May, 2013 Political Class Insanity, Part 6: More Washington Stupidity and How To Solve It

This is the final post in this month’s series of posts that cover the insanity from the American political class. This month’s series set a record for the most insanity in that it required six posts to get it all covered. At some point soon, if the current set of politicians continues on their road of lunacy we may need to rename this blog the “Political Class Insanity” blog.

Today we will look at some final acts of insanity but also set forth some changes to our political processes that are needed to get this insanity and waste out of the country. This lunacy not only wastes valuable taxpayer wealth but also strips out our liberty and freedom from our lives.

1) The Hill reported on April 29, 2013 that about a dozen Democratic Congress people are pushing an interesting, if inane, resolution. They are calling on Congress to recognize that climate change is hurting women more than men, and could even drive poor women to "transactional sex" for survival. In other words, global warming, if it exists, will result in more women turning to prostitution:

"[F]ood insecure women with limited socioeconomic resources may be vulnerable to situations such as sex work, transactional sex, and early marriage that put them at risk for HIV, STIs, unplanned pregnancy, and poor reproductive health."

Okay, even if we buy the global warming theory, where is the proof, rather than opinion, that prostitution will increase? Plus, don’t we have enough on our plates in the immediate future such as the unraveling of Obama Care, an anemic economy, high unemployment, etc. that should have the current attention of Washington?

This resolution is just that, only a statement, it does not call for funding, it does not call for concrete action, it does not call for resolution of the alleged problem , etc. it just asks for a statement of opinion. Pathetic priorities. The Titantic is sinking and these politicians are worried and spending time and resources on something that may or may not happen decades from now.

2) The Associated Press reported on April 5, 2013 that NASA is planning for a robot controlled spaceship to lasso a small asteroid and park it near the moon for astronauts to explore. Yes, the Obama administration, according to the article, is planning on asking for $100 million in its 2014 budget to explore this possibility, capturing a small asteroid. Dang, you cannot make this stuff up.

The robotic ship would capture the 500-ton 25-foot asteroid in 2019. Then, using a yet-to-be-developed Orion space capsule, a crew of four astronauts would park themselves next to the asteroid in 2021 and conduct spacewalking explorations.

The $100 million would be used to find the right asteroid. Lord knows how many more tens of billions of dollars will be needed to actually put together the program, training, logistics, equipment, etc. to execute the catch, capture, and explore aspects.

How would this capture work? According to the article, it would work like the space equivalent of "a baggie with a drawstring.” NASA’s ship would then attach a yet-to-be-developed solar propulsion module to the asteroid to de-spin it and then bring the asteroid to where they wanted to park it. The Senator supporting such an endeavor in the Senator, Bill Nelson of Florida, makes the rather sizeable jump in logic that doing this project, besides protecting votes in his state, would help us understand how to guide an asteroid away from a collision with earth.

Okay, let’s talk about real priorities:

- Probability that today well over 20 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed: 100%

- Probability that today we are fast approaching a incomprehensible national debt of $17 TRILLION: 100%

- Probability that today tens of millions of Americans are going hungry every day because of an anemic economy: 100%

- Probability that today our public schools are failing miserably to educate our kids today: 100%

- Probability that today we have a leaky border that is resulting in an immense illegal alien and drug control problem: 100%

- Probability that today Americans and Americans businesses are taxed at such a high level that taxation in this country has really morphed into repression: 100%

- Probability that the world will be destroyed in the near future by an asteroid: Barely measurable.

Yes, an asteroid could hit us in the near future. But could we take care of some more immediate problems that affect just about every American today before we throw limited resources and wealth at a problem that may never occur and which is decades and billions of dollars away from being possible.

Back to Senator Nelson. Even if this far fetched idea was possible, i.e. we could “lasso” a small asteroid and control it, how does that translate to a mega-sized asteroid that would destroy the earth and which we would have no chance to stop it in space, de-spin it, and nudge it? Makes no sense.

NASA also wants to go to Mars. We know from life experience that the more things government does, the more things get screwed up. Focus on fixing the short term earthly priorities and focus only on the Mars effort. Gives everything a much better chance of getting resolved without this space lasso trick.

