, Delaware, Tennessee, South Carolina, Alabama, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, and Arkansas, all of whom will have obesity rates greater than 60% by 2030.

Very distressing stuff and a major driver of high health care costs today and into the future. Wouldn't it have been a much better idea to focus on this root cause in the legislation than to implement 2,000 new regulations and dozens of new taxes? Even if these onerous regulations and taxes are correctly and efficiently implemented (highly unlikely), many, many Americans will still be obese today and in 2030 and this driver of high health care costs will not have been resolved.

How much money could be taken out of our high annual health care medical costs if we properly attacked the obesity epidemic? The study estimated that medical costs from treating obesity-related diseases are likely to increase from $18 billion today to  $66 billion per year by 2030, an increase of $48 billion. Over a ten year period, $480 billion, half a trillion dollars, could be targeted for savings if we attacked this root cause rather than tying ourselves in knots trying to understand, never mind, adhere to, a 2,700 page piece of bad legislation.

Again, I suggest that you go back to the late August posts for the detailed analyses that showed Obama Care was posibly the worst piece of legislaiton ever conceived. This horrid piece of law needs to be scapped completely, its few good points retained and used as the basis for an efficient, root cause focused solution to our high health care cost problem.

A good strategy to use in the redo would be to take the political class out of the loop as much as possible. We saw the failure of their efforts that became Obama Care, it is unlikely they could do any better if we entrusted them to do it again. Step 28 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" lays out a coherent, root caused focused approach to finally solve this problem, an approach that would not depress economic growth or bankrupt the country.

This approach, or one like it, that depends on subject matter experts and trained economists to put together a real plan is our only hope of resolving our health care cost issue. And I bet this approach could do a better job using less than 2,700 pages of legislation, 2,000 or so new regulations, and far fewer taxes. How could it not?

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

Cleaning Up The Fraud In Tampa Today, Cleaning Up The Country Tomorrow

Today's post requires some background information first. Recently, we reviewed a program being run by the IRS that provides bounty payments to whistle blowers who identify tax evasion culprits. In the example cited, a former employee of the Swiss bank UBS was instrumental in identifying a $20 billion criminal enterprise in the banking industry. The whistle blower eventually ended up receiving a bounty payment of over $100 million. The hope was that future potential whistle blowers would step forward in order to also collect rewards.

In May, we discussed our proposal to roll out a similar program for the entire country and the entire spectrum of Federal government programs that waste hundreds of billions of taxpayer wealth every year. Our National Bounty System would leverage every citizen in the fight against waste and criminal fraud in programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. The details of this program can be viewed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/05/national-bounty-system-fixing.html

One of the biggest types of fraud that rob taxpayer wealth is for criminal elements to file fake income tax returns using stolen personal id information. The IRS processes those returns and mails a refund check to the fake address of the fraudulent tax return. Our review of this criminal process found that billions of dollars are lost every year to this type of fraud:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-irs-gets-its-turn-at-wasting.html

Today, we will review a prime example of ongoing tax fraud in the Tampa Bay area, that was reported in the August 19, 2012 issue of the Tampa Bay Times, and how the National Bounty System could correct the stealing of taxpayer wealth. Details of the article and the fraud it investigated include the following info:

• In the summer of 2011, the state of Florida sent a form to the apartment of one Jerry Myea Lee, reminding him that if he did not renew his status his food stamp benefits would expire.
• The letter also asked if he was in need of other social safety net program support such as a telephone discount, child support, and an earned income credit.
• The reason the letter was sent to his apartment was because Mr. Lee was no longer in prison for a myriad of crimes, incurring an estimated $300,000 in taxpayer support to keep him fed, clothed, and behind bars.
• On July 6, 2011, he was pulled over by a police officer while driving around in his rented Dodge Charger.
• When a drug sniffing dog indicated the presence of marijuana, precipitating a search of the vehicle, the police found $30,980 in cash in a bag behind the driver's seat along with the letter from the state of Florida offering him more and more aid to help him get through life, as if he needed it, given the $30,980 in cash he was carrying around with him.
• Not being very careful or bright, eleven days later he was caught in Orlando with a $7,989 U.S. Treasury check made out to someone else along with four other IRS checks, trying to have an accomplice cash the fraudulently obtained check from the IRS.
• The article moves from this specific incident of ripping off the taxpayer to report that 80 to 90% of the tax refund fraud they come across is committed by people already on public assistance like Mr. Lee.
• Tampa led the country in tax refund fraud in 2011 with Tampa area criminals estimated to duping the IRS out of about $468 million, one year, one state, one town. This is almost 10% of the estimated national tax refund fraud activity, generated by an unbelievable 88,724 fraudulent tax refunds filed from the Tampa area.

