July, 2013 Political Class Insanity, Part 5: Federal Employee Scams, More IRS Incompetence, And Americans Living Week To Week

This is our fifth in this month’s series about the political class insanity that we are subjected to every month by the American political class. Wasteful spending, stupid legislation, unbridled arrogance, and the destruction of liberty, there is no facet of our life that the political class cannot screw up.

The first blog post on this month’s insanity can be read at:

http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/07/july-2013-political-class-insanity-part_2.html

Thus, let’s get started with the fifth, but not last, set of lunacy and insanity from our politicians:

1) A favorite tactic of gun control advocates to get guns out of the hands of both law abiding citizens and criminals is to conduct so-called “gun buybacks.” At gun buybacks, people can drop off any kind of gun to the police, no questions asked, and receive some sort of compensation in return. That compensation could be cash, tickets to sporting events, and other enticements.

There are a lot of problems with these types of activities. First, any criminal who needs a gun to conduct their criminal activities is not going to turn over that gun for a basketball game ticket.

Second, criminals can use these types of events to dump weapons that have previously been used in crimes since there are no questions asked and the weapons are destroyed in a mass manner, making the potential for solving previous gun-related crimes less likely.

Third, is a basketball ticket really worth giving up the use of your Second Amendment rights?

To this list, we add another problem with gun buybacks. UPI news recently reported that a police department outside Chicago, the St. Charles Police, operated one of these gun buy-back things to “get guns off the streets.” But what did the police do? They turned around and sold many of the guns to ordinary citizens to make a profit and put those guns right back “on the streets.”

Apparently, this police department saw a way to increase its departmental budget by reselling the guns. Another government program that does the exact opposite of what it is supposed to do.

2) Four years after the recession supposedly ended, economic conditions are really not different for most Americans. According to a recent survey by Bankrate:

• The survey found that a whopping 71% of Americans don’t have enough money in savings to weather a six-month emergency’s worth of living expenses.
• 50% of Americans have no more than three months’ worth of savings.
• 27% have no savings at all.
• One in five Americans feels their overall financial situation is worse now than one year ago.

Combine this information with the fact that the latest government economic statistics show that the economy grew only 1.8% in the first quarter of 2013, not the original estimated 2.4% growth, and we see just more evidence that the Washington political class has no ability, knowledge, or plan to grow the economy, resulting in stagnant economic growth and tenuous economic situations for the majority of American households. Despicable.

3) Every issue of political class insanity would not be complete without with an IRS misadventure. Today's IRS insult and insanity follws up on a recent report that a high ranking IRS official had steered a $500 million contract to a friend of his. According to an article published in The Hill on June 25, 2103, the IRS official helped funnel work to a friend whose technology company received some $500 million in agency contracts, according to a new congressional investigation.

The House Oversight Committee determined that Greg Roseman, the IRS’s deputy director for IT acquisition, helped direct contracts to Braulio Castillo, the chief executive of Strong Castle, “through back channels.” Back channels, just another way of saying illegally and unethically.

The website, Bankrupting America, did some simple math to determine the good that $500 million could have done for ordinary American taxpayers:

• $500 million would wipe out tax bills For 169,434 Middle-Income Americans. The average tax bill for an American household earning $43,400 was $2,951 in 2009 (the latest information available). $500 million would wipe out the bills of 169,434 of these households.
• $500 million would cover a half day of Federal interest payments. The Federal government spent $359.8 billion on interest payments on its debt in fiscal year 2012, about $985 million per day. $500 million would cover about 12 hours of interest payments.
• $500 million would cover the funding for The National Endowment For The Arts for more than three years. The budget for the NEA for fiscal year 2012 was $146 million. $500 million would fund the NEA for about three-and-a-half years.
• $500 million would pay for three weeks of IRS operations. The IRS’s budget for operations for fiscal year 2012 was $11.8 billion, or about $32.3 million per day. $500 million could fund IRS operations for about 15 days.
• $500 million would cover the more than 500 years of White House tours.

But alas, this will never happen since that $500 million was used by a rogue IRS executive to enrich a friend, and probably himself, at the expense of the American taxpayer.

4) The Washington Examiner reported on more government fraud in a June 17, 2013 article. However, rather than reporting on civilians and criminal elements that defraud Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid out of over $200 billion a year, this article reported on how Federal employees defraud the American taxpayer via the Federal employee disability programs:

• A former postal worker was running marathons even though she was drawing Federal disability checks for a bogus back injury.
• A disabled Federal employee was found out to have gone scuba diving, skied in Switzerland and did flips on a trapeze. Additionally, she spent part of her $193,000 in her taxpayer funded disability payments on a boat named "Free Ride" before she was eventually caught.
• A Justice Department lawyer got $90,000 in ANNUAL disability checks after claiming the stress of his job kept him off the job. Apparently the cable TV show he began hosting while drawing disability pay wasn't so stressful.
• Then there was the civilian Navy employee who owned and operated a "gentleman's club" while on disability.

And the worst part of these insults to taxpayer wealth is that the government really has no clue how bad the problem is:

• According to the article, Federal employee disability compensation is highly vulnerable to fraud by Federal employees who exaggerate their bogus injuries they claim keep them from returning to work.
• The Federal employee disability programs cost the American taxpayer $3 billion per year, including about $2.1 billion in direct payments for lost wages and the rest for things like medical treatment and death benefits.
• No one in the Federal government knows how much fraud is occurring because the Department of Labor, which tracks disabilities programs for 70 Federal entities, doesn't even track fraud referrals and convictions.
• Employees claiming workplace injuries can pick the diagnosing doctor to prove their disability then change their stories as needed to be awarded claims. The Federal agency employing the employee claiming the disability cannot order a second medical examination to verify the disability.
• Injured workers are mostly trusted to provide accurate information on things like dependents and outside income.
• Federal authorities cannot get access to payroll databases from the Social Security Administration or the National Directory of New Hires, sources which could show whether a Federal employee on disability is working an unreported side job while collecting disability benefits.

Billions at risk and no way to rein in the fraud. Sound about par for the course when it comes to the political class and Federal government managing our tax dollars.

That will do it for today. Depressed yet? We still have more insanity in store for at least the next few days since if we have learned anything from reviewing politicians antics and actions, the insanity rarely ever slows down and certainly never stops.

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