3) In a CNBC report from April 30, 2013, a study by the St. Louis Federal Reserve found that of the $108 billion paid out in unemployment benefits in 2011, at least $3.3 billion was paid out dishonestly in benefits to people who are still working, no longer alive, or, get this, are behind bars. The largest share of the fraud payments,$2.2 billion, went to people who were still working.

The report also contained some other disgusting fraud results:

• Nearly 3,200 households making more than $1 million per year received unemployment benefits during the economic downturn.
• That fraud amounted to $80 million paid out by the government or enough to keep the White House tours going for over 80 years and keep the FAA air traffic controllers staffed for lord knows how long.
• Other people illegally collecting benefits include prisoners such as inmates in Philadelphia's prison system fraudulently who collected $7 million in unemployment benefits while behind bars in 2011.
• Benefits are also continued going out to people who have died but have not been purged from the government rolls.

This is what the St. Louis Federal Reserve was able to identify as fraud. It is unknown how much more fraud goes on that is not identified by their efforts simply because criminals may be better at hiding their fraud than government employees are in identifying the fraud.

Oh, and please do not tell me that on a percentage basis this is good government. $3.3 billion or more is a lot of money and the government has been doing this function for decades. They should know how to do it much better by now.

4) Let’s finish up this month’s political class insanity with the most disgusting affront to the American taxpayer that has come along in a long time. The Boston Herald has reported that the Tsarnaev brothers, the Islamic terrorists who are suspected of executing the horrific marathon bombings and the murder of a local policeman, have received from more than $100,000 in taxpayer welfare funding:

The Tsarnaev family, including the suspected terrorists and their parents, benefited from more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded assistance — a bonanza ranging from cash and food stamps to Section 8 housing from 2002 to 2012, the Herald has learned.

"The breadth of the benefits the family was receiving was stunning," said a person with knowledge of documents handed over to a legislative committee today.

How much more disgraceful can this political class become and how much more dysfunctional can the government it operates become? Terrorists blow us up, killing and maiming untold numbers of innocent Americans and many of those maimed and killed Americans had their taxes go to funding the terrorists’ life styles? Words escape me on this grand level of incompetence.

Okay, let’s stop talking about political class insanity and start talking about how we fix the situation. We have moved way beyond the point where can assume that these people will ever have the initiative, intelligence, and wherewithal to fix what ails our government processes, operations, and the major issues of our times.

Thus, we are going to have to do this ourselves, starting with at least the following steps from “Love My Country, Loathe My Government:”

1. Step 39 would impose term limits on every Washington politicians, one and done. They have forfeited their right to be in office any longer, we need a fresh set of people, ideas, and integrity to start fixing what is wrong.
2. Step 44 would not allow any Federal taxpayer money to be used on any government program or project unless it significantly affected the citizens of at least five states. This simple rule would greatly reduce wasteful spending since stupid expenses like developing a prom week simulator video game, studying the sexual behavior of New Zealand snails, and other such nonsense would ever be underwritten by the American taxpayer.
3. Step 6 would not allow any business, PAC, union, or lobbyist group to contribute to any political campaign. When the founding fathers put freedom of speech into the Constitution I am quite sure they were worried about freedom of speech of individual citizens, not large organizations. Thus, this step would allow only individual citizens directly contribute to a politician’s election campaign.
4. Step 7 would not allow anyone to contribute to a political campaign who was not directly affected by that campaign’s results. For example, a citizen in Kansas, no matter how rich, could not contribute to a Congressional campaign in a New Jersey district.
5. Not directly included in the book but totally necessary is a full court press to get the criminal fraud and waste out of our social safety net programs. Many times we have reported on how the Federal government loses well over $200 billion a year in its Social Security, Medicare food aid, and other welfare-like programs to fraud and waste.
6. We also need to overhaul the IRS so that it protects the rights and privacy of citizens but finally gets around to collecting the over $380 billion a year that it fails to collect from tax evaders every year.

We are a great country served by a horribly underperforming political class. Unless we start executing these steps as soon as possible, the insanity coming out of Washington will eventually overwhelm the great promise of this country. Einstein forecasted this would happen long ago:

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Seems like he had our current political class in mind when this gem was spoken.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w