October, 2012 Political Class Insanity, Part 2: The Obama Royal Family, Che As A Role Model, Corruption In Trenton and Detroit And More

Yesterday, we covered the first part of this month’s political class insanity. We saw how the private sector was not doing just fine, despite President Obama’s misperception of reality, reviewed how despite thirty years of government intervention in the housing market home ownership is right about where it was in 1982, and a variety of other instances of idiocy. We continue today with some more bad politicians acting badly:

1) Congressman Steve LaTourette was recently quoted in the Huffington Post, relative to the polarization and gridlock in Washington and the non-resolution any of our issues: “The current atmosphere, it’s a little bit like an alcoholic in my mind. I think the place (D.C/ politics) has to hit bottom before they realize they’ve got a problem and get it fixed.”

Let’s see: $16 TRILLION in national debt, 43 consecutive months of unemployment over 8%, our national credit rating already downgraded once, health care costs still going through the roof, public schools still disgracefully under educating our kids, leaky borders, U.S. embassies under siege, no national strategic energy plan in place, etc. Does he mean we have not yet hit bottom? How much worse can it get before the bottom shows up?

2) Talking about dysfunction, Lauren Grey has lived in the United States since she was four years old. At that time, her parents were granted an E-2 visa that allows them and their dependent children to stay in the United States indefinitely if the operate a business.

But the law and regulations are written so poorly that when those dependent children reach the age of 21, they are no longer covered by the visa and must leave the country. Thus, unless Lauren can get a green card, she must leave the country by her 21st birthday. On face value this makes no sense, breaking up families and making someone leave the country after living her for 17 years and educating her to become a productive member of society.

However, even more outrageous is that her parents initially tried to get her a green card nine years ago. However, the Federal government is so incompetent that it is still processing this request. I wonder if the same people working on this visa request are the same people that will take six years to write the Dodd-Frank regulations. Disgusting customer service and incompetence.

3) According to a new history book, “Presidential Perks Gone Royal,” by Robert Keith Gray, the Obama administration and family has been the most expensive White House operation in the history of the country:

• Taxpayers spent $1.4 billion dollars on everything from staffing, housing, flying and entertaining President Obama and his family just in 2011.
• In comparison, British taxpayers spent just $57.8 million in total on the whole royal family last year.
• Gray writes that Obama isn’t the only President to have taken advantage of the expensive trappings of his office. But the amount of money spent on the first family, he argues, has risen tremendously under the Obama administration and needs to be reined in.
• According to Gray, Obama has the largest staff in the history of the White House who are being paid at the highest wages ever.
• Included on the largest staff ever is a full time dog attendant for the First Family’s dog that reportedly makes $102,000 a year.

Ridiculous waste of taxpayer money in these hard economic times. If Obama wants to talk about “fairness,” maybe he should start by setting a good example within his own organization and its own bloated budget.

4) According to the website, Bankrupting America, the current set of politicians in Washington are not only delinquent in setting a budget for 2013, they are also technically breaking the law. Consider the following missed deadlines and the laws/statutes they violated, as documented by Bankrupting America:

