December, 2013 Political Class Insanity, Part 2: A Million Dollar Bus Stop, Another Gem From Nancy Pelosi, Too Much Obama Golf, and More

This is the second post this month in our monthly series that examines the latest wackiness, wastefulness, and pure insanity from the American political class. This series does not include the dire consequences and lunacy of Obama Care, we do a monthly series now on that fiasco in the middle of each month. Today and for the next few days we will be looking at plain old idiocy and wasteful spending, incidents that would be funny if they were not so damaging to our freedoms and wealth.

1) When any human bureaucracy gets too large, the output and work of that organizations starts becoming petty, trivial, and plain stupid. That is because as the bureaucracy grows, people realize that the work they are doing is trivial and meaningless because there are too many people trying to look productive with too little real work to do.

As the biggest bureaucracy in the history of mankind, the Federal government certainly fits that bill. A prime example is from a recent article put out by the Heritage Foundation.

The Federal government is requiring General Motors (GM) to recalling 18,941 newer Chevy Camaros for violating Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 208—Occupant Crash Protection. Wow, this is important. Who wants to be in a car that is a safety hazard, kudos to the Feds.

Is the safety defect because of defective seat belts? Ah, no.

Is the safety defect because of a air bag malfunction? Ah, no.

Is the safety defect because of brake failure? Ah, no.

The government is forcing GM to recall 18,941 Chevy Camaros because the air bag warning label on the sun visor may peel. Not always peel, almost always peel, just might peel. Seriously.

Here’s a solution: why not have GM send out new stickers with really strong clue to all of its customers and also its dealers, instructing the dealers to put the stickier sticker on the car when the customer brings their Camaro in for servicing? That way GM could save some money by avoiding a recall and either use the saved money to make even safer cars or start using this type of money to repay the American taxpayer the $10 billion it still owes us (see yesterday’s post). 

No, some nitwit, useless bureaucrat, in order to justify his existence, makes GM incur probably millions of dollars worth of unneeded costs to replace stickers, stickers that probably the vast number of customers never read or care about anyway. Government insanely out of control.

2) When Bush left office in 2008, the Federal government was responsible for just over $100 billion worth of student loans. That figure had grown about 78% during his eight years in office, saddling every U.S. household with a potential loan and debt liability of just under $100 per household if those loans were defaulted on.

Under Obama, that overall debt burden has increase almost seven fold in just five years of this administration, saddling the American taxpayer with almost $700 billion worth of student loans and debt. This equates out to a potential debt burden of almost $700 for every U.S. household. Given how poorly the economy under Obama has generated good job opportunities for recent college graduates, it is very likely that a large portion of this debt burden will eventually need yet another U.S. taxpayer bailout down the road. 

First, taxpayer bailouts for the car makers, then the banks, then Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and eventually the student loan bubble burst. When politicians deal with our money and wealth, the end result is almost always a catastrophe.

3) The Independent Journal Review reported in mid November that President Obama was to play his 150th round of golf as President. Now, I am not saying the President shouldn’t get to relax and have a good time. It is just that he seems to take his rest at the most dangerous times for Americans. 

His playing golf in November was during the crisis period when Obama Care and its associated procedures and websites were totally embarrassing his administration and the country.

After warning the country about the dire happenings in Syria one Saturday a couple of months ago, how he was prepared to engage the Syrians in actual hot warfare, he and the Vice President than went off after that war address to play some golf.

When the BP oil derrick was spewing crude oil into the Gulf, causing widespread economic and environmental damage, he played golf a number of times while Gulf coast residents coped with the disaster.

Yes, he is entitled to some down time but I wish he would choose some better opportunities to do so. And, to my liberal friends and family, if you can criticize Bush for his many vacations, I and the rest of American can criticize Obama for his golf obsession and ignoring of immediate crises that affect all Americans.

4) Continuing our Hunger Games theme, that is becoming more and more real every day, where taxpayers outside of D.C. pay a higher and higher cost to make the residents within the D.C. metro area richer and more comfortable, consider a March, 2013 Washington Post article. The city of Arlington Virginia, a city tucked deeply inside the D.C. Hunger Games Metro bubble, had recently installed a bus stop.

No big deal. Every city needs lots of bus stops. However, this bus stop cost about a million dollars to build, using a lot of both Federal and state taxpayer money. Yes, $1 million for one bus stop. 

It is a nice bus stop. The bus stop’s glass-and-steel roof looks like a bird taking flight. One wall made of etched glass opens up to view newly planted landscaping. Embedded in the bus stop’s floor are heating elements intended to ward off the cold weather and keep winter-weary feet cozy. 

But. worse yet, the county has budgeted $20.8 million for the remaining 23 stops, or about $904,000 for each one. Wow, economies of scale get the cost of one bus stop down to “only” $900,000 each.

Definitely a Hunger Games situation. How many homeless people could be sheltered in Kansas City for $20.8 million? How many drug addicts in Oakland could be saved with $20.8 million worth of medicine and counseling? How many hungry Americans in Houston could be fed with $20.8 million?

In all cases, a lot. But in America today, some citizens get foot warming, million dollar bus stops and other Americans go hungry, shelterless, and drug addicted. Disgusting.

5) A lot of our material for our insanity posts could not exist without Nancy Pelosi. She is a constant source of amusing quotes (“we have to pass the health care bill to see what is in it.”) She recently had a precious quote regarding natural gas: “I believe in natural gas as a clean, cheap alternative to fossil fuels.” Uh, Nancy, natural gas is a fossil fuel. And these people vote on legislation that affects us all. Pitifully ignorant.

6) The Federal government bureaucracy has gotten so large that it often cannot control its operations or its spending. This was certainly the case as identified by a recent Inspector General’s report on improper and illegal government Medicare payments to illegal aliens, as recapped in their executive summary:

Of the PDE records submitted by sponsors for CYs 2009 through 2011, CMS inappropriately accepted 279,056 PDE records with unallowable gross drug costs totaling $28,990,718 on behalf Medicare Part D Payments for Unlawfully Present Beneficiaries.

CMS did not have a policy addressing payments for unlawfully present beneficiaries under Medicare Part D that was equivalent to the existing policy that covers payments for these beneficiaries under Parts A and B. Because CMS did not have such a policy, it did not have internal controls to identify and disenroll unlawfully present beneficiaries and to automatically reject PDE records associated with them. Without such a policy, CMS incorrectly treated unlawfully present beneficiaries as eligible for Part D benefits and did not prevent Part D payments on behalf of them. 

In a nutshell, the Federal government illegally and improperly paid out almost $29 million in Medicare drug benefits to illegal immigrants who were not supposed to receive those taxpayer funded benefits and even worse, the government, despite being in the Medicare business for decades, n did not even have methods and procedures in place to make sure this type fraud and waste did not occur. 

As with the Arlington million dollar bus shelter, how many homeless American citizens could be sheltered in Kansas City for $29 million that instead went to illegal immigrants? How many drug addicts American citizens in Oakland could be saved with $29 million worth of medicine and counseling? How many hungry American citizens in Houston could be fed with $29 million?

Taxpayer wealth being wasted on bus stops and illegal immigrants and the needs of real American citizens go unattended to. A President who golfs at the wrong times, pumps up another financial bubble via dangerously high student loan liabilities, and who does nothing to deter the Hunger Games disgrace in Washington. A Federal government which worries about a sticker on a car visor rather than real issues. A leading politician that does not know basic energy facts. 

This is the disgrace that are American politicians today. And that disgrace will continue to unfold tomorrow as we plod through this month’s political class insanity.

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