February, 2015, Part 2, Political Class Insanity: BFDs, Museum Of Government Waste, and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again for the our monthly review of political class insanity. We believe that the nation is living through the worst set of politicians to ever hold office in this country, from the President down to the local mayors. Our current politicians never resolve any problems facing Americans, waste untold billions of dollars every year, and operate government programs that never deliver what they promise, always miss their deadlines, always go over budget, and often make the original problem even worse. And these shortcomings do not include outright criminal activity, a topic that will be an integral part of this month’s insanity review.

Over the past week, we did an in-depth, multi-day analysis of how the Obama administration has failed in an epic way across five dimensions. As you will see over the next week or so, it is not only the President that is an epic fail in the American political sphere today. So, let’s get started, it is going to be a long trek as the political class came out of the holiday season with more incompetence than ever before.

This is the second post in this month’s insanity series:

1) A wise person once told me that someone swears and uses profane language because at the that moment they are either too ignorant or too lazy not to swear. This adage helped me curb my own cursing and swearing in my life, golf courses excluded. Given this advice, it was quite inappropriate when Vice President Joe Biden told President Obama that passing Obama Care “was a big f*#@ing deal” in front of a live microphone. Not the kind of language I would want or expect from a leader of the free world, pathetic.

Well, apparently this type of profanity is not restricted to the Vice President. The official White House website recently posted a short video with the title, “Things you didn’t know about the State of the Union.” No problem, sounds pretty innocuous. However, the video closes with writing on the screen that says: “It’s a BFD,” the exact same embarrassing words Biden used. 

Now, I am not close to being a prude when it comes to profanity, I have used every known term at some point in my life. But really, you are representing the President of the United States, kids have access to that website and you have to top it off with a vulgarity like BFD. Pathetic leadership and lack of maturity.

2) As we have said many times, pathetic leadership and lack of maturity are confined to Federal politicians. Consider the embarrassment that a state politician in Virginia has brought to that state and it state government:

• Joe Morrissey is an elected politician to the state government in Virginia.
• He had been out of office for a while but apparently just got reelected.
• He was out of office for a number of reasons including the fact he had gotten his teenage receptionist pregnant after previously becoming the father of three daughters by three different women, he was convicted of assault in 1999, and he lost his license to practice law in 2003.
• But he recently got re-elected despite the fact that each night he has to go to the local county jail to sleep because of a six month sex conviction.
• But the travesty continues since it recently became known that Morrissey has been indicted for allegedly submitting a forged document as evidence and lying under oath.

The Richmond Free Press newspaper has made the obviously statement and demand that: "The first bipartisan action of the 2015 General Assembly should be to get rid of Delegate Morrissey.”

This is the type of people that somehow get elected over and over again at every level of government in this country. And while most of them are probably not as big an embarrassment as the Virginia politician, their ineffectiveness and greed render them just as embarrassing and inept.

3) We have often talked about how wasteful and ludicrous Washington politicians are with our money. A small sample of their insanity and disregard for our wealth include the following very small handful of examples:

• Taxpayer money was spent to determine when dogs became man’s best friends.
• Taxpayer money was spent to build a video game the simulated prom week.
• Taxpayer money was spent to assess whether online dating sites’ users were racist.
• Taxpayer money was spent to determine why the same college basketball teams are always the most successful in the March Madness national basketball tournament.

Such wasteful spending and waste. Now, a filmmaker is documenting how pathetically wasteful the Federal government and its bureaucrats can be. A documentary film is being made that covered the five years just about wasteful spending. The filmmakers are following the exploits of regular citizens, Jim and Ellen Hubbard, as the work the halls of government to get taxpayer funding for...wait for it… the bogus Museum of Government waste.

The museum concept is completely bogus but they use the idea to get access to Congressional sources and lobbyists that are willing to help them or give them advice on how to get funding for their project. This is an experiment to find out how exactly the Washington political class has spent us into an $18 TRILLION national debt hole.

The synopsis of their effort is on their website and reprinted below:

They’ll recruit someone to become a part of the process. It’s called “participant observation,” a technique used by researchers to gain knowledge of the inner-workings of a culture by actually taking part in the culture. They tap radio host Greg Knapp, a regular guy with a wife and two kids who lives in the burbs and makes a living asking the tough questions. The Hubbards give Greg a task: try to get an earmark* for a ridiculous project: the Museum of Government Waste—an actual building that would be dedicated to the American taxpayer and filled with “homages” to the $500 hammer, the $10 thousand toilet seat, and that $400 million Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere. The Museum’s cafeteria would serve nothing but pork!

As the experiment progresses farther than Greg and the Hubbards ever expect, their efforts become increasingly more sophisticated and their quest more serious. They don hidden cameras and meet with lobbyists who instruct them to break the law. They go undercover and meet with Republican Congressional staff who assure them that despite earmarks recently being banned in the House and Senate, there’s still plenty of federal funds for their museum project. The Hubbards’ experiment gives new meaning to the saying, “be careful what you wish for” as Ellen and Greg eventually find themselves face to face with one of Washington’s most powerful players–and realize they just might get their anti-earmark earmark after all.

Their website can be accessed at:

http://www.museumofgovernmentwastemovie.com/

Think about the irony of this effort. Someone is trying to get the Washington political class to waste money on building a museum about government wasting money. Precious and pathetic at the same time.

4) We have often discussed the reality that many school systems across the country are facing tight financial times. From the lingering effects of the recession to decreasing populations to onerous union contracts and retirement requirements to wasteful spending, many schools are under tremendous financial pressure and strain. 

According to a January 9, 2015 article on the Education Action Group website, the schools in Buffalo, New York fall into this financial need category. In January, 2014, the Buffalo News reported that Buffalo schools were facing a $50 million budget shortfall. Dire straits that puts pressure on the quality and quantity of education that can be done for Buffalo kids.

Despite this financial situation. the school districts in Buffalo are still required to provide free plastic surgery for their teachers. That perk cost the Buffalo schools over $5 million In the 2013 -2014 school year, a benefit that requires the teachers to pay nothing for any plastic surgery they elect to undergo. And these surgeries have nothing to do with disfigurement as a result of a car accident or a fire or other accident. This free teacher perk can be used for a tummy tuck, nose job, or other strictly cosmetic reason.

Eliminating this perk alone would wipe out out more than 10% of the budget shortfall. It is a superficial teacher benefit that those citizens paying teacher benefits via taxes cannot use themselves.

Now, one could possibly make the claim that these teachers deserve this extra perk because they are doing a superlative job of educating Buffalo kids. That would be viable if that was the case but sadly, the kids in Buffalo are not getting a superlative education. Just over half of Buffalo kids are graduating high school, a horrible success rate but one that has improved from a really bad 48% to a plain bad 56%. Only 12.2% of Buffalo kids are rated proficient or better on standardized English tests and only 13.1% are rated proficient or better in math.

Sounds like a typical political class run government operation: low quality at very high costs, much of which is wasted. No accountability, no checks and balances,no pay for performance. Just wasteful spending on non-essential items.

That will do it for today, our second installment on this month’s political class insanity. Much more to come over the next few days so stay tuned in to find out what our politicians are screwing up as we speak. Trust it is a BFD.

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.loathemygovernmobama,washington post,politifactent.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.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w