November, 2012 Political Class Insanity, Part 3: More TSA Theft, Lost Money In DC Schools, Congress Getting Richer, And More

This is the final set of political class activities that the political class has imposed on us as we have identified over the past month or so. It is such a shame that we are cursed with a set of politicians that continually waste our wealth on inane programs and projects, waste valuable national resources through incompetent management of these same programs and projects, and erode our democracy with oppressive regulations. They incur all of this damage as they continue to focus more on their political careers and self enrichment. Pitiful.

The final set of insults we have identified from our politicians this month:

1) According to a Washington Post article that was summarized in the October 19, 2012 issue of The Week magazine, during years from 2007 to 2010 Americans’ median household net worth slipped down by 39%. However, the median net worth of all members of Congress increased almost 5% during the same time period.

Even more insulting, the median household income of the wealthiest one third of Congress saw their median net worth rise 14%. Well, at least some Americans are surviving and actually thriving quite well in these hard economic times. As always, our politicians take care of themselves first and leave the rest of us to fend for ourselves.

2) Despite a crushing national debt of over $16 TRILLION and growing, according to a blurb in the October 12, 2012 issue of The Week magazine, the Congressional Research Service found that 2,362 Americans legally collected unemployment benefits in 2009 despite residing in households with incomes of at least $1 million.

Unemployment benefit programs should be designed and implemented to provide short term to help those Americans who have lost their jobs and need financial assistance to get over their rough spot. If your household income is over $1 million, you have no chance of hitting a “rough spot” and should not be entitled to taxpayer wealth, period.

3) What’s is a political class insanity update without extensive TSA participation? According to an ABC news report, as highlighted in the October 12, 2012 issue of The Week magazine, a culture of theft exists throughout the TSA employee base. Pythias Brown, a convicted thief of airline passenger luggage items, said that he had stolen more than $800,000 worth of passenger valuables over just a four year period when he was a TSA employee.

He stated he was part of a culture that:

• Was really a massive “crime wave” which “preyed upon passenger luggage and personal belongings.”
• There was a culture of “indifference” within the TSA organization.
• There was lax oversight and extensive sharing of potential targets among crooked colleagues.
• His observation was that extensive theft was commonplace, not the exception, at TSA checkpoints.

Disgraceful behavior and culture that never seems to get any better even though this type of nonsense has been going on for years with no sustainable outrage or corrections form our political class.

4) According to a Reason magazine article form earlier this year, the American taxpayer via the Washington political class had given the Washington D.C. school district an extra $190 million for its school district. Unfortunately, a government audit found that no one n the D.C. school system was able to provide a credible accounting or paper trial of what actually happened to this extra money.

A General Accountability Office (GAO) audit found:

• The records of the expenditures of this money were incomplete or non-existent.
• The school district received $37.4 million for literacy improvement but the school district could not provide even basic information to describe the program’s objectives and goals or provide any outcomes as a result of the money.
• A grant of $85 million to expand charter schools was also unmonitored.
• The administration office of the school system could not even locate three of the seventeen files that the audit team wanted to review.

The head of the GAO was quoted in the article as saying: “They have longstanding problems,” when referring to the school district. You think? More waste, no accountability either within the school district, the Federal government entity that granted the money, or the Congressional committee responsible for overseeing the expenditures.

5) Prior to being elected, President Obama repeatedly condemned excessively long prison sentences, particularly in the cases of non-violent offenders, according to an article in the November, 2012 issue of reason magazine. Unfortunately, along with reducing the deficit, closing Guantanamo, not hiring lobbyists for his administration, etc., this seems to be another political campaign promise going unfulfilled since he was sworn into office the President has approve one sentence commutation out of 5,500 case that have been presented to him. So much for his campaign condemnation.

6) If it is any consolation, politicians and governments around the world have very similar problems to us, wasteful political class spending and high taxation. According to an article in the September 7, 2012 issue of The Week magazine, Sapo, the Swedish government’s spy agency, is trying to explain how it spent about $800,000 on a James Bond themed party for its staff.

The party included casino tables, a swing band, and extensive gourmet food spread. The only reason the secret and expensive party came to light was because of an accounting error. The head of the spy agency said that his staff had been under tremendous pressure and deserved a party. However, there is a difference between an office party and an $800,000 taxpayer-funded gala bash.

Enough insanity, waste, and lunacy for this month, it was a bad thirty days or so if you are a taxpayer or a citizen supposedly living in a democracy. This month’s political class antics continue to prove that at least the following three steps from “Love My Country,Loathe my Government” are needed to stop the pain and waste:

1. Step 34 would remove politicians from their political committees when they continue to allow the insanity and wasteful spending that we continually cover every month. The members of the committee or subcommittee that lost track of the $190 million that went down the drain at the D.C. school district should be removed form their post. EVERY politician that has any oversight for the disgraceful and corrupt TSA entity should have been removed from their committee posts long ago. Until the politicians overseeing these malfunctioning government actions are held accountable, nothing will improve.
2. Step 39 would impose term limit on all Federal politicians. These types of shenanigans and insanity have been going on for a very long time. Those politicians that have been along for this wasteful ride are now part of the problem since they have not been able or willing to fix these problems. They need to have their political careers terminated.
3. Step 44 would not allow any Federal taxpayer money to be spent on any project or program that did not substantially impact a substantial number of residences in at least five states. Federal money is for national programs and projects, not state and local ones. This would eliminate the earmarks and pontifical payback schemes that sacrifice taxpayer money for campaign election favors and funding.

I would like to say that this is the last post regarding political class insanity. Unfortunately, I am pretty sure we will be back in December with more of the same.

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http://www.cato.org/
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http://www.repealamendment/