Before we check out on this month’s lunacy, let’s squeeze in a few last insults form the politicians in Washington and elsewhere.
1) In 2012, General Electric had operating profits of about $16 billion, not revenue, profits. They are one of the biggest and most profitable companies in the world. There is no reason American taxpayers should be paying General Electric for anything.
But, like most crony companies in the country, General Electric is well connected to the Washington political class. This connection usually involves the exchange of campaign financing dollars to incumbent politicians and crony taxpayer dollars back to private companies.
When Congress and the Obama administration passed the 2009 economic stimulus bill, the package was loaded with payoffs for special interests, many for the $16 billion profitable General Electric. According to Recovery.Gov, the official government website that tracks stimulus spending, General Electric received 47 stimulus grants totaling almost $100 million. But those were not the only taxpayer funded perks. Earlier this year, GE got another $5 million from the Department of Energy.
With a national debt of about $17 TRILLION, it makes no sense to give very profitable companies like GE millions and millions of taxpayer dollars. But making no sense is a specialty of Washington politicians. If you agree, go to the following website to sign the petition to stop these types of crony-based handouts:
https://secure.freedomworks.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=985&s_subsrc=FWFBaaGiveItBackGE
2) Remember the now comical statement that Obama was going to run the most transparent Presidential administration in history. We have often reviewed how this administration has allowed its top bureaucrats to ignore legally required Freedom of Information Act requests, how this administration has gone after twice as many government whistle blowers than all other administrations COMBINED, and how top government bureaucrats maintain secret email addresses in violation of government protocol.
But Obama’s Labor Department recently took this transparency hoax to a new low. The Labor Department tried to charge the Associated Press more than $1 million for providing a list of secret email addresses of political appointees. $1 million for a piece of paper with some secret email addresses on it. A number of disgraces in this escapade:
- This request is clearly illegal since the Freedom of Information Act legally restricts the fulfillment cost to the charging for photocopies after the first 100 pages, no other costs.
- A million dollars for a list of email addresses, was this extortion just to get Associated Press money or was it an attempt to discourage the request and protect top bureaucrats’ illegal emails addresses?
- Or is the government that incompetent that truly takes $1 million to collect a handful of email addresses from a single government department?
In any case, the demand for $1 million for such a pittance amount of information is an insult to liberty and illegal. Pathetic.
3) A July 30, 2013 article from the Washington Times reported on some disturbing news on government incompetence which gives you a pretty good idea why the Federal government has been unable to prevent over 10 million illegal immigrants from entering this country. A recent General Accountability Office investigative report found that the Department of Homeland Security can identify about 1 million foreigners who have entered the country over time but has not idea if they are still in the country.
The GAO audit also concluded that the Department would be incapable of developing a coherent and effective entry-exit program. This process was supposed to be set up back in the 1996 immigration law but seventeen years later, the Federal government is so incompetent that it has not fulfilled that legal requirement from the Clinton administration. Pathetic.
4) An old joke goes as follows: how can you tell when a politician is telling a lie? Answer? Whenever his lips are moving. That joke came to mind when I recently came across a quote from Congressman Charles Rangel that was uttered earlier this year in the midst of the gun control debate and follies in Washington: “We’re talking about millions of kids dying — being shot down by assault weapons, were talking about handguns easier in the inner cities, to get these guns in the inner cities, than to get computers.”
Another old sayng goes that if you are going to tell a lie, make sure it has at least some sense of credibility, unlike Mr. Rangel’s assertion that “millions” of kids are being killed by assault weapons. According to the Health and Human Services Department of the Federal government:
- In 2011, there were 32,163 gun deaths in the United States.
- But only 11,101 were homicides, the remainder, 19,766, were suicides.
- Of those 11,101 homicides, a majority were committed with handguns.
- Less than a thousand, 679, were committed with long guns.
- But only 323 of those murders were committed by rifles or assault like weapons.
- Let’s make the radical and incorrect assumption that all 323 deaths by rifles and assault weapons were kids.
- Doing a little math we can calculate that it would take 3,095 years for one million kids to be killed by “assault rifles.”
- And Rangel claimed that “millions” are killed by assault rifles, not just one million.
Ridiculous accusation to make in the face of the real numbers and reality. Also, a little embarrassing if he actually believes what he says. If he does, he is existing in a different reality from the one we live in and that makes it very scary that he and others like him in Congress actually make the laws that govern this country.
5) On July 17, 2013, the Sheriff’s department in Pinal County, Arizona announced that it had arrested a Mexican national by the name of Daniel Jupa-Fino. What is significant about this arrest? Consider:
- Mr. Jupa-Fino has already been caught and deported eleven times for being here illegally.
- He was arrested for speeding and when pulled over, engaged in a fight with arresting sheriffs.
- His car was carrying 220 pounds of marijuana with a street value of about $165,000.
You cannot claim, like many in the Obama administration claim, that the borders are secure when you catch and release the same guy eleven times, a guy who obviously is always in this country conducting illegal business. This is just another reason why there should be no amnesty program for illegal immigrants until the borders are secured.
6) The Washington Times reported on really disturbing news on July 10, 2013 relative to Federal government wasteful spending and general chaos. Keep the following facts and realities in mind the next time President Obama cries poverty on behalf of the Federal government and insists that taxes need to be raised:
- The General Accountability Office (GAO) recently released some findings of its research which basically concluded that the Federal government bureaucracy was “flying blind” when it came to managing its budgets and finances.
- It claimed that the Federal government made a whopping $107.7 billion in inappropriate and excessive payments last year.
- This is the equivalent of every American household paying an extra $936 or so in income taxes every year just to pay for this incompetence.
- One of the reason for these bogus and illegal payments is that the Federal government has been unable to compile a simple list of all of it programs and entities, that is how large and out of control the Federal government bureaucracy has become.
- Only 37% of government managers knew if their government programs had been reviewed and evaluated over the past five years and 40% were unsure if their programs had EVER been evaluated for effectiveness.
- The $107.6 billion does NOT include the Department of Defense, whose financials are in such horrible shape that the GAO claims that it has been impossible to audit the department for the past twenty years.
- Their report claims that the Army is so disorganized that it does not know month to month how many of its people are getting paid and whether they are getting paid the correct amounts. Unbelievable.
- And the $107.7 billion waste estimate is highly likely to be conservative sine the GAO claims that it does not have enough people or resources to track down all of the possible areas of government waste.
- Chairman of the House Oversight Committee summed up this pathetic situation quite nicely: “Imagine beginning every month not knowing what money you have and not being able to track what you spent. Yet, year after year, that’s where the Federal government operates.”
Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, who presented these discouraging findings when he testified in front of Congress also stated that the only way to get this reckless wasteful spending under control would be for the Obama administration to show greater leadership and Congress to show greater oversight. In other words, the President and members of Congress need to do their jobs.
But what the chances of that happening? Obama has been President for more than four and half years and we have seen a few feeble, half hearted attempts at cost control but certainly nothing that would rise to the level of leadership. Congress and the members in it that have been present for the evolution to this state of chaos are obviously part of the problem, they helped create this situation with their lack of oversight.
To expect these career politicians to fix what they created is the height of folly. That is why we need to implement term limits as soon ass possible before another $107.7 billion is flushed down the drain. You can join that effort at:
www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
That will do it for this month’s political class insanity. Unfortunately, we did set the record again this month, requiring nine full days just to chronicle one month’s worth of idiocy, lunacy, and incompetence form the American political class. A more pathetic, miserable, and incompetent bunch of politicians has likely never come together to create so much havoc in the history of our country.
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
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