These were the headline facts from the article. Consider some of the detailed accounts also in the article:

- Shawntrece Sims used ill-gotten taxpayer money for a fertility treatment, she filed fake tax returns as far back as 2009 to bilk the IRS for a total illegal haul of $672,887, during 2009 she was also receiving a monthly $600 housing subsidy check along with a monthly $1,348 Social Security disability check, and is now serving a nine year prison sentence that will cost the taxpayers almost $74 a day over nine years to keep her inside prison.

- Lasandra Gamble was receiving $2,363  a month in the summer of 2011 from housing, utilities, and food stamp programs funded by taxpayers. However, despite her "poverty," in August of 2011 she put down a $9,000 deposit on a luxury Lexus GS430 and followed that down payment up three days later with another down payment of $9,000 on a 2007 Lexus ES 350. The two cars financing cost had a monthly cost of $2,000.

On October 8, 2011, the police pulled over the ES 350, which was being driven by her husband, Angelo Juan Pedrosa. Mr. Pedrosa is a convicted cocaine dealer and in addition to the marijuana residue the police found in the Lexus, they also found $6,000 in cash and a dozen debit cards in other people's names, the types of cards tax fraud criminals use to fleece the IRS and the American taxpayer.

- Tampa exotic dancer Danielle Denson allegedly bilked the IRS out of $1.6 million via tax refund fraud and used the taxpayer wealth on a Mercedes car, plastic surgery, and $300 Gucci thong. She is awaiting trial.

- On August 8, 2012, Tampa police pulled over an Infiniti Q45 for an expired tag and found debit cards in other people's names. When they searched the driver's apartment they ended up seizing lists of stolen Social Security numbers and photocopies of ids.

- In a final insult to taxpayers, another story in the article details how people were receiving monthly housing, utilities, and food stamps assistance in the thousands of dollars and also hosting tax fraud parties where their friends would gather to party and to fill out bogus tax returns, with the objective of defrauding the IRS and American taxpayer.

Disgusting abuse of hard working honest taxpayers. These stories are the reason why no American, rich or poor, regardless of Obama's rhetoric, should pay a penny more in taxes. How many more truly needy people could be taken care of in Tampa if almost half a billion dollars a year was not sucked away from the programs by criminal fraud?

How much lower would our national debt be if the IRS actually could collect the $385 billion a year that tax evaders and tax frauds get away with? $385 billion over ten years is almost $4 TRILLION, enough to pay off a sizable chunk of our national debt. This is the kind of incompetence the Washington political class has rained down on the American taxpayer due to their own incompetence, self centered political behavior, and the inability or non-desire to do the nitty-gritty details of government.

That is where the National Bounty System comes in. If the IRS and the political class do not have the will, desire, or ability to flush out these criminal activities, let their neighbors and friends do it for the American taxpayer. Let them share in the rewards of identifying the tax fraud cheats and other types of cheats and reward them with a percentage of the loot that is recovered, just like the UBS employee got rewarded for helping destroy a multi-billion tax fraud scheme.

As described in the original bounty system process, overwhelm the Tampa area with IRS, judicial, and law enforcement resources to clean up the biggest problem area first. Set up judicial processes that fast track these types of cases through to prosecution so that potential tax fraud cheats know that they will be under the thumb of an aggressive campaign to clean up Tampa and will be prosecuted quickly and in jail promptly for their misdeeds.

Until then, I would appreciate it if every Democrat who wants to raise out taxes would just shut up until they do their job of not wasting my taxes because they are too incompetent to operate a government program that is fraud free. the National Bounty System is the blueprint, use it.

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

Waaaa!! The IRS Stole My Anti-Corruption Idea (Thank goodness!)

