March, 2013 Political Class Insanity, Part 2: Disrespecting Pelosi, Phantom Federal Agencies, and More

This is our second post for this month’s latest political class insanity and idiocy. Unfortunately, every month that we do this series seems to be longer than the previous month’s list of insanity antics. Yesterday, we saw how much graft it takes for a U.S. Congressman to shred his integrity, how bad California politicians are at managing that state’s fiscal matters and other silly and wasteful actions.

Let’s continue with this craziness today, beginning with the following bit of insanity:

1) President Obama has been quite shrill and out of control telling everyone who would listen that the sequestering of about 2% of the Federal government’s budget will be disastrous for the country. We can easily make the case that trimming 2% form the Federal budget is quite a painless task if only the Washington political class would do its job to reduce wasteful spending, redundancy, and criminal fraud in all Federal government programs.

But they do not do their job and as a result, a measly 2% budget reduction has turned the White House hysterical. But you have to smile at a February 25, 2013 Reason magazine article on sequester.

As required by the Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012, the Office of Budget Management sent a detailed sequester report to in September, 2012 that did a detailed analysis of what Federal department or entity would receive what budget cuts as a result of sequester.

But there's a small problem with their analysis in that one of the budget cuts it highlights is at a Federal agency that no longer exists and did not exist when the OMB sent its report to Congress. Apparently, a line item on page 121 of the OMB's report states that the National Drug Intelligence Center would lose $2 million of its $20 million budget. Unfortunately, the National Drug Intelligence Center was formally shut down on June 15, 2012, three months before the OMB issued its report to Congress and continues not to exist.

Thus, the Federal government has gotten so big and so out of control that it does not even know what parts of it actually exist from a physical, functional, and budget perspective. And at least part of the government thinks non-existent entities exist and are still being funded.

2) Houston Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee recently took time to honor Atlanta hip-hop star Jay Jenkins, known as “Young Jeezy,” for his community work across the country. By the way, Young Jeezy has just released a new song entitled “O.J.” with the refrain “Killin’ that white bitch, OJ” and “I just gotta keep killin’ that white bitch”. Yes, this is someone a member of Congress should be honoring. Enough said from an insanity perspective.

3) Business Insider magazine estimates that Nancy Pelosi’s net worth is about $26 million. The website, www.celebrityworth.com, thinks that her net worth is about $35 million. Different estimates but same conclusion: Nancy Pelosi is pretty rich.

Her congressional salary is about $175,000 a year (which puts her in the top 3-4% of all U.S. earners) or only about .7% of her net worth using the lower estimate from above. When it became apparent that Congressional members might have to take a small decrease in their salary as a result of the sequester, she had the following quote:

"I don’t think we should do it; I think we should respect the work we do. I think it’s necessary for us to have the dignity of the job that we have rewarded."

According to Pelosi, if she takes a pay cut it disrespects the work she does. If an American takes a pay cut via the tax increases Congress recently passed, it is for the good of the country. Speak of hypocrisy.

A pay cut would not disrespect her work. She has disrespected the work she does for years. She was Speaker of the House when the Federal government was setting records for annual budget deficits.

She was Speaker of the House when Obama Care was passed even though she had not read the bill (“we have to pass the bill to see what is in it.”)

She was Speaker of the House when she screeched that 500 million Americans were applying for first time unemployment benefits every week (even though there are only just over 300 million Americans in the country.)

She and many of her Congressional peers have failed to resolve the major issues of our times over the past few decades.

A pay cut could not disrespect her job, she finished that job long ago.

4) Consider an ill-fated Department of Energy alternative program that was described by a recent Federal Inspector General report:

• In February 2010, LG Chem Michigan Inc. was awarded more than $150 million in Recovery Act [economic stimulus program] funding to help construct a $304 million battery cell manufacturing plant in Holland, Michigan.
• As part of this process, LG Chem Michigan was also eligible to receive more than $175 million in tax relief from the State and local governments through 2025.
• The objective of the project was to design, construct, start up and test a production facility for lithium-ion polymer batteries, create more than 440 jobs, and produce enough battery cells annually to equip 60,000 electric vehicles by the end of 2013, with assembly beginning in 2012.

How did that plan and use of taxpayer wealth work out? According to the Inspector General:

• On October 24, 2012, the Office of Inspector General received a complaint that LG Chem Michigan misused Recovery Act funds.
• The complainant asserted that employees at the Michigan facility had little work to do and were spending time volunteering at local non-profit organizations, playing games and watching movies at the expense of the Federal government and taxpayers.
• In a separate action, the Department's Chief of Staff and its General Counsel brought similar concerns to our attention. We initiated this review to examine the allegations and to evaluate the Department's management of the Recovery Act grant awarded to LG Chem Michigan.
• We (Inspector General] confirmed the allegations. We found that work performed under the grant to LG Chem Michigan had not been managed effectively. Based on progress to date and despite the expenditures of $142 million in Recovery Act funds, LG Chem Michigan had not yet achieved the objectives outlined in its Department-approved project plan.

How many times a day do we think this kind of waste goes on every day in the Federal government? That is why the fear mongering on the sequester is so absurd. The Washington political class spends and wastes so much taxpayer wealth on these types of inane projects that a much larger sequester could be done without impacting the vast majority of American lives.

Just as a point of interest, if the political class had not wasted this $150 million on this crony capitalism project, over 2,700 schools could have been protected by a trained police officer for one year, a much better use of taxpayer wealth.

The insanity continues to tomorrow. Hopefully, we will not disrespect Nancy Pelosi in the process.