We started dong these updates several years ago, usually taking one or two days every month to get all of their insanity covered. Unfortunately, over time, the insanity has seemed to accelerate almost exponentially, causing us to now have to take six or seven posts each month to get it all in. This month will be no different. As our foreign policy implodes, the economy stagnates, and the midtem elections approach, the insanity levels are intensifying daily.
To check out past instances of political class insanity in this post, simply go to the first week of each month and check out the posts that begin, “Political class Insanity.” This is the fourth entry in this series for this month, with the first three posts appearing over the past few days.
For the latest insanity, read on:
1) Given that the Federal government routinely spends more money than it takes in, running up a national debt level of an amazing $18 TRILLION, one would at least hope that minimal standards are in place so that government employees do not waste taxpayer wealth. You could hope, but based on employee behavior, at least at the Federal Department of Transportation (DOT) you would be wrong.
It seems that an audit of DOT employee credit card usage found that those employees have been using government credit cards for cash advances at casinos and racetracks and for other unauthorized spending, according to a report by the Office of Inspector General (OIG). The misuse of the government issued travel credit cards amounted to $2.1 million in charges for personal items in fiscal year of 2012, besides being used for cash advances at casinos and race tracks. This total did not include the $180,000 that the employees used in unauthorized cash advances while they were not on business trips.
The audit found that over two hundred cash advances were taken at casinos and that the department did not have effective policies to prevent the government credit cards from being misused: “While reviewing cash advance transactions, we identified cash advances collected at casinos,” the Inspector General said. “While DOT’s Travel Card Policy does not preclude cardholders from taking cash advances at casinos, this presents another opportunity for abuse to occur.”
Among the offenses:
- The audit examined 218 cash advances that were taken at casinos, and found 27 were made by employees not on official travel.
- A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employee collected $492 in cash advances from his government credit card at a casino in Shawnee, Oklahoma.
- A former Inspector General DOT employee was also able to use his travel card, despite leaving the agency more than two years before.
- The cards are also used at racetracks: “Between October 2011 and June 2012, an FAA cardholder collected seven cash advances totaling $719 while not on Government travel,” the Inspector General said. “On one occasion, this employee obtained a $104 cash advance on a race day at an Alabama Superspeedway.”
- The audit also found that government credit cards are used on personal items, such as groceries.
In the real world, outside of government employment, these would all be grounds for dismissal and potentially criminal prosecution. In the world of government, I doubt anything was done, to the detriment of the American taxpayer and our ever rising government debt.
2) As we have pointed out probably hundreds of times in this blog, the Federal government does a lot of things but does none of them well:
- Social Security - wasteful and going bankrupt
- Medicare and Medicaid - wasteful and going bankrupt
- IRS - inefficient and destroying the freedom of Americans
- Military Spending - out of control and extremely wasteful
- TSA - transportation safety that exists in name only …besides the degradation of being groped while in public.
Apparently, those government agencies charged with handling our immigration crisis on our southern border or no better, effective, or efficient than any other dysfunctional government entity:
- According to a recent Associated Press (AP) report, a whopping 7 of every 10 families released by the Obama administration this year, after entering the country illegally, failed to show up for follow-up appointments with immigration authorities.
- The AP got their hands on an audio recording of a confidential meeting held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during which one ICE official said thousands of families caught crossing the border this year, 70 percent of the total, subsequently failed to meet as instructed with federal immigration agents.
- At that same meeting, the ICE official also said final deportation had been ordered for at least 860 persons traveling as families and caught at the border since May but of those, only 140 had reported for deportation, a success rate of a meager 16%.
- More than 66,000 immigrants traveling as families, mostly mothers and children, have been caught for illegally crossing the border since October.
Imagine how long you would keep your job if you were successful only 16% of the time. But in government work, apparently 16% success rate is actually acceptable. Pathetic.
3) It is no secret that the Federal government drive to get kids to eat healthy meals in schools has turned into a wasteful, expensive, and failed effort. As with most government directed dictates, you cannot force a nation to do what a small group thinks is best in Washington.
Yes, our kids probably do not eat healthy enough, resulting in high overweight and obesity rates. But this is a public health issue, not a government law making issue. A long term public health program needs to be put in place to get all of America to eat healthier. You cannot change these deeply entrenched, bad eating habits by passing a piece of legislation.
As a result of this misdirected government effort, often associated with Michelle Obama, kids are rebelling against tasteless healthy foot options around the country. As a result, schools' food lunch budgets are getting decimated by kids not paying for and eating cafeteria food, resulting in food being thrown out every day and kids going hungry. Recent news reports point to further unintended consequences of Michelle Obama’s efforts and the Federal law it spawned:
- Some experts estimate that a whopping $4 million worth of perfectly good but tasteless food is being tossed in the trash each day as a result of Michelle’s school lunch program.
- To date, almost 600 school districts have already dropped out of the First Lady’s lunch program, Fort Thomas Independent Schools in Northern Kentucky being one of them.
- Fort Thomas School Superintendent Gene Kirchner stated out that since the program is resulting in so much waste, then it is not very effective. “I have to think that across the country, it has to be a staggering amount of food going to waste, and I think there are people out there who could really use that food.”
- According to one government study, over one million kids across the country have stopped eating lunch altogether after the new standards were imposed on their schools, depriving school budgets of lunch money revenue and causing economic hardships for those schools’ budgets.
Another remedy from the political class that causes more problems than it solves. In this case, this school lunch legislation solved no problems but caused millions of kids to go hungry, wasted millions of dollars of food every day, and never came close to getting obesity rates down.
Again, this is a long term public health issue that the Washington political class tried, and failed, to solve with a short term legislative action. Can you say “Obama Care in school lunches?”
4) More times than not, when a group of American politicians enact a law or undertake any major action, they end up making the initial situation worse. Obama Care was supposed to bring down health care costs, it has caused and will continue to cause health care costs to rise. The Patriot Act was supposed to protect us from terrorism but ended up costing us a lot of our freedom and constitutional protection without protecting us from the numerous terrorist attacks we have suffered over the past few years.
The politicians in Minnesota lived up to this heritage of failure when they enacted a law that banned texting while driving in a vain attempt to cut down on car accidents caused by be texting distracted while driving. According to a study published in the May, 2014 issue of Journal of Adolescent Health, a Minnesota law that banned texting while driving did indeed reduce the number of minor traffic accidents. However, it apparently increased the number of serious car accidents.
How could this be? It is now against the law to text and drive. Well, texters decided that it was okay to text in Minnesota as long as no one, including the police, saw you texting. This resulted in texters putting their cell phones in less conspicuous places while texting and driving, places that required them to be further out of touch with their surroundings. This likely resulted in an increase in more serious and dangerous road accidents. Unintended consequences of politicians not thinking through what their actions might cause.
So lets review: we have at least one government operation, the DOT, whose accounting controls are broken or non-existent, allowing their employees to use government/taxpayer funds at casinos and racetracks.
We have an immigration operation that loses 70% of the people it is supposed to be tracking.
We have a Federally mandated school lunch program that is breaking school budgets, making our kids go hungry, and not resolving the original problem.
And we have political class insanity in Minnesota that is making driving a car more dangerous even though the legislation was supposed to do just the opposite.
More insanity, more wasted taxpayer money, less positive results. And more insanity for 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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