April, 2013 Political Class Insanity, Part 1: Snail Sex, Puppet Funding, and More

It’s the beginning of another month which always means the start of another set of posts related to political class insanity. Last month we set a record for the number of posts required to cover all of the latest stupidity, wasteful, spending and insanity from the American political class, beginning with the following post:

http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/03/february-2013-political-class-insanity.html

I do not think we will need as many posts this month to cover the latest insanity. This is not because the political class is getting any smarter or better but because we covered a lot of the insanity, mostly wasteful spending escapades, with the following three Chicken Little posts in March:

http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/03/chicken-little-and-washington-political.html

http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/03/chicken-little-and-washington-political_26.html

http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/04/chicken-little-and-washington-political.html

The remaining, undiscussed insanity starts below:

1) According to a recent U.S. News and World Report article from March 28, 2013, The Federal judicial districts that contain Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City RANKED LAST in terms of Federal gun law enforcement in 2012 despite having some of the toughest gun control laws in the nation. These conclusions come from a research effort conducted by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which tracks Federal data.

Federal gun crimes that seem to get neglected in areas with tough gun control laws include illegal possession of a firearm in a school zone, illegal sale of a firearm to a juvenile, felon, or drug addict, and illegal transport of a firearm across state lines. The Federal districts of Eastern New York, Central California, and Northern Illinois ranked 88th, 89th and 90th, respectively, out of 90 districts, in prosecutions of Federal weapons crimes per capita last year.

It wasn't always this way. All three districts now fare lower on the list than they had been in years past. In 2010, for instance, Chicago was 78th in Federal weapons prosecutions. Thus, the longer the tougher gun control laws are on the books, the less and less likely these districts prosecute gun offenders.

In a final twist or irony, not only to these cities also have some of the nation's most restrictive gun laws, they are also run by some of the most active mayors in championing gun control. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa are all members of the national Mayors Against Illegal Guns campaign.

Two thoughts here:

1. Maybe we should start to prosecute criminals under the gun control laws before unnecessarily shredding the Second Amendment with more laws.
2. Maybe we should go back to the core problem that started this whole disaster, the Newtown school shooting and focus on protecting our kids today rather than endlessly debating gun control legislation that is unlikely to make any difference, given that existing laws are ignored and thus, make no difference.

2) I had come across a number of articles claiming that the Federal government had recently spent millions and millions of dollars supporting puppet and marionette efforts across the country, many of which came out of the failed economic stimulus program that Obama wasted over $800 billion on. I found it quite a stretch of the imagination that our politicians in Washington would waste our tax wealth on such trivial matters when there were so many larger issues to tackle.

Well, I was wrong. Following up on these articles led me to an official government website that tracks all government spending by topic:

www.usaspending.gov

This website bills itself as “Government spending at your fingertips.” Given that it is owned and managed by the Federal government, I thought it would be a good place to prove that politicians are not wasting millions of dollars on puppets. Unfortunately, when I typed the word “puppet” into the site’s search function, the following data and information flowed back to me:

• There were 121 instances listed in the website where Federal dollars had been spent or granted to projects involving puppets.
• These 121 cases wasted over $2.9 million worth of taxpayer wealth, enough money to keep the White House tour tradition funded for three years.
• For some reason almost 40% of the $2.9 million went to entities in just two states, Georgia and Illinois.
• These puppet grants were doled out from a variety of different Federal departments including, but not limited to, the Defense Department, the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for The Arts, the Department of Commerce, proving that this puppet nonsense spending is not confined to one Federal branch of government.

Insanity, such bad priorities, why is the American taxpayer’s wealth going to such inane programs? Here are is a small sample of the actual projects that were funded:

• Collaborative Research: Major: Puppet Choreography and Automated Marionettes.
• Interactive multimedia puppet training program for the Berkeley interview.
• Puppet Enterprise software support.
• To support the Puppet Rods and Strings Series at the St. Anne’s Warehouse.
• To support the development and production of a bilingual puppet theater adaptation of “Beauty and The Beast.”
• To support the 8th International Puppet Festival, “Puppets In The Green Mountains.”

Craziness. Now, not all of these expenses were incurred in the recent past, some happened over the past few years. But timing still does not make it right. Wasteful, insane spending for very little redeeming value to the vast majority of Americans.

Note: this is a great website that we will be exploring in the near future to continue uncovering blatant government waste.

3) If you think spending money on puppets is bad, get ready for an even worse use of taxpayer wealth. The National Science Foundation has awarded a taxpayer fund grant worth $876,752 to the University of Iowa to study whether or not there is any benefit to sex among New Zealand mud snails and whether that explains why any organism has sex.

That is right. Rather than spend taxpayer money on how to improve our kids' education, become more energy efficient, make Americans healthier to reduce our sky high health care costs, or a few other major issues that affect most Americans, the Federal government is studying the sex lives of snails. And not even American snails.

The effort was first funded in 2011 and will continue until 2015. It will examine the New Zealand snails to see if it is better that they reproduce sexually or asexually, the snail can do both, in order to gain insight on why so many organisms practice sexual reproduction. According to the study’s overview, “Sexual reproduction is more costly than asexual reproduction, yet nearly all organisms reproduce sexually at least some of the time. Why is sexual reproduction so common despite its costs.”

Two questions are 1) Who cares and 2) Who approved such a nonsensical use of taxpayer money?

The actual grant proposal can be read at:

http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1122176&HistoricalAwards=false

4) The local ABC television station in San Francisco, KGO/Channel 7 recently reported on political class insanity at the local government level. It seems that Alameda County Administrator Susan Muranishi currently receives over $420,000 in pay and benefits every year and more importantly, and she'll continue to receive that for the rest of her life.

Alameda County, like many other counties, is facing a multimillion-dollar deficit. That's part of the reason taxpayers are stunned; not only by the administrator's current salary, but also because she'll earn that amount long after she leaves this office.

According to state records and ABC‘s reporting, Muranishi earns a base salary of almost $302,000. But she also gets more than $121,000 in other compensation, including equity and longevity pay, a performance bonus, and car allowance among other things, putting her annual compensation above $423,000. That makes her the highest paid county administrator in California. I would also bet that makes her the highest paid county administrator in the country.

But this sky high compensation does not stop with Muranishi's salary. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the 63 year old administrator is guaranteed about the same amount of money, more than $400,000 per year, in retirement for life. If you assume that on average she will live another 20 years, the county will end up paying her over $8 million for doing nothing in retirement. This expense is in the reality of a county which is struggling to support basic services.

Jon Coupal, the president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers' Association, said this in a statement in the article: "The obscenely exorbitant salary received by the CAO of Alameda County reveals a fundamental disconnect between our public leaders and ordinary citizens. The 'guaranteed salary for life' is particularly galling and will burden Alameda County taxpayers for decades."

Well said Mr. Coupal, “a fundamental disconnect.” Another example of politicians personal enrichment vs. the needs of their constituents.

A potential bigger question and scandal is how and who approved these types of salaries and retirement benefits? Were taxpayers asleep at the wheel and blindly approved these numbers or were they developed behind closed doors by politicians for politicians? In either case, insanity all around.

Let’s review. Taxpayer wealth wasted on puppet initiatives. Taxpayer wealth wasted on snail sex. Gun control politicians whose gun law enforcement efforts are feeble. And millions of dollars wasted on a county politician’s retirement. Insanity, idiocy, and head scratching wonder. More to come tomorrow.

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www.loathemygovernment.com

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http://www.reason.com/
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