1) We have often made the case that those in the Washington political class are completely out of touch with the reality of America, that they are living in a “Hunger Games” world where much of America suffers while those inside the Beltway celebrate, ignorant or non-considering of those outside the D.C. area.
That situation was driven home again this past September 11, the anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attacks that killed almost three thousand Americans on our own shores. Rather than join in the day of remembrance activities around the country, rather than share in the grief and sorrow of those that died or were severely injured that day, First Lady Michelle Obama thought it would be a great time to announce her latest idea, "New Effort To Encourage Everyone to Drink More Water."
She held a formal press conference on September 11 to unveil this plan, diverting attention and support from those that were grieving the anniversary of the 9-11 attacks. She couldn’t wait a day, she had to have the attention on herself on this solemn occasion. Pathetic.
2) Senator Max Baucus, an original avid supporter of Obama Care, correctly called it a train wreck earlier this year, an assertion that has proven correct. However, there is an actual train wreck of a program going on in California, a plan that is supposed to link the San Francisco area and the L.A. area with a high speed rail line.
But according to a recent Associated Press article from October 20, 2013, things are not going well with that effort either:
- Local opposite to the effort has grown, given the now better known impacts that the lines construction will have on local farms and communities.
- While voters in 2008 approved $10 billion in bonds to start construction on an 800-mile (1,300-kilometer) rail line to transport passengers between San Francisco and Los Angeles, the price tag has fluctuated wildly, from $45 billion in 2008 to more than $100 billion in 2011 and, now, $68 billion.
- The original plan and hype is that the rail line would be able to move people between San Francisco and L.A. in 2 hours and 40 minutes. But political and financial compromises have caused officials to scale back plans which now mean trains will be forced to slow down and share tracks in major cities, making it no longer a “high speed” rail line that was promised to the voters when it came up on the ballot, just another typical rail line.
- Former chairman of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, Quentin Kopp, has turned against the current project, saying in court papers that it "is no longer a genuine high speed rail system."
And given that the line is not supposed to be completed until 2029, sixteen years from now, who knows how much the final cost will be and who knows how much technology will change by then. For all we know we might have personal jet packs or super efficient Jetson’s-like private planes to shuttle us between metro areas while the California taxpayer is paying off an obsolete and probably under used transportation rail system.
As with just about every other American political class program, its cost was underestimated, its benefits were over promised, and its timeframe was never met. Again, pathetic performance, this time of the bait and switch genre.
3) Earlier this month, the Federal government entered into lock down mode due to a failure of the political class to pass a budget. Federal workers were furloughed and visitors to national parks and monuments were denied admission. Serious stuff and a serious embarrassment to the White House and Congress in front of America and the world.
What was President Obama doing during this crisis? First, according to an article by the Associated Press on October 4, 2013, he was being interviewed on his opinion on whether or not the NFL’s Washington Redskins should change their team name. Actually took time out of his working day to weigh on this matter while the government was in shutdown mode.
Second, according to the Facebook page of well known photographer Tony Powell, the President took time off from whatever his schedule was on October 2, a few days into the shutdown, to have a photo session with Mr. Powell.
How do we know this? Well, Mr. Powell posted the final, new photo of the President on his Facebook page two days later for all to see and comment on. Yep, parks are closed, Federal workers unpaid, over 20 million Americans unemployed or underemployed, national debt is skyrocketing, Obama Care is about to implode, Iran and Israel are getting nasty, drug cartels are getting established all over the country, etc. and the President somehow found time to get a formal portrait photo taken and to discuss the dire situation with the name of the Washington NFL team. A pathetic set of priorities.
4) We have made fun, and backed it up with data and realities, any number of times in this blog, when reviewing the epic failure that was Obama’s $800 billion economic stimulus program. Now, based on unbiased analysis by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), we have another analysis that proves our point:
- IMF analysts looked at data covering 194 different countries’ economies from 1988 to 2011.
- They found “robust evidence that public employment crowds out private employment.”
- Overall, they found that spending government money such as for economic stimulus usually wipes out one private sector job for every public sector job generated and thus does not provide a net gain in either employment or economic growth. All it does is waste money and add to a nation’s debt load.
- This finding is consistent with other studies of Obama’s economic stimulus program which found that almost all of the reduction in unemployment levels associated with public spending came via increase government employment rather than private employment.
