May, 2013 Political Class Insanity, Part 3: Fixing Unemployment In Serbia, Obama Phone Fraud, The Collapse of Detroit, and More

This is the third in a series of posts covering the latest political class insanity. In the previous two posts we have reviewed such lunacy as the U.S. defense budget which is now over a whopping $700 billion a year, the fact that the Federal government hands out over $115 billion a year in contracts that have no competitive bidding involved, the monstrosity that is Dodd-Frank, and other lunacy, which continues today.

1) A Wall Street Journal article that was summarized in the March 22, 2013 issue of The Week magazine reported that Americans are less active than ever. A new Federal government study estimated that Americans’ sedentary time outside of work has increased by about 40% between 1965 and 2009. On average, Americans take 5,117 steps a day, about half than the 10,000 steps recommended by the American Heart Association.

No matter how much health insurance is provided to Americans under Obama Care, unless you can get Americans up and walking and active, you will not eliminate one of the main root causes of skyrocketing health care costs in this country. Rather than setting up massive government bureaucracies that will never work and strangling the economy with taxes and regulations, the far better, simpler, and more effective approach to high health care costs is a public relations and public health drive to get people moving.

However, better, simpler, and effective are three adjectives rarely associated with the American political class.

2) Another Federal welfare program that has gotten out of control and is riddled with waste is the so-called “Obama Phone” program:

• The original program was started way back in the Reagan administration and provided minimal landline phone service to poor rural Americans so that they could make a call during an emergency.
• Back then, the annual cost of the program was about $146 million dollars.
• In 2008, cell phones were added to this so-called Lifeline program and the usage ballooned.
• The program, which is supposed to be only for people on food stamps and welfare, costs the American taxpayer $2.2 billion a year.
• This makes it 15 times more expensive than when it was truly for emergency use only.
• The fraud and inefficiency of the program has gotten so out of hand that even Democrat Senator Claire McCaskill was offered a free phone under the program: “I got solicitation for a free phone at my apartment, which is certainly not a building where you’re going to have people who are qualified for free phones. … There is clearly money being wasted here.” You think, Senator?
• The waste the Senator so eloquently believes to exist is staggering.
• The FCC says there are more than 270,000 people who have more than one welfare phone, which is not allowed in the program.
• The top five companies that provide phones under the program readily admit that 41% of the people who have the phones may not be eligible for the program but still get them anyway.
• Arkansas Republican Congressman Tim Griffin recently asserted: “I hear from law enforcement that these phones are often found at crime scenes and are used in drug deals. Why? It’s because you can’t trace them.”

Great program. Almost half of the participants are getting the phones illegally and fraudulently. They are being used for criminal activities, courtesy of the American taxpayer. And those that are actually entitled to a free phone may actually be abusing the privilege by asking for AND obtaining more than one free phone.

If you could get just the 41% fraud under control, you could save the American taxpayer about $900 million a year. Those savings could operate the discontinued White House tours for over 900 years or give each American household about $7.50, enough for a movie ticket or a few gallons of gas, certainly more worthwhile uses than supporting crime and fraud.

3) Detroit used to be one of the largest, most vibrant, and wealthiest cities in America. However, decades of political corruption, fraud, incompetence, and political criminal activity have resulted in the following Detroit condition:

1. Detroit was once the fourth-largest city in the United States, and it was once home to close to 2 million people. However, according to the 2010 census, only 713,000 people now live in Detroit.
2. The population of Detroit has declined by about 25 percent over the past decade. The last time the population of Detroit was this low was back in 1910.
3. Back in 1960, the city of Detroit had the highest per-capita income in the United States.
4. Today, the unemployment rate in Detroit is more than 18%, which is more than twice as high as the nation as a whole.
5. According to a report that was just recently released, approximately 60% of all children in Detroit live in poverty.
6. Approximately one-third of Detroit's 140 square miles are either vacant or derelict.
7. The city government of Detroit has closed dozens of schools and has decided to cut off public services to the heavily blighted areas.
8. According to one estimate, there are 33,500 empty houses and 91,000 vacant residential lots in the city of Detroit today.
9. The median price of a home in Detroit is just $9,000, and there are some areas of Detroit where you can still buy a house for $100.
10. The murder rate in Detroit is 11 times higher than it is in New York City.
11. Due to budget cutbacks, most police stations in Detroit are now closed to the public for 16 hours a day.

Note: the original sources of this data can be accessed at:

http://www.isthatbaloney.com/11-shocking-facts-about-detroit-that-dont-fit-obamas-so-called-economic-recovery/

You have to work hard to be so incompetent. It is hard to fathom that a city’s politicians could be so crooked and so inept to allow a city of this magnitude to fall so far. It reinforces the fact that just because someone is in a political position, national, state, or local, does not mean that they are honest, bright, and hard working. Detroit is the personification of this.

4) Everyone knows that it has been a rough five years for the U.S. economy. Persistently high unemployment with over 23 million Americans unemployed or underemployed. Worse employment conditions for minorities and younger Americans. Record high food stamp enrollment.

Thus, one could consider the recent announcement that the Federal government was looking to grant upwards of $300,000 for an effort for “workforce development.” Although small in budget terms, anything to get Americans working might be considered a good idea.

Oops, the $300,000 was not for unemployed Americans, it was to be used to help Serbia get its unemployment rate down. Yes, Serbia. How many Americans do you think could pick out Serbia on a map? Talk about bad priorities.

The Federal government’s International Development (USAID) organization recently announced that it will award up to $300,000 for “workforce development” in the Republic of Serbia:

“Currently, there is a mismatch between private sector needs and the capacity of the existing workforce, which continues to contribute to the high unemployment rate, especially among youth.
Therefore, USAID/Serbia has identified workforce development as a means to address the broader problem of unemployment,”

Serbia??? Consider the unemployment and other economic conditions currently in place in this country as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in early April:

• The unemployment rate is about 7.6% in America, in itself very bad but much less than the combined unemployment rate and underemployment rate.
• 9.46 million Americans have dropped out of the workforce since Obama was first inaugurated in January 2009.
• The unemployment rate for African Americans in America is 13.3%.
• The unemployment rate for Latinos the rate is 9.2%.

I am sure that Serbia has some significant problems but we do also. Wasting even the relatively small sum of $300,000 is money well wasted on a Serbian problem, given our own dire economic workforce problems.

Serbia??? More political class insanity tomorrow.

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