http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/11/november-2013-poliical-class-insanity.html
Wasteful spending, delusional and unreal views of the world, failing government programs and departments, the list seems endless, especially for the trillions and trillions of dollars taxpayers entrust to the political class every year for very little in return. And the insanity we are talking about does not even touch on the biggest insanity of the year, the unfolding disaster that is Obama care.
1) A recent poll by Pew Research indicates that the public’s trust of the Federal government continues to be very low and trending lower:
- Only 19% of those Americans surveyed recently by Pew say that they trust the government in Washington to do what is right just about always or most of the time.
- This low rating is down a whopping down seven points since January.
- The current measure matches the level reached in August 2011, following the last battle over the debt ceiling.
- The share of the public saying they are angry at the federal government, which equaled an all-time high in late September (26%), has ticked up to 30%.
- Another 55% say they are frustrated with the government.
- Just 12% say they are basically content with the federal government.
A pathetic showing for the Washington political class but a low showing that is certainly justified just based on the nonsense we report in this blog. This evidence alone is a reason for term limits because as the citizenry gather less and less faith and trust in the ability of the government to do the right thing, the ability of the government to do the right thing goes down also. And there is no one in the political spectrum that seems to know how to fix the paranoia.
2) The following insanity is a real doozy. It was documented by Americans for Limited government and their website post came with an extensive set of sources to prove that they were not making this wasteful spending up because without those sources, you would naturally think this spending escapade had to be a joke.
This waste involves the construction of a public restroom facility at the Manassas National Park in Virginia, the sight of Civil War battles:
- The Federal government has spent over $578,000 to erect a “comfort station,” I.e. restroom, at the Manassas National Park.
- Yes, $578,00, for a bathroom… in a park.
- For that amount of money, one would have expected an extensive and comfortable rest room facility with lots of bells and whistles.
- You could expect that but you would be wrong, as this picture of the meager restroom illustrates your disappointment (click on the photo for a larger view):
- Not only is it meager and small, it was modular, constructed elsewhere and snapped together on site, certainly less stable than if it had actually been constructed from the ground up on site.
- By the way, that stone siding is fake stone.
- The post wonders how far would $578,000 get you toward buying other toilet-rendering facilities in Manassas, VA. The resultant research finds that for $575,0000 you could purchase a large modern house, complete with 4 full bathroom installations, right down the street from the park in Manassas.
- In traditional and incompetent government fashion, the Federal government paid for a 449-page report on the proposed park restrooms.
- That effort included an additional 90-page “Environmental Assessment for a Comfort Station at the Brawner Farm.”
- While the expenditure of over half a million dollars on a prefabricated rest room building is obnoxious and pathetic in itself, the original proposal called for the restroom building to be installed in time to accommodate the 150th anniversary of the Second Battle of Bull Run to be celebrated in August 2012.
- However, the restrooms were not opened to the public until September of 2013, missing its installation date by a mere 13 months.
Unnecessarily expensive and too late to serve its intended purpose, sounds about right for a Federal government program. And Harry Reid says every American wants to spend more in taxes to the Federal government. Delusional, especially in light of half a million dollars for a common restroom prefab building.
3) Remember how Obama was going to shut down the terrorist prison at Guantanamo right after he got elected since it was an embarrassment and terrorist recruiting tool? Well, five years after he was elected this is another campaign promise that went unfulfilled. And according to a Washington Examiner article from November 1, 2013, the continued use of that prison costs the American taxpayer almost half a billion dollars, $481 million, just to watch over the remaining 160 prisoners. This comes out to a whopping $3 million a year per prisoner. Unbelievable.
How many more teachers, drug counselors, meals for the homeless, etc. could have been bought for $481 million a year if Obama had actually kept a promise for once?
4) Many times we have reviewed the tens of billions of taxpayer dollars Obama gave out to mostly political allies and cronies in the alternative energy businesses, none of which returned any benefit back to society. Solyndra, Fisker, A123, Abound, Ecotality, Evergreen, Spectra, and many others served only as a sewer drain for taxpayer wealth
Well to add two insults to injury, one of those failure may still cost the American taxpayer a lot of money even though they have gone out of business. Two years after Abound Solar got a large loan guarantee from the American taxpayer via the Federal government, it had to lay off its hundreds of workers and went into bankruptcy proceedings.
The eventual financial damage to the taxpayer was a total of $70 million for backing the failed company. Unsold inventory from the company operations, which should have been used to offset those taxpayer losses, including 2,000 solar panels, mysteriously disappeared, according to the National Legal Policy Center. Thus, even after the company died, its bones could not be picked to help pay back the taxpayers.
Second insult to injury: the company left behind, at its Longmont, Colo. Facility, 37,000 square feet that is covered with hazardous waste such as cancer causing cadmium, broken glass and contaminated water. The Northern Colorado Business Report estimated it will cost up to $3.7 million to clean and repair the building so it can again be used. Want to bet the American taxpayer somehow gets stuck with that clean up bill also?
All because this administration thought it was fine to reward political backers with hard earned taxpayer wealth. Despicable.
5) Another day, another Federal agency that is overrun with waste and criminal fraud:
- The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently released findings where they admit that many people who have received Obama Phones have misused or defrauded the program.
- The numbers that the FCC admitted to are staggering: more than two million recipients are believed to have improperly received a phone under the Lifeline program.
- As a measure of government incompetence, this estimate is almost twice as many as the FCC estimated just last month! Who knows how much more fraud they will admit to next month?
- In the years between Obama’s first term and second term elections, spending within the program nearly tripled from $819 million to $2.2 billion.
- While the FCC has implemented a few fraud-fighting tactics, the resultant fines of more than $32 million against mobile providers who knowingly violated the program’s rules is less than 1,5% of the program’s overall cost and certainly not close to the fraud incurred by the two million fraudulent users of the program.
- $32 million recovered via fines against two million fraudulent phones comes out to only $6 dollars per fraudulent phone identified.
- More than 40% of those receiving such Obama Phone assistance were unable or unwilling to provide documentation supporting their eligibility, according to an investigation into the largest facilitators of Obama phones. 40% of the total just strolled into the program without any proof of need and walked out with free cellular phones and free cellular service. Disgusting, and just another reason why no American, rich or poor, should pay another penny in taxes while this type of fraud and ineptness exists in Washington.
Expensive phones, expensive outhouses, expensive crony infested alternative energy companies, all failures. And the insanity is not done, more to follow 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
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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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