Many times we have reviewed the generally accepted estimates of how much major Federal government programs lose every year to inefficiencies, waste, and mostly, outright criminal fraud:

• Medicare Annual Waste - $70 to $90 billion
• Medicaid Annual Waste - $40 to $60 billion
• Social Security Waste - $125 billion
• On Federal Unemployment Benefits Program - $19 billion
• Food Stamp Program - $2-3 billion (conservatively)
• Tax Evasion That The IRS Does Not Prevent - $385 billion
• Annual ttal from just these six Federal programs - $641 - $683 billion
• This comes out to upwards of just under $6,000 a year for every U.S. household. Imagine how much true economic stimulus and growth could be created if every household had an extra $6,000 or so in its pockets, year in and year out?

Disgraceful and an insult to every taxpaying American who sees upwards of 30% their annual earnings, on average, go to government programs with such a poor track record of fiscal integrity.

How does this money and wealth get abused? Consider two typical examples that we have already reviewed in this blog:

1) An Associated Press article late last year reported on a Seattle area married couple that had been having a grand time defrauding the Federal government, and the American taxpayer, over the past few years. The article reported that:

•The married couple lived in a 2,300 square foot, $1.2 million house in the Seattle area.

•The article cites the probability that the couple also owned an expensive Jaguar automobile since investigators found it constantly parked in their driveway.

•Over the past eight years the couple had taken vacation trips to Moscow, Paris, Israel, Turkey, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic.

•During this same time period, the couple had collected over $100,000 in Federal welfare payments.

•Finally, after eight years, the local U.S. Attorney General's office is going after the couple in an attempt to recover $135,000 in Federal housing assistance and additional fines and penalties.

•Apparently, the wife applied for the government assistance by claiming that she was a single mother with two kids and assets worth less than $5,000 even though she was still married, according to the information and proof cited in the article, and was living in the $1.2 million home with her successful, chiropractic practicing husband.

Just one example of the types of fraud that is used against the Federal government everyday.

2) But this couple were small time fraudsters compared to the following doctor as reported in the October, 2011 issue of Reason magazine:

•Fred Dweck, a surgeon in two Broward County, Florida worked at two hospitals and also ran his own health care business in Miami.

•Last year, Mr. Dweck pleaded guilty to Medicare fraud since for the four years before he was arrested, he cheated Medicare out of at least $24 million or about $6 million a year, an amazing $500,000 a month, on average.

•He put in claims for prescription drugs, insulin injections, in-home visits by nurses, and many other treatments for 1,279 patients, none of whom actually needed any of these treatments that the good doctor was reimbursed for.

•He had five nurses conspire with him to create fake patient records and payment forms and benefit from the scamming of taxpayer Medicare dollars.

•One would have hoped that someone in the Medicare organization would have grown suspicious of this one doctor generating so much work over the years or the $500,000 a month he was billing. Unfortunately, it took many years to figure out this one scam, too many years.

As these two examples show, fraud exists in a variety of wasteful schemes and at various levels of dollar values.

But we do not believe it has to be this way, where taxpayer wealth is wasted with no regard to the hard work that went into creating the wealth and the economic inefficiency of allowing criminals and criminal syndicates abuse it. Back in May, 2012 we proposed a common sense, highly leveragable solution to the problem called the National Bounty System (NBS). The details of the process can be found at the following link:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/05/national-bounty-system-fixing.html

The basic premise of the process comes from the local police tip line concept that has been used for decades to gather intel on the potential whereabouts of rapists, murders, robbers, etc. While the defrauding of government spending and programs is more of a white collar crime, the basic premise remains the same: mobilize citizens to report potential criminal activity such as fraud and allow them to participate in the recovery of taxpayer wealth. The basic tenets of the NBS include the following:

•A independent process would be established to gather, sort, prioritize, and track tips on fraud and tax evaders by a task force established within the Justice Department, with representatives from the IRS, Medicare, Social Security, Congress, the FBI, HHS, and others.

•Citizens could report their tips via email or snail mail, with the earliest date of receipt being given the bounty opportunity to collect a reward if the tip results in the retrieval of ill gotten fraudulent gains or the collection of unpaid taxes.

•The amount of the bounty would be 10% of the money recovered.

•Following the lead of the Italian government that we reported on, the task force would correlate new car and boat/yacht registrations with income tax returns to identify those people that reported low income but had high value purchases.

•The same correlation analyses would be done by crossing high end home purchases with tax returns.

•The program would be tested in one or two states in order to work out the bugs in the processes before a nation wide rollout.