This latest analysis just drives home the basic reality again, namely that government policies usually do not create incremental job growth and economic growth, the private market creates jobs and economic growth. This lesson continues to be lost on the Washington political class.
5) Reason magazine, in its October 2013 issue, reported on a dangerous embarrassment to the Federal government, namely that the government had lost track of over 1,000 guns, and probably a lot more, that were in their possession:
- Working off an anonymous tip that the U.S. Park Police had lost possession of many weapons, the Inspector General of the Interior Department launched an inquiry.
- The inquiry verified the reality of the tip, reporting that the Park Police record keeping was so bad that it was actually not possible to even figure out how many weapons had gotten lost or stolen.
- The audit also found that about 1,400 guns had no official status within the Park Police records.
- Almost 200 weapons that were supposed to have been destroyed were instead stored away but not inventoried.
- On Park Police officer who was working a the Presidential inauguration had simply taken a government issued rifle home with him one night.
These are the same type of government bureaucracies that want to put gun control efforts and laws in place but are so incompetent that they cannot even keep track of their own guns, never mind the nation’s guns. Pathetic.
6) Many well informed Americans, unlike the Washington political class, are scared to death at the record amount of debt that the Federal government has accumulated, especially during the Obama administration where annual deficit spending over one TRILLION dollars a year was the norm, not the exception.
Our current national debt load just passed $17 TRILLION or about $54,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country. A very dangerous and scary number, that must be reined in soon or at some point the debt load will crash the dollar’s value, our economy, and our liberties.
But according to a new study by the National Bureau of Economic research which was done by economist James D. Hamilton from the University of California, San Diego, the $17 TRILLION is child’s play when compared against the real Federal government debt load. You see, the $17 TRILLION is today’s debt load, passed on promises the Federal government made to its Treasury bond holders in the past.
This study takes this past incurred debt load and adds it to the future debt obligations of the Federal government. These are estimated payments and promises that the Federal government, and the Washington political class, have made into the future. These debt promises include payments for :
- Social Security
- Medicare
- Medicaid
- Guaranteed housing
- Education loans
- Bank deposit insurance
- Civil service pension obligations
- Military pension obligations
According to the study’s findings, these so-called off balance sheet commitments, will require American citizens to pay off the whopping $70 TRILLION that the politicians in Washington have promised for these programs. This is almost four times as much as the debt load that Washington will admit to, as you can see that debt is really so much higher.
Now, that $70 TRILLION will not all come due in one year. The article does not give the $70 TRILLION timeframe but lets’ make a few simple assumptions and say it is over the next 50 years. This comes out to about $1.4 TRILLION a year. For simplicity, lets also assume the population of the United States stays the same as it is today.
If we divide $1.4 TRILLION by the population of the U.S., we see that every citizen would ANNUALLY have to pay a tax of just over $12,000 a year just to cover these Federal government commitments.
A twenty year old citizen today who lived for the next fifty years would have to pay over $608,000 during that timeframe to pay off this debt. If we assume that the population will actually grow over the next fifty years, the individual debt load would go down but I bet it would still be well over $500,000, given the relatively slow growth of the nation’s population. Ridiculous numbers, insane numbers but the math does not lie. $70 TRILLION.
Why have we not heard about this God awful number sooner? Because unlike every business in America that has to list their future obligations in their financial statements and tax filings, the Washington political class exempted themselves from his requirement of every other American in order to make the debt crisis look better than it actually is (as if $17 TRILLION was not bad enough). Trickery and lies form the political class, who would have thought.
This is what makes citizens like Tea Party members so crazy and insane, we are almost drowning in debt and taking on more and the Washington political class either is not smart enough to figure out we are in crisis or does not want to do anything about the crisis. They are getting theirs today and will probably get theirs for the rest of their lives, having little concern about future generations of Americans or the country they are supposed to be protecting. Again, pathetic.
As we said a few days ago, a lot of the political class insanity is now being funneled and focused into the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. We will cover that lunacy next week. Over the past three posts we just wanted to make sure you knew that your political class across the country was still on the job, screwing things up from fictitious balance sheets, to skyrocketing debt to silly high speed rail lines to losing guns to getting their picture taken to…….
Remember, you can help stop the insanity by joining our term limits effort at:
www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
More November political class insanity 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
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