Yesterday we talked about how U.S. taxpayer month is being used to create youth job programs, not in Chicago or Detroit, but in Belize. We talked about how two members of Congress want to create a new national park, not any park where any American could go and visit, a national park on the moon. We talked about how over $30,000 in taxpayer wealth was being wasted to paint an original oil portrait of former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. And finally, we learned that roller coaster safety was a hot topic for one Congressman, high unemployment, trillion dollar deficits, failing public schools, and other trivial issues be damned.
Well, it just gets worse today:
1) One thing I always loved about politicians is that they have the lousiest understanding about basic economic theory and reality. Jay Carney, President Obama’s head press secretary reinforced that notion recently when he made the claim that Obama’s vision of immigration reform would raise wages of American workers. Somehow, allowing many more immigrant workers into this country will raise the wages of every worker.
Mr. Carney, did you never take a basic economics course? If you did, they probably covered the elementary reality of “supply and demand.” If you raise the supply of something without a similar raise in demand, price has to go down, it is a reality of the cosmos. Adding millions of new immigrant workers to the supply of labor in this country will put downward pressure on price, namely wages, because there will be an excess of workers. Given the Obama administration’s inability to manage to a growing economy, it is highly, highly doubtful demand will go up as much as millions of new people into the supply side of the equation.
Mr. Carney’s assertion on higher wages is so inane that many in the press briefing where he stated such started laughing at this ridiculous assertion:
http://www.libertyfirstnews.com/obamas-paid-liar-jay-carney-says-immigration-reform-will-raise-wages-as-press-busts-out-in-laughter/
Unfortunately, Mr. Carney is not alone in his ignorance of basic economics. If this was not the case, our economy would not be trudging along at such an anemic rate. In “Love My Country, Loathe My Government,” we proposed via Step 36 that all members of Congress and the White House take and pass a course on basic economics before allowed to legislate. Unfortunately, that suggestion has not been implemented, as illustrated by Mr. Carney’s ignorance of the supply and demand theory.
2) Yesterday we reviewed how our political class in Washington was sending half a million dollars to the country of Belize to help create jobs for youth in that country, the high unemployment rate for younger Americans in this country be damned. Well, that is not the only taxpayer funded program that is sending money overseas to train foreign workers.
The Federal government’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs is sending $95K to JAILS IN HAITI to help train prisoners on textile production. As with the Belize disgrace, this money is being sent with the hope these HAITIAN prisoners will be able to learn skills, so when they are released back into HAITIAN society, they can contribute to that society.
One government official defended the HAITIAN program by stating: “Inmates targeted for participation should be convicted prisoners with remaining sentences between 2-5 years, with higher priority on those with less time remaining. This will give the program continuity through prisoners who continue to participate and facilitate training for others, but also in that acquired skills will still be relevant upon prisoners’ release in a medium-term time frame,”
Typical government nonsense talk. How about training some prisoners in the U.S. who have remaining sentences between 2-5 years, how about giving them some skills so that they can succeed when the get out of U.S. prisons. Who comes up with these types of wasteful spending projects …in other countries no less.
3) In a previous series on political class insanity, we reported on how the Forestry Service was embarrassed when they had hundreds of pounds of explosives stolen from one of their so-called storage bunkers. Well, that kind of incompetence is not restricted to that part of the government, as a recent set of news reports tell of another multi-million dollar heist of government equipment, this time from the U.S. Marshalls organization:
- The US Marshals office has lost/had stolen 2,000 encrypted radios worth $6 million dollars.
- This robbery/heist occurred even though in 2011, an internal U.S. Marshall technology office warned that the Marshals Service was not properly tracking their equipment.
- In a tribute to understatement, a spokesman for the Marshall Service has publicly stated that he believes “this is in large part attributable to poor record keeping .” Ya think?
- As always, worse than the crime was the cover up.
- When news agencies started submitting Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, there was instruction for upper management at the organization to no longer discuss the lost/stolen equipment.
- Worse than the crime and the cover up is the lie that follows. Several documents obtained through FOIA requests including a note from the agency’s director asking employees to estimate a lower dollar value for the missing equipment to make the screw up not appear as bad as it was.
But worst than the heist, worst than the cover up, and worse than the lie is the fact that a facet of national security may have been compromised. There is some evidence to indicate that these encrypted radios could have ended up in foreign, possibly hostile hands. In 2012, one of the missing radios showed up on eBay from a seller based in Hong Kong.
When the Marshal Service spent more taxpayer money to buy back their own missing radio, they found that the radio had been disassembled and reassembled, which leads to new troubling questions of how vulnerable this makes the Marshals Service.
Incompetence, cover ups, lies, and breeches of national security. This episode of insanity had everything.
4) Many times we have reported on the wasteful and corrupt spending in Afghanistan. We previously discussed how the State department, under Hillary Clinton, ignored its own security guidelines to build an $80 million consulate in Afghanistan and THEN realized that it was not defendable against terrorist attacks, which they would have realized if they had not ignored their own guidelines.
We know that as our part in the conflict winds down, we are going to leave about $7 billion worth of military gear behind after we leave, military gear that I would bet eventually ends up in the hands of the Taliban.
The latest corruption apparently wasted $34 million of taxpayer loot for no reason at all:
- When a two-star general recently visited a new 64,000-square-foot US military headquarters building in southern Afghanistan, he was so impressed that he stated that “It's "better appointed than any Marine headquarters anywhere in the world.”
- Impressive, except for the fact, as reported by the Washington post, that the facility has never been used and likely will never be used by U.S. troops.
- Much like the never used but very expensive State Department consulate, a top Marine commander had warned the Pentagon brass that the building was unnecessary three years ago but his insightful opinions were ignored.
- The building was originally commissioned for the 2009 troop surge but by the time construction began that troop surge was over.
- "This is an example of what is wrong with military construction in general," the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction told Chuck Hagel in a recent letter. Another wonderful understatement.
So between these two disastrous spending, $34 million and $80 million, we have $114 million that went down the drain. $114 million that could have operated White House tours for over 114 years. We could provide combat pay for our military personnel that are serving in dangerous areas but who have had their pay cut. The July 4th celebrations at military bases to celebrate those that serve would not have been postponed.
So many worthwhile uses of over $100 million that had no military or societal benefit.
Another day and we are just getting started. Federal government loses millions of dollars of electronics equipment. Federal government blows over $100 million for nothing. Haiti prisoners are taught skills, U.S. prisoners are not. And economic ignorance I still alive and well in Washington. More bad news tomorrow.
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:
Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
No comments:
Post a Comment