So, the final set of insanity for you tears and enjoyment:
1) Although $2 million is not a lot of money relative to an almost $4 TRILLION annual Federal budget, there is no need to spend $2 million of taxpayer money if you do not have to. In fact, if you stop all of the unnecessary $2 million expenses of the Federal government, you probably could save hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Also, remember that $2 million could have kept the White House tour program operating for more than two years.
Why $2 million? Recent government budget reports have shown that Congress spends about $2 million a year on office snacks. Let’s do a little math. There are 535 members of Congress who spend $2 million just on office snacks over 52 weeks. This comes out to about $14 dollars a day per Congressional office. This is the equivalent about two dozen doughnuts a day per Congressional office.
Given that just about every person working in a Congressional office is making substantially more than the average American worker, wouldn’t it be better, and healthier, option for these people to pay for their own office snacks rather than chomping down the equivalent of two dozen doughnuts every working day of the year? Especially if this $2 million could be used for the more worthwhile government functions (White House tours, Native American education, air traffic controllers) and other programs that were cut by the sequester.
Some politicians have done the right thing and reduced their office budget, with Rand Paul being the poster child for efficient Congressional offices, having reduced his annual office budget by $600,000. Given how the rest of the country is suffering, I am sure the Congressional staffers and their bosses can do without $2 million of snacks every year, or 24 doughnuts every day.
2) We have always maintained that the Federal government is the most inefficient, inept, and often corrupt manager of money in the world. We have spent four years documenting the many and various ways the political class wastefully spends our wealth.
This ineptness was driven home by a speech from Congressman Paul Ryan that I recently came across. Congress Ryan is one of the very few politicians in Washington who have any kind of basic math skills so when he talks, I pay attention. According to a speech he gave at the last Jack Kemp Awards dinner, the Federal and state governments in this country spend almost $1 TRILLION a year on various welfare programs.
Given that there are about 46 million Americans living in poverty in this country today, if the government was not so inept and we could somehow divide up that $1 TRILLION wealth among our needy, each person living in poverty, not every family, every person, would receive an annual check for over $20,000. Thus, a needy family of four would get a check for $80,000, more than enough to not make them not poor or needy any more.
But that does not happen because by the time the $1 TRILLION is mismanaged by politicians and bureaucrats, there is far less available for those that actually need the assistance. This has been going on for almost fifty years, since Johnson’s Great Society programs began. Trillions and trillions of dollars that got lost in the administration and corruption of these government programs, so much so that fifty years later we STILL have 46 million Americans living in poverty.
Maybe we should think about doing this whole welfare thing a different way, one that is not beholden to the established special interests that feed off this government inefficiency.
3) According to a Department of Agriculture report from early June, 2013, there are officially 47.7 million Americans receiving food assistance form the Federal government. The population of Spain is about 46.2 million people. Thus, despite what the Obama administration might try to tell us, you cannot say you have a strong or robust economic recovery underway when the equivalent of every man, woman, and child in Spain is receiving government food assistance.
4) According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, 1,688 Federal rules and regulations have already been put into effect this year. At this rate, the total tally for 2013 would be 3,582 new final rules and regulations. This averages out to about 14 new government rules and regulations every business day this year.
Want to bet that most of these far too numerous rules and regulations are put forth to justify a bureaucracy’s existence vs. benefiting Americans? Want to bet that this tsunami of new regulations is preventing business owners and companies from focusing on growing their business and the economy, diverting their attention to finding out how not to run afoul of unnecessary regulations?
5) One last bit of political class insanity to finish off this month’s record setting level of lunacy from American politicians. Convenience stores in Indiana are suing the state government over beer sale regulations.
Why? Apparently Indiana legislators at some point in the past had nothing better to do and passed a state law that prohibited Indiana convenience stores from selling COLD beer. They could sell COLD wine, but not COLD beer. Indiana supermarkets, on the other hand, are allowed to sell COLD beer and COLD wine. The lawsuit is based on the equal treatment under the law aspects of the 14th Amendment.
I would have loved to have heard the legislative floor debate and logic for this law, I am sure it was idiotic. More likely, though, there was no debate, this provision was secretly snuck into another law and was supported by some lawmaker(s) who received supermarket-based campaign donations.
In either case, total waste of time and resources on both the state government’s part and the legal resources and expenses that convenience stores are having to expend, resources that would have been better used to grow their businesses and the state’s economy. Insanity.
That does it for July, eight days of unbelievable waste and idiocy from the American political class. Dumb laws, rampant corruption, wasteful spending, self enrichment, the many ways that the American politician under serves the American citizenry.
What can be done about this lunacy? Many times in this blog we have lamented the fact that Federal politicians are not subjected to term limits. Many of the decades' old problems we face in this country, e.g. failing public schools, leaky borders, sky high debt, escalating health care costs, etc. have been around the same amount of time than many, many of our Washington politicians have been around. They have been unable to resolve these issues and, in fact, have probably made them worse. They need to go but the political processes they have also corrupted have allowed them to retain their seats in Washington for far too long.
But there is now a way to fight back. A new grassroots effort is underway to institute a Constitutional amendment that would impose term limits on all Washington politicians, they would be “one and done.” You can participate in that effort at the following website:
www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
Think about a passage from that website before you decide whether or not to join this term limits crusade:
One last thought: imagine yourself ten years down the road from today. Your kids or grandkids ask you why the economy is so sour, why it is so difficult to get a good job, why freedom in America seems like an empty promise, and why their tax burden is so onerous in order to support the ever growing national debt. Do nothing and you will be able to tell them that when you had a chance to turn out the career politicians that were responsible for their economic distress and replace them with actual problem solvers, you passed on the opportunity. Get involved with this effort to implement term limits and you may never have to answer their questions.
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
No comments:
Post a Comment