April, 2015, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: Our Golfing Addicted President, Sex Partying DEA Agents, and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time to review the latest political class insanity that has cropped up over the past 30 days or so. As regular readers of this blog know, political class insanity comes in many different forms including, but not limited to, the following craziness:

• Spending taxpayer wealth on idiotic programs and projects.
• Wasting taxpayer wealth on their own selfish financial and political needs.
• Implementing legislation to resolve problems that make the original problems worse or which created unintended bad consequences as a result of their legislation.
• Implementing legislation that supports their political donors and financial backers rather than the typical American citizen.
• Issuing idiotic and stupid comments.
• Overseeing government organizations that are incompetent, inefficient, ineffective, and wasteful of taxpayer wealth.

As always, it is highly likely we will identify new forms of insanity over the next few days as we review the past ineptness coming out of Washington and other bastions of American politicians.

1) The current state of the world is not good:

• Yemen has become a lawless country infested with at least three different terrorist groups.
• Egypt and Saudi Arabia are bombing Yemen.
• ISIS is still running wild and growing in northern Iraq and Syria.
• The Obama administration is about to sign off on an agreement that will make Iran able to develop nuclear weapons capability in a relatively short time frame.
• Our relations at the highest levels of government between our traditional ally and only democracy in the Middle East, Israel, and the U.S.Federal government is at an all time low.
• The economic growth situation in the this country and the related employment situation is still stagnant.
• Our borders still leak, our public schools still continue to under educate, we are still losing our war on drugs, and we still do not have a long term energy strategy for the country.

Given this context, according to a recent Washington Examiner report and other news reports:

• President Obama recently jetted down to Florida for a round of golf on the taxpayer tab at an exclusive Florida country club.
• This was the 222nd round of golf he has played since becoming President, by far the most rounds of Presidential golf played since the Eisenhower Presidency six decades ago.
• According to Air Force documents obtained by the Judicial Watch, it costs $210,877 an hour to fly Air Force One, putting the round trip price tag at $843,508 for this one round of Presidential golf.
• According to press reports from members of the media flying with the President, the beer started flowing shortly after takeoff at 9:30 am, leading to the following press pool report: "You can tell this is a non work trip because someone forward of the press cabin ordered 3 beers at 9:26 a.m."
• In order to not photograph or report on the President during his round of golf, all members of the media were shuttered into a shack on the golf course until the round was done.

Certainly another “bad optics” experience for this Presidency, another bad set of priorities, another piece of insanity, given the multitude of crises facing the country that have erupted during his time in office.

2) We are less than three weeks away from filing our Federal income taxes, an act that if not done properly and on time could result in fines and jail time for most Americans. I say for most Americans, since again in 2014, the IRS has found that for many Federal employees, paying only some of none of their Federal income taxes appears to be acceptable:

• More than 100,00 Federal employees did not pay or part of their Federal income taxes employees.
• It represents almost 4% of the Federal workforce who are in violation of IRS rules and laws.
• They are depriving the Federal government and the American taxpayer $1.14 billion in unpaid Federal income taxes.
• Among categories of Americans who receive direct compensation from the Federal government, only retired military veterans have a higher tax evasion rate, 4.04%, likely because many of them are homeless or unemployed as compared to Federal government employees that are employed and making really good money and salaries.
• 500 House of Representative staffers owe a combined $6.7 million to the IRS for unpaid Federal income taxes.last year.
• This 100,000 level establishes a new record high for tax evasion by Federal employees.

Another example of total dysfunction on the part of the Federal government and the politicians who are supposed to be overseeing their operations. The IRS obviously knows who these tax evaders are, they know how much they are evading, so why is it so hard to confiscate their government wages until their tax debt is wiped out? 

Sounds simple but as we have often shown with our insanity posts, even simple is often beyond the reach and capability of today’s politicians. But you can be sure that if you or I did not pay all of our taxes, our fate would be far worse than those who are tax evading Federal employees.

3) Another example of dysfunction of the Federal government and those that oversee its operations cropped up in a Special Security Administration (SSA) Inspector General report and audit. That audit found that the SSA had live, valid Social Security numbers on record for 6.5 million Americans that are over 112 years old.

This is interesting since:

• According to Census records, there are only about 6.0 million living Americans who are over the age of 85, making it impossible to have 6.5 million over the age of 112.
• According to Wikipedia, there are about 16 Americans living in the country today who are over the age of 110.

Which obviously raises some simple questions relative to 6.5 million lived SSA accounts:

• How many of those 6.5 million accounts are being used by relatives of deceased Americans who have kept the account alive and are illegally receiving Social Security benefit payments?
• How many of those 6.5 million accounts are being used by organized crime to skim and scam taxpayer wealth out of the SSA?
• How many of those 6.5 million accounts are being used by illegal immigrants to illegally stay in this country, find work in this country, and get illegal benefits in this country from the SSA?

There is a really simple solution to this problem. Identify the 16 Americans who are actually still alive, put their SSA numbers aside, and then cancel the remaining 6.5 million SSA numbers and see what happens. 

Odds are the criminals will move onto to other endeavors once they realize the jig is up and using deceased Americans’ Social Security numbers, saving billions in taxpayer wealth. Anyone who shows up and complains about losing a valid number is likely a criminal and should be arrested for SSA fraud.

Simple, right? But again, much too hard for the political class to comprehend and to force the Federal government to do. Another pathetic example of wasting taxpayer wealth as a result of government incompetence.

4) More government operations incompetence. According to recent news reports:

• Federal Drug Enforcement (DEA) agents operating in Columbia over the years apparently were treated to sex parties, courtesy of the local drug cartels, the same people and organizations that the agents were supposed to be shutting down.
• Many of the sex parties and prostitutes were hosted at rented DEA facilities and offices where sensitive electronic equipment such as computers and smartphones were available to be compromised.
• The cartels provided security for DEA agents’ weapons during the sex parties.

News reports on the sex parties can be viewed at:

http://www.mrctv.org/videos/nbc-continues-ignore-report-dea-sex-parties-funded-drug-cartels

These sex parties occurred over a number of years but recently came to light. One has to wonder if there are others that have not yet been uncovered. Another example of a dysfunctional government operation and poor or no oversight by the politicians that are supposed to keep these operations efficient, focused, and effective. Touch to be any of those things when the sex is free.

A President that would rather golf and fund raise than lead, 100,000 Federal government employees who seem to think that filing and paying incomes taxes is optional, a Social Security Administration which seems to think the fountain of youth exists at least within their records, and a DEA set of agents who party at drug cartel expense.

That’s enough for today, which turned out to be a focus on the overall incompetence of the Federal government and the political oversight that has failed to make these operations and entities a worthwhile investment for the taxpayer. More and varied insanity to follow in the upcoming days.

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www.loathemygovernment.com

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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.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w