Monday, October 7, 2013

October, 2013, Political Class Insanity, Part 6: A Country Founded By Geniuses and Run By Idiots

Please note: Nancy Pelosi recently made the outrageous comment that there was no waste to be cut in the Federal govnerment, i.e. EVERY dollar the Washington political class spends is essential to our country. Keep this insanity in mind as we go through this month's polticial class insanity, you will quickly see that she is very much out of touch with the reality of today's wasteful federal government.

This will be the sixth and final installment in this month’s political class insanity where we review the lunacy that continues to be created by the nation’s political class, the worst set of politicians to ever hold office in the history of this country. I thought we would need more than six posts to cover it all this month but it looks like a lot of the insanity has been related to the impending disaster that is Obama Care and the tired, old calls for shredding the Second Amendment. We will cover them in a separate series of posts on their own special brand of insanity.

1) In early August, 2013, Commissioners in Weld County, Colorado unanimously voted to make 'North Colorado' the 51st US state. The Republican board hopes to secede from the state in protest of laws passed by the Democratically controlled state legislature this year. The initiative will be added to the ballot this November. More than 11,000 people have liked the 51st State Initiative's Facebook page.

The 51st State website claims that their objective is simple. "We just want to be left alone to live our lives without heavy-handed restrictions from the state capitol," read a post on the website: "The concerns of rural Coloradans have been ignored for years," William Garcia, chairman of the Weld County Commissioners, said in a statement. "The last session was the straw that broke the camel's back for many people. They want change. They want to be heard.”

Think people are getting fed up with the American political class? And these are not the only Americans who want out from underneath what the believe is an ever growing government and ever shrinking set of freedoms. According to the Washington Times, at least three other western counties are trying to do the same thing: Cheyenne, Sedgwick and Yuma also plan to place the 51st state referendum on the fall ballot.

Secession drives are underway in northern California and in rural Maryland. Yes, something might be ready to give, it only takes so long until you realize that America’s politicians only care about their own self enrichment, their perpetual reelection campaigns, and have no ability to resolve the major issues of their times. 

Sounds like these folks who want to form their own state have reached the same conclusion that are term limits effort reached: really….how much worse could it get if you had your own state? (www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com)

2) CBS News reported early this month that the Department of Defense was hurriedly  spending taxpayer wealth on televisions, playground equipment, violins, clarinets, a volleyball court, and other non-defense things so that they would not see their budget decreased next year, the infamous “spend it or lose it approach” to budget management. And according to CBS, this insane wasteful spending of taxpayer wealth is not confined to just the Department of Defense, it is rampant across all Federal agencies and entities, the news report just focused on this one department and its idiotic spending spree.

3) The Export-Import Bank is a Federal government entity which is supposed to provide low cost loans to foreign entities who use those loans to buy American made goods. It is a blatant form of political cronyism, using American taxpayer wealth to help out the profits of large American companies.

If a potential foreign buyer needs financing help to buy goods from an American company, than that company and its shareholders should be the ones to provide the financing and assume all of the risks of financing. The American taxpayer should not be the lender of last resort.

But it is actually worse than this. According to an article in the Washington Free Beacon this past summer, a whopping 83% of the bank’s loans in 2012 went to the customers of only one company: Boeing. 83%, tell me that the Boeing airline company is not getting a free ride on the American taxpayers’ dime. The loans go to foreign airlines who get low interest rates to purchase Boeing airplanes.

Besides the blatant cronyism of this swindle, there are two other major problems. First, domestic airlines like Delta and United do not get the same deals from the Export-import Bank. Thus, ironically, their market competitiveness against foreign airlines is diminished by our own Federal government, insanity. Second, would it not be better to invest that money in loans to domestic companies and domestic households rather than foreign companies? Would it not be netter to just return that money to the taxpayers so we could decide how to expand the economy with our own money?

Oh, by the way, according to the Open Secrets website, Boeing ranks 83 out of over 20,000 entities that have made recent contributions to politicians’ election campaigns ($3.5 million) and 12 out of 4,369 companies when it comes to lobbying expense (almost $32 million in lobbying expense in the past two years.) Any doubts why the political class supports the continuation of the Export-Import Bank when over 80% of its budget supports Boeing?

4) So, who is doing good in this lousy economy? Consider some recently releases of U.S. Census data: 


  • Between 2000 and 2012 median household incomes for the nation as a whole dropped 6.6% — from $55,030 to $51,371. 
  • But wait, the income of the typical D.C. household rose 23.3% between 2000 and 2012 to an inflation-adjusted $66,583, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.
  • The Washington, D.C. metro area — which includes the surrounding suburbs in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia — has it even better, with a median household income of $88,233 that ranks highest among the U.S.’s 25 most populous metro areas. 
  • Tampa, Florida’s median income, by contrast, is under $45,000,almost a whopping 50% less than the D.C. median income.
Thus, if you are a lobbyists, politicians, political crony, or just fortunate enough to live in the D.C. area, this is a great economy. If you are none of these, than not so great. Maybe that is why the Washington political class has not moved to fix what ails the vast majority of the country, they are not feeling the pain of falling incomes, high unemployment, high under employment, etc.


5) We will close this month’s insanity with a set of truisms that popped up in my email. They are attributed to comedian Jeff Foxworthy but I have no idea if that is true. What is true is the frustration and insanity that the following realities are causing to most Americans, realities and insanity that are courtesy of out of touch politicians:

If you can get arrested for hunting or fishing without a license, but not for entering and remaining in the country illegally…

If you have to get your parents’ permission to go on a field trip or to take an aspirin in school, but not to get an abortion…

If you MUST show your identification to board an airplane, cash a check, buy liquor, or check out a library book and rent a video, but not to vote for who runs the government…

If the government wants to prevent stable, law-abiding citizens from owning gun magazines that hold more than ten rounds, but gives twenty F-16 fighter jets to the crazy new leaders in Egypt…

If, in the nation’s largest city, you can buy two 16-ounce sodas, but not one 24-ounce soda, because 24-ounces of a sugary drink might make you fat…

If an 80-year-old woman or a three-year-old girl who is confined to a wheelchair can be strip-searched by the TSA at the airport, but a woman in a burka or a hijab is only subject to having her neck and head searched…

If your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of dollars of debt is to spend trillions more…

If a seven-year-old boy can be thrown out of school for saying his teacher is “cute,” but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class in grade school is perfectly acceptable…

If hard work and success are met with higher taxes and more government regulation and intrusion, while not working is rewarded with Food Stamps, WIC checks, Medicaid benefits, subsidized housing, and free cell phones…

If the government’s plan for getting people back to work is to provide incentives for not working, by granting 99 weeks of unemployment checks, without any requirement to prove that gainful employment was diligently sought, but couldn’t be found…

If you pay your mortgage faithfully, denying yourself the newest big-screen TV, while your neighbor buys iPhones, time shares, a wall-sized do-it-all plasma screen TV and new cars, and the government forgives his debt when he defaults on his mortgage…

If being stripped of your Constitutional right to defend yourself makes you more “safe” according to the government… you might just be living in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is beyond doubt run by idiots.

Such is the insanity in America today, brought to you in an ever increasing dosage by the entrenched American political class. If you are just as tired of it as the rest of us, please join the effort to impose term limits on this insane bunch of loons by going to our Term Limits Now website:

www.howmuchwosecoulditget.com

Because really…how much worse could it get?

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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