The challenge of writing about this type of political incompetence is not that there is not enough to write about. Just the opposite: you cannot keep up with the wasteful spending, ineffective programs and operations of government, the idiotic comments, etc. As soon as you dare to think you have it all covered for this month, more insanity pops up.
Thus, while we thought yesterday’s post would be the last for this month, by the time we wrote and posted the first five insanity posts, more insanity popped up, insanity which we will cover below:
1) We have a $17 TRILLION national debt. We just cut the retirement benefits that had been promised to our brave military veterans. We have almost 50 million Americans who are receiving food assistance from the Federal government every month. Despite all this, since 2012, the American taxpayer has paid out $464,272 to determine why gay men get syphilis in Peru. Not America, Peru:
“Syphilis remains an uncontrolled infectious disease globally, with high prevalence and incidence in certain high risk populations, affecting more than 20 percent of men who have sex with men (MSM) in Peru…The incidence of syphilis in MSM in Peru is about 9 cases per 100 person-years. We are proposing a study to improve our understanding of syphilis epidemiology and molecular biology, particularly among MSM.” according to the grant, awarded by the Federal government’s National Institutes of Health (NIH).
A few observations:
- How many American homeless could have been fed for that nearly half a million dollars?
- Adding insult to injury, the money went to a Peruvian university to do the study, it cannot even be justified that an American university using American citizens was doing the study and being paid with American taxpayer money.
- They could have saved the money and just asked me the question they are trying to answer: gay men get syphilis in Peru because they have unprotected sex with other men in Peru. Duh.
2) We have often talked about how the past so-called farm bills that Washington has passed have almost always been a legal way for corrupt politicians to profit and help out big business, always to the detriment of America’s taxpayers and their health. Just in the past few days we reviewed an article and analysis by the Washington Examiner that showed how rich, non-farming politicians, lobbyists, etc., are able to get farm subsidies even thought they physically live In D.C., New York City, and Chicago, none of which are close to being farm meccas.
Well, Congress has just passed the latest rendition of the legislation and all it needs now is Obama’s signature. Did the Washington politicians clean up their act and clean up the farm trough of wasteful spending and corruption?
Apparently not. Kendric Ward of Watchdog.org characterizes the latest farm bill as “the ultimate in pork-barrel politics.” Among some of the bigger insults to taxpayers:
- Government price supports on sugar will continue to force Americans to pay twice what global consumers pay for sugar.
- Taxpayers provide loans totaling just over $1 billion to sugar producers every year, but in 2012 only three sugar producer firms received the bulk of the money. Want to bet that those three firms also made a lot of campaign contributions to incumbent politicians?
- Ward claims that junk-food additives, such as obesity producing high-fructose corn syrup, will continue to be subsidized.
- Those subsidies are enough to buy every kid under 18 in the country eight 2-liter bottles of soda every year.
- Major, wealthy corporations including McDonald’s, Fruit of the Loom and other giant agricultural companies and trade associations will continue to receive funds from the $200 million-per-year Market Access Program, which subsidizes ad campaigns for large American farm related companies
3) We deployed military forces into Afghanistan over twelve years ago to fight both Bin Laden ‘s followers and the Afghan Taliban who were supporting them. We have probably spent over a half a trillion dollars in protecting the presidential administration of Afghan president Hamid Karzai. Thousands of American soldiers have died and been wounded in carrying out this assignment.
We have propped up his administration, one that is infested and infected with rampant corruption, with cash and other enticements that have probably made him and his accomplices rich beyond anyone’s dreams.
And what do we have to show for it? According to a recent interview that Karzai gave to the London Times:
- The Taliban, who we have been fighting and protecting him from, are not his enemy, they are his “brothers.”
- Americans are his “rivals.”
- Americans “did not work for me, they worked against me.”
- Although the United States spent hundreds of billions of dollars in Afghanistan during the Afghan war, Mr. Karzai said the money did not help him: “The money they should have paid to the police they paid to private security firms and creating militias who caused lawlessness, corruption and highway robbery.”
- In other words, he ran a pure, and honest government operation, it was the Americans and their billions of dollars that corrupted his nation.
- He had not talked to President Obama in over seven months even though the U.S. has spent so much money and blood in the country, making both of them an insult to those that died and were wounded in the battling.
Unfortunately, it took twelve long years for our politicians to finally figure it out. Our military forces cannot get out of the country fast enough and leave the ungrateful and despicable Karzai to his Taliban “friends,” friends who I think will end the friendship quite quickly after American and NATO forces leave the country.
4) The U.S. Post Office lost $5 billion in 2013. Their first class mail volumes have been disappearing quickly as various forms of electronic communications, e.g. online bill payment, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, email, etc., make traditional first class snail mail less and less attractive. It is a part of the Federal government who has shown absolutely no ability to institute a functioning, useable, and hacker proof information systems process, with Obama Care’s failures just the latest in a long line of failed Federal government data systems efforts.
In the face of these realities, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren thinks that it would be a good idea for the U.S. Post Office to get into the banking business to offset its declining revenue stream. In a recently published op-ed piece in the Huffington Post, Warren cited an Office of the Inspector General report that found 68 million Americans have no checking or savings account and rely on non-bank financial services like payday loans and check cashing to the tune of $89 billion in 2012.
Warren sees this as a lucrative area for the Postal Service to get into to boost sagging revenues: “The OIG explored the possibility of the USPS offering basic banking services—bill paying, check cashing, small loans—to its customers. With post offices and postal workers already on the ground, USPS could partner with banks to make a critical difference for millions of Americans who don't have basic banking services because there are almost no banks or bank branches in their neighborhoods.”
A couple of problems here, Senator:
- Did you ever think there are not banking services in these neighborhoods because private banking experts do not see a way to make profits in these neighborhoods? Trust me, if there was money to be made with basic banking services, someone would be filling that market void today already.
- How many different banks would the Post Office have to interface with and do you really think the Post Office and the Federal government has the wherewithal to cope with the different money handling and data systems interfaces necessary for all of those different banks, given the disaster that is Obama Care’s systems and procedures?
- Many of us have probably had a wide range of experiences dealing the Post Office. I would bet there are far more negative experiences than positive experiences, a lot more. Thus, Senator, do we really think that a lot of Americans are going to trust their money to these same people and operations?
- To wipe out the five billion deficit, the Post Office would have to clear almost $17 million a day, six days a week to equal that deficit. Given that the Senator argued for “nothing fancy, just basic bill paying, check cashing, and small dollar loans,” is this enough to make any kind of dent into the unprofitable operation, even if it could be done logistically?
Okay let’s review: syphilis in Peru, the next edition of farm corruption and cronyism, ungrateful Afhgans, and a post office idea that has no chance of delivery. Your tax dollars at work, for nothing in return again this month. More insanity next month. Unfortunately.
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:
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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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