1) Let’s start this discussion off with a quote from one of my favorite Washington politicians, from a lunacy perspective, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Along with Nancy Pelosi, I often wonder what color the sky is in their worlds and their realities, especially after Mr. Reid utters a quote like this recent one: “The only people who feel there shouldn’t be more coming in to the federal government from the rich people are the Republicans in the Congress. Everybody else, including the rich people, are willing to pay more. They want to pay more.”
Everybody else in America is willing to pay more in taxes to the most inefficient, corrupt, and ineffective set of politicians and government bureaucracies in the history of this country? I don’t think so. As always, he cites no sources, no public opinion polls, no research, just his view and reality that everybody wants to send Washington more in taxes.
What is truly pathetic is I don’t know if he is doing this for political theater or he actually believes this nonsense. One way to check your theory, Mr. Reid, would be to make all income tax payments truly voluntary. That certainly would be the only way to verify your “everybody” claim…and also shut down the Federal government over night. What color is the sky where he dwells?
2) Staying with the concept of different worlds and realities, California Congressman Henry Waxman recently stated that “ACA [Obama Care] is an enormous success with one important exception: It has a poorly designed website.” Huh?
I guess if you define of millions of Americans losing access to their current insurance plans a success, if you define thousands upon thousands of Americans losing access to their family doctors a success, if you define a multiple fold increases in monthly insurance premiums a success, if you define multiple fold increases in deductibles a success, if you define a program whose cost has more than tripled in a few years a success, if you define mass number of doctors retiring early a success, if you define millions of Americans losing their work hours a success, etc., then he is right.
Otherwise, he is either delusional or of a different reality. The number of signups has been atrociously small, there is no way he can call this fiasco a success based on minimal signups and maximum economic and health insurance destruction for millions of Americans. The Harry Reid school of foot in mouth disease.
3) Yesterday, we discussed the research and analysis that showed the typical American man working full time in the U.S. workforce are earning less today, in inflation adjusted terms, than the typical man working in the U.S. was making forty years ago, i.e. economic progress for those workers stopped four decades ago.
In previous posts we have reported on government data that showed the median household income has decreased by about $4,000 or about 8% SINCE THE RECESSION ENDED.
It is quite clear that for decades and up to the present, the Washington political class has had no clue on how to encourage economic growth for ALL Americans. That point was driven home by a recent opinion poll that was conducted by Harris Interactive for Wells Fargo Bank:
- Many middle-class Americans aren't expecting to live their golden years in leisurely retirement since a full 34% of them think they will work until at least the age of 80, because they haven't saved enough for retirement.
- That high level of pessimism is from 25% in 2011 and 30% in 2012.
- Again, this is four years after the recession ended, when economic times were supposed to be improving.
- Even more depressing, 37% say they'll never retire and will work until they are too sick or die.
- 42% say saving for retirement and paying bills concurrently is impossible.
- 48% don't have confidence that they will be able to save enough for a comfortable retirement.
Very, very depressing. A complete economic screw up by both parties over the past decades that has forced hard working, middle class families into economic slavery well into their senior years.
4) The country annually spends over $600 billion on its armed forces. It is by far the largest expenditure in the Federal budget, costing, on average, every American household just under $6,000 a year. For that type of investment every year, one would expect to have the most modern, most prepared military in the world, or the history of the world.
Not the case, according to Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno. In recent public remarks he said his greatest fear is to receive an order to deploy thousands of troops. Why?
The Army has only TWO combat-ready brigades right now, he said. Two brigades ready and equipped to handle a national security emergency but we still spend over $600 billion a year.
Something is drastically wrong if for that amount of money we dare to put our troops in danger while unprepared. Pathetic management of the government bureaucracy and the setting of priorities. Those that serve on armed forces committees in Congress need to be removed from those posts, as demanded by Step 34 in “Love My Country, Loathe My Government,” for dereliction of duty and for endangering our troops. We are not getting anywhere close to value for our money in this government area.
5) Getting back to economic stagnation, the latest job statistics from the Federal government were again a monthly disappointment:
- The economy added a net 148,000 jobs, a meager showing even against the low anticipated/forecasted numb er of 180,000.
- While the unemployment rate dropped to 7.2%, the lowest rate since November 2008, that also was not good news since the number of Americans not in the labor force rose from 90.473 million in August to 90.609 million in September, an increase of 136,000 people and an all time record, which probably explains the decrease in the unemployment rate, given how it is calculated.
- Since the economy needs around 150,000 jobs added each much just to keep up with population growth, 148,000 newly created jobs last month is actually a small step backwards from an economic progress perspective.
- In fact, if the economy added 148,000 per month, the United States wouldn’t return to pre-recession levels until 2022, nine years from now. And that assumes no recessions occur in those nine months that actually cause the workforce to contract, not expand meagerly.
- The only good news is, at least for one month, is a shift back toward full-time hiring.
Overall, very bad news and just another confirmation that Washington’s economic wherewithal continues to be pathetic.
6) About a year ago this time, our monthly insanity posts were full of Obama administration investments of taxpayer wealth in failed and failing alternative energy companies and efforts. Every week it seemed like some alternative energy company was going out of business, providing no societal benefit, and destroying millions and millions of taxpayer dollars in the process.
I had assumed they all had vanished down the drain of bankruptcy but I was wrong. Judicial Watch, writing in its Corruption Chronicles on September 24, 2013, reminded us that there are still companies going bankrupt after receiving ill-advised and substantial amounts of taxpayer wealth:
- ECOtality was a company that made public charging stations for electric cars.
- Unfortunately, its business model and plans did not pan out and it recently collapsed, taking almost $100 million of taxpayer money with it.
- Fisker Automotive received nearly $200 million in taxpayer funding to develop a wheelchair-accessible “green” van.
- In addition, this startup had been heavily boosted by the Obama administration as an innovator that would develop two lines of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles that could run up to 300 miles on a rechargeable Lithium-ion battery.
- The Obama administration planned to give Fisker $528 million but stopped that cash flow once the company laid off three quarters of its employees and announced it was on the verge of bankruptcy.
- Vehicle Production Group (VPG) recently died off after losing $50 million in taxpayer funds.
- VPG was supposed to create special vans for the disabled that ran on compressed natural gas.
- The Obama administration justified funding this company’s effort using taxpayer dollars with the following gibberish: “This project invests in a socially and environmentally responsible product that will create new jobs, promote the use of alternative fuels, and help the U.S. maintain its competitive edge in the automotive industry.” Missed every single one of those noble thoughts once the company went belly up.
So let’s summarize: politicians that live in a different reality or who are purely delusional, a government and political class that wastes hundreds of billions of dollars a year, and a political class whose economic prowess is pitiful. More of the same tomorrow if you dare.
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