1. Missed Deadline #1: White House Fails To Submit Budget On Time. “The White House told Congress on Monday that its budget will be late this year, meaning President Obama once again will miss the deadline set in law. Congressional officials said the President now will send up his budget on Feb. 13, which is a week later than the usual date. The law requires the budget be sent by the first Monday in February.” (Stephen Dinan, The Washington Times, 1/23/12). The President Is Required To Submit His Budget Outline By The First Monday Of February. (Congressional Research Service, 1/28/04, p.2)
2. Missed Deadline #2: Senate Budget Committee Fails To Submit A Budget Resolution. According to the Library of Congress website, the Senate Budget Committee failed to vote on a budget resolution. (Library of Congress Website, Accessed 9/9/12). A Draft Budget Resolution Is To Be Submitted To The Senate By April 1. (Congressional Research Service, 1/28/04, p.6; U.S. Senate, Committee on the Budget, Website, Accessed 9/9/12).
3. Missed Deadline #3: Congress Fails To Pass A Budget. (Library of Congress Website, Accessed 9/9/12). The House And Senate Are Required To Pass A Budget Resolution By April 15. (Congressional Research Service, 1/28/04, p.6)
4. Missed Deadline #4: House Appropriations Committee Failed To Report All Of The FY 2013 AppropriationsBills. The House Appropriations Committee only passed eight of the 12 appropriations bills by June 10, 2012. (Library of Congress Website, Accessed 9/9/12). The House Appropriations Bill Is Supposed To Report The Final Appropriations Bill By June 10. (Congressional Research Service, 1/28/04, p.6; U.S. Senate, Committee on the Budget, Website, Accessed 9/9/12)).
5. Missed Deadline #5: U.S. House Failed To Finish Work On The FY 2013 Appropriations Bills. As of June 30, the House had passed only five of the 12 appropriations bills. (Library of Congress Website, Accessed 9/9/12). The U.S. House Is Supposed To Submit The Final Appropriations Bill By June 30. (Congressional Research Service, 1/28/04, p.6; U.S. Senate, Committee on the Budget, Website, Accessed 9/9/12)).
6. Missed Deadline #6: The OMB Failed To Report Its Mid-Session Review On Time. “The Obama administration has missed another annual budget deadline, failing to send Congress a mid-session budget review before July 16. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) confirmed Monday that the deadline for the review, due every year on that date, was not met this year.” (Erik Wasson, The Hill, 7/16/12). The White House Is Supposed To Submit The Mid-Session Review By July 15. (Committee on the Budget, Website, Accessed 9/9/12)).
7. Missed Deadline #7: White House Misses Sequestration Transparency Act Deadline. “The White House announced that it will not meet Friday’s deadline to make public what plans it will put into place to deal with the massive defense cuts coming at the end of the year. The announcement comes shortly after President Obama signed into law the Sequestration Transparency Act that requires him to submit a report to Congress detailing the impact of his ‘sequester’ on defense and non-defenseprograms – cuts that were triggered after the so-called Super Committee to come up with a debt deal last year.” (Fox News, 9/7/12).

Come on guys. One of your primary responsibilities as Federal government employees is to establish, pass, and execute a fiscally responsible budget. Besides passing laws, there is nothing as important as budgeting and protecting the integrity of taxpayer wealth. Other Federal politicians have been doing this successfully for centuries. Why are you so inept at doing the same? Without a budgeting process, expenses and costs get out of control which is probably why we now have a national debt of over $16 TRILLION.

5) Yesterday, we talked about how Russian President Vldamir Putin was enriching himself and his life style as a major Russian politician. Unfortunately, that same maladay seems to have also infected many American politicians lately:

• According to an Associated Press report from September 10, 2012, Federal agents arrested the mayor of New Jersey's capital, Trenton, on corruption charges, alleging he agreed to accept bribes in connection with a proposed parking garage that was actually a law enforcement sting operation.
• In a September 21, 2012 Assoicated Press article we learned that former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is going to court for a corruption trial that could land him in prison for more than 10 years. Patrick is accused of collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes, kickbacks, and other favors. His father, Bernard, is a co-defendant.

I guess politicians are the same all over, from Moscow to Trenton to Detroit: power corrupts but power also attracts the corruptible.

6) On September 13, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sent an internal email to its staff under the subject line “Hispanic Heritage Month.” The email featured a picture of infamous communist advocate Che Guevara with the slogan “hasta la victoria siempre,” or “on to victory, always.”

What type of person was Guevara? Consider his own words:

• “Hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine.”
• “I ended the problem with a .32 caliber pistol, in the right side of his brain…. His belongings were now mine.”

Just the type of role model I want my government to operate under. Pathetic.

There you have it. Another month of incompetence, idiocy, wasteful spending, arrogance, and outright criminal behavior. The American political class marches on.

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