It is not an easy thing to do since we are apparently living through the worse set of politicians that this country has ever had to endure. As a result, we never seem to get a major issue resolved but are constantly bombarded with incompetence from every aspect of government and politics.
Today’s examples in no way dispute this assertion:
1) Two facts set up the first piece of insanity for today. First, many video clips of President Obama speaking about how he was going to make sure that our veterans got top notch care are available online. He made it a big campaign promise back in 2008 and afterwards, continuing to brag and promise about how well his administration would take care of veterans.
Second, the outgoing Bush administration warned the incoming Obama administration that there were serious problems within the Veterans Administration. Given our discussion yesterday and in previous posts on this topic, this is obviously a true depiction of what was going on when Obama came into office.
Bottom line: the Obama administration knew that there were problems taking care of our veterans’ medical issues and promised to give it the highest attention. But rather than devote all of the necessary resources to addressing the deficient medical care our veterans are receiving, what did Obama do?
The Washington Free Beacon recently reported on some Veterans Administration expenses that had nothing to do with medical care and everything to do with political public relations:
- An analysis of more than $1 billion dollars in spending by the Department of Veterans Affairs on “professional services” over the past few years found several instances of questionable spending on items and efforts that had nothing to do with the medical care of our veterans.
- For example, millions of dollars were spent on a national ad campaign.
- Many millions more were spent on alternative energy programs to make VA facilities environmentally greener despite the fact that this expenses and investments would have nothing to do with fixing the inadequate care our veterans were and are receiving.
- This unnecessary behavior was driven by an executive order signed by Obama in October 2009, the VA was required to make its facilities more energy efficient and sustainable.
- A whopping total of 183 green energy projects were instituted for VA facilities across the country.
- One single contract was for a Washington D.C.-based VA facility for nearly $1 million.
- And in the most inane use of taxpayer funds, in Buffalo, New York, one of the U.S. cities with the lowest number of sunny days annually, the Buffalo VA Medical Center installed a solar energy power unit.
- Other sun starved cities, such as Albany, New York and Cleveland, Ohio also installed solar systems in their facilities.
How many veterans’ lives could have been saved if that million dollars in DC had been used for hiring more medical staff vs. solar panels? On a nationwide basis, how many lives could have been saved if solar panel money went into medical care first and solar panels some where in the future once the VA stopped letting veterans die?
And the saddest part of all is that Obama knew about the VA problems before he issued the executive order and said he cared. Obviously, he doesn’t get it even when fully informed. Pathetic.
2) Insanity is not restricted to just Federal politicians, state level politicians are often just as inane and out of touch. Consider a state version of “Cash For Clunkers” that the political class in California has implemented. That state was paying drivers to get their air-polluting cars off the road. As an incentive, the state government was paying out cash to get state residents to buy a newer, more fuel-efficient model.
Sounds like a good idea but as almost always with political class ideas, it is failing miserably. During its first year, only 21 Californians in the entire state actually purchased a new vehicle under this program. The state mailed out more than 12,000 letters notifying people they were eligible for a portion of $3 million set aside for vehicle replacement. But with only 21 people taking advantage of the program, the mailing response rate was a very meager .2% of the mailing.
Given these pathetic results, the program has been suspended but may reappear next year. Which raises the question: why bother? Given that the incentive was about $2,000 and the program was budgeted for $3 million, even if the entire budget was used up the net result would be about 1,500 new cars on the road in the entire state. Given that there are over 20 million cars on the road today in California, 1,500 cars was going to make hardly any kind of dent in air pollution at all under this program.
Plus, as the Obama administration found out when it ran a Cash For Clunkers program, very few of the sales in this type of program are incremental. All it does is delay or pull up a purchase of a new car, a purchase that likely would have happened in the absence of free money anyway. This further reduces the incremental impact of the program.
Simple math that escapes our simple minded politicians. Handing out free money to the tune of $3 million to affect a minimal amount of cars in a state as huge as California a just plain dumb. Just do the math.
3) Consider some local political class insanity as a result of meddling Federal bureaucrats at Salem High School in Plymouth, Michigan. This was reported in the July, 2014 issue of Reason magazine, a great place to see how the political class systematically screws up our democracy and wealth every day.
In this case, the high school was forced to take down new bleachers and a scoreboard that was built by parents for the school’s baseball team. However, in the new world of political correctness, the Federal Department of Education found that the school was in violation of Federal laws because as a result of the parents' efforts, the boys’ baseball field was superior to the girls’ softball field.
The school had not budget to upgrade the girls field so in order to not violate the Federal law, they had to destroy what the parents had built at the baseball field. How insane has our country become when well meaning citizens, taking an active interest in their sons’ lives, can be viewed as criminals by the Federal government?
When a country starts to destroy workable, positive assets in local communities in order to satisfy unnecessary Federal bureaucrats far away, we have definitely fallen down the rabbit hole. True insanity.
4) A recent cnn.com article that was summarized in the June 20, 2014 issue of The Week magazine found that according to an analysis by Credit Suisse, Americans’ median net worth is just $44,900 per adult despite us being many years away from the official ending of the last recession. Even more disappointing, this places us in 19th place relative to the rest of the world, with countries such as Japan, Canada, Australia and most of western Europe having higher median net worth.
Many times in this blog we have asserted that the economic policy and planning skills of our politicians are worse than non-existent, they are dangerously bad. This latest statistic is just more proof that despite an energy revolution, record low interest rates for a record length of time, and the fact that we have had a number of years of non-recession economic times, these people in Washington still could not come up with an economic environment that would help us grow our personal wealth and improve our lives.
We are no longer number in the world when it comes to wealth, we are a startling and disappointing 19th, courtesy of the Washington political class.
5) A www.newsday.com article that was summarized in the March 21, 2014 issue of The Week magazine discussed the reality that more than half a million Americans die each year as a result of Alzheimer’s disease. This makes the disease the third largest cause of American deaths, behind only heart disease and cancer.
Do you think that the Obama administration might have had a much bigger payoff if they had attacked this disease with all of the vim and vigor they used to get someone a half baked, expensive Bronze Plan via Obama Care?
If they had focused on only reducing these three diseases and the astronomical costs associated with heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s, they would have dramatically reduced health care costs which would have dramatically reduced health insurance costs, which would have created an economic boon for the country.
Instead, the Washington political class created a 2,500 page monster piece of legislation that is increasing health care costs without reducing these three major drivers of health care costs. Insane.
That will do it for today relative to political class insanity. We have a Veterans Administration that continues to fail our veterans in so many ways, we have California politicians who do not know how to do simple math, we have a Federal bureaucracy destroying a perfectly good baseball facility, we have a falling standard of living vs. the rest of the world, and we are dying from preventable diseases while the Federal government bungles its way through a failed health care law that all but ignores the preventable fatalities.
Sounds about right for one day’s worth of political class insanity. We will finish up this series for this month tomorrow but rest assured we will revisit it again early next month. Politicians and the every growing bureaucracies they manage never rest and never fail to under whelm us with their ineptness and idiocy.
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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