•In advance of actually cracking down on felons and tax evaders, a well publicized amnesty period would be extended to all who would be likely targets of the task force. The amnesty period would allow anyone to come forward and confess their wrong doings and avoid jail time.

•However, they would still have to repay what they stole and owed in full.

•Those caught after the amnesty period ended would not only face jail time, if appropriate, they would have to pay back what they stole and the appropriate fines, penalties, and interest.

•The amnesty period would not only be in the one or two trial states, it would be nationwide. The trick is to make sure that those who are guilty know that their neighbors, their customers, and their work associates might be tempted to turn them in for the bounty and make them think twice of doing the right thing, turning themselves in, before the task force reaches their states.

•From an accounting perspective, half of the recovered money from the program would be used to pay down our national debt and the other half would be returned to taxpayers in the following year when they filed their own taxes. Under no circumstances would the recovered wealth be put under the control of the political class and likely wasted again.

•A similar process would be established for Federal employees, as outlined in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," to identify fraud and waste within the Federal bureaucracy.

Think about the possibilities this process could open up:

•Would a neighbor or office worker of the Seattle chiropractor discussed above have come forward sooner if they could have received 10% of the hundreds of thousands of dollars that couple embezzled from the government?

•Would a nurse or patient in the office of Dr. Dweck have come forward sooner if the opportunity to receive 10% of up to $24 million, assuming that all of the ill gotten gains were recovered, and possibly receive a hundreds of thousand dollars or more?

•Would someone now be tempted to turn in an obnoxious neighbor who continually brags how they are receiving government unemployment checks while getting paid under the table for work the neighbor is actually doing if they could get rewarded for doing so?

•Would a Federal worker be more likely to turn in coworkers who are illegally selling food stamp benefits if they could partake in the reward of a prosecution?

•Would a Medicare patient turn on a crooked doctor who was using their Medicare number to rip off the system if that patient got paid for their trouble.

By deputizing the entire taxpayer base, I believe a lot more criminal activity would be uncovered, taxpayer recovered, and future fraud curtailed.

I thought that this was an original idea but it turns out the IRS is already doing something of the sort. According to a recent Washington Post article:

• A former banker at the Swiss based bank, UBS, named Bradley Birkenfeld turned whistle blower and “provided information on taxpayer behavior that the IRS had been unable to detect” in regards to a $20 billion offshore banking scheme.
• As a result of his information, insights, and testimony, and the collection of a large amount of fines from the offending institutions, the IRS rewarded Mr. Birkenfeld with a bounty of $104 million, a fraction of the wealth that authorities are collecting and will collect as a result of his whistle blowing.
• Mr. Birkenfeld’s attorneys issued a statement in which they said: “The IRS today sent 104 million messages to whistle blowers around the world — that there is now a safe and secure way to report tax fraud and that the IRS is now paying awards. The IRS also sent 104 million messages to banks around the world — stop enabling tax cheats or you will get caught.”
• His information as so far led to fines of nearly $800 million, more than enough to warrant the compensation money he was awarded.
• The IRS was gushing in the support and information he provided to bring down the criminal activity: “The comprehensive information provided by the whistle blower was exceptional in both its breadth and depth. While the IRS was aware of tax compliance issues related to secret bank accounts in Switzerland and elsewhere, the information provided by the whistle blower formed the basis for unprecedented actions against UBS AG.”
• Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa also had high praise for the bounty-like IRS process: “An award of $104 million is obviously a great deal of money, but billions of dollars in taxes owed will be collected that otherwise would not have been paid as a result of the whistle blower information. Unfortunately it has taken the IRS nearly four years to settle this whistle blower case. If the IRS is serious about encouraging future whistle blowers, it needs to continue to honor the spirit and intent of the law and issue awards in a timely manner.”

Everybody wins: criminal activity is uncovered and stopped, future criminal activity may be deterred if it becomes known that a single whistle blower, properly incented, can bring down a future criminal endeavor, the citizen gets to share in the bounty, and wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars is minimized.

The local police tiplines over time prove that this process and approach work. The IRS and Mr. Berkenfeld prove this process and approach work. With our national debt now above $16 TRILLION and rapidly rising every minute, there is not a minute to waste getting the National Bounty System in place for every government function and organization, not just the IRS.

Note: Tomorrow we will look at some extensive identity theft fraud that is occurring in my metro area of Tampa and how this process could be used to shut it down.

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