Thus, we will finish this month’s update with the following nuggets of idiocy and move onto other topics starting tomorrow.
1) The fine website, Against Crony Capitalism, had a nice review of how rich American companies are the happy receivers of outsized taxpayer funded subsidies every year. Their review asserts that, on average, each of the largest 100 companies in the country receives $200 million from the US taxpayer, each year. Some more than others of course.
Examples of this crony capitalism from the latest year of data include:
- General Electric - $380 million
- General Motors - $370 million (as if the American taxpayer has not already given this company enough money)
- Boeing -$264 million
- Archer Daniels Midland - $174 million
- United Technologies - $160 million
- Others who got free taxpayer money include John Deere, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Bank of America, Walmart, and American Express.
2) The President stated this past week in a news conference that his administration did not have a strategy for dealing with the ISIS terror threat that is building up in Iraq and Syria. These terrorists are barbarians and a severe threat not only to the U.S. but also to humanity itself.
According to recent news reports, this growing threat has been well known within this administration and this President for a few years. However, it has done nothing to combat it as the threat has gotten larger and more powerful. So little has been done that the President publicly admitted that “we don’t have a strategy yet” for defeating ISIS.
Despite this lack of focus and a strategy for dealing with this threat, the President did find time two weekends ago to attend multiple fundraisers in New York and Rhode Island and a wedding in that same area. Yes, possibly the biggest terror threat to the country can wait as this President attends what I believe to be the 401st through 403rd political fund raiser of his term in office, far exceeding the number of fund raisers attended by all previous Presidents. Since he has also played more golf while in office since Eisenhower, over fifty years ago, one has to really question the insane priorities of this President.
Since according to a recent Rasmussen poll, only 23% of the electorate think America is heading in the right direction, and 69% think it is on the wrong track, maybe Americans are finally actually questioning his priorities and his insanity.
3) According to a recent article on the Black Community News website, a Pew and USA Today opinion survey of 1,501 adults found that 69% say blacks and whites get along “very well” or “pretty well.” Apparently this finding represents a “modest” drop since 2009.
Thus, this President has failed so much as a leader that the first African American President has somehow managed to slightly degrade race relations in this country, not improve them as he promised. His administration has been divisive rather than inclusive, often using the “race card” for political benefit rather than racial and political harmony. The numbers prove it.
4) Staying with race for a while, according to a Wall Street Journal report that was summarized in the April 4, 2014 issue of The Week magazine, in 2008, the last year of the Bush administration, 8.2% of the Federal government’s Small Business Administration loans went to African-American business people.
Since then, covering the first five years of the Obama administration, the first Presidential administration headed by an African-American, that percentage has dropped to only 1.7% of Small Business administration loans going to African-American business people in 2013. But the President’s supporters call people like me racist, who have an honestly different of opinion on policy, but ignore the fact that the support for African-American businesses is down almost 80% in just five years under this President. Insane.
5) Anemic economic growth, heavy fighting in the Ukraine, a large and growing terrorism threat from the Middle East, high unemployment, failing public schools, a failed war on drugs, a leaky border and associated illegal immigration crisis, etc. One would hope that all members of the Washington political class would be busting their tails to address and hopefully resolve at least some of these issues.
But seeking hope from these politicians is usually a fruitless search. According to a recent article in Business Week, once Congress returns from its five week summer vacation, The House of Representatives will be in session for only twelve days in September, twelve days in October, and then take off again, returning after the November elections to put in only fifteen more days until the end of the year.
If I counted correctly, over those four months there are 87 days on the calendar that are not weekends or holidays. Thus, despite the major issues facing this country, the House will only be working for 39 of those days or less than half of the working days most Americans will be working, assuming they are lucky enough to have a job.
For this kind of pitiful dedication to their jobs, these people make more than three times the amount of money that the average household in American earns each year. They also have better benefits and working conditions and can obviously set their own schedules, which they obviously set very light. Pathetic excuse for public servants, no wonder nothing ever gets accomplished in D.C.
6) We will finish up this post and this monthly series update on political class insanity from the wonderful website, Bankrupting America:
- According to the latest Congressional Budget Office analyses, Federal government debt hit a 64-year high this past fiscal year: “Federal debt held by the public will reach 74 percent of GDP at the end of this fiscal year—more than twice what it was at the end of 2007 and higher than in any year since 1950.” In addition, interest payments on the debt will total more than $799 billion in 2024 or almost $7,000 for every American household. Outrageous and dangerous debt numbers that may never be reached because the economy crashes far before these onerous levels of debt are attained.
- The Federal government announced that the U.S. economy grew at a 4.2% rate in the second quarter, which is good news. The bad news is that this follows a contraction of the economy in the first quarter, making the midyear to date economic growth only 1.05%, still leaving the Obama administration with the worst economic recovery record since World War II.
- In related news, the CBO has halved its 2014 national economic growth estimate down from 3.1% to 1.5%. These numbers continue to confirm that Obama and Congress still have no grasp of economic policy and theory and how to put forth economic polices that foster robust growth.
- Although the rollout of Obama Care was badly botched by both administration employees and contract employees, it turns out that the American taxpayer will be paying for their incompetence. The Inspector General (IG) for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a report showing that private contractors associated with and hired for the rollout of Obama Care exceeded their original estimated costs. The new report shows that one-third of the 60 Obama Care contractors examined are set to be overpaid, while seven companies are due to receive more than double their initial estimates.
- Sticking with Obama Care incompetence, Nevada insurance brokers are suing the Nevada Obama Care state health insurance exchange over unpaid Commissions. According to local news accounts: “Nevada’s health insurance exchange faces yet another big lawsuit. Six brokers filed a lawsuit Tuesday in Clark County District Court, seeking class-action status for their claim that the Silver State Health Insurance Exchange and its website contractor, Xerox, have failed to pay commissions on coverage they sold through the exchange’s Nevada Health Link website. Matt Callister, an attorney representing the brokers, said the six are collectively owed ‘a very significant amount well in excess of $200,000.’”
So many failures in so many ways. Crony capitalism, lack of a strategy or ability to think strategically, making race relations worse rather than better, the never ending disasters from Obama Care, skyrocketing national debt, a Congress and White House that take more vacations than deserved, etc. It is insanity, the worst set of politicians operating a broken Federal government at a very high expense with little societal benefit in return. Pathetically insane.
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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