March, 2015, Part 2, Political Class Insanity: When NASCAR and Pigs Are More Important Than Citizens, Getting Drunk at the State Of The Union, and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time once again to review the latest insanity and ineptness from the American political class. We do this review every month to prove our hypothesis that we are currently being served by the worst set of politicians in the history of our country. 

They waste hundreds of billions of dollars of our wealth every year, they never resolve any of the major issues facing Americans today, they continually put their foot in their mouth with their idiotic statements and positions, and they operate government functions that are bloated and ineffective in delivering quality service to taxpayers. And worse of all, they have rigged the country’s elections processes so that their election and subsequent re-elections are almost guaranteed to ensure their mediocrity continues. 

To review the past examples of political class insanity just type in “political class insanity” in the search box above.

So lets get started on what is likely a multi-day review of their latest incompetence and insanity, with the first post in this series appearing yesterday:

1) It is no secret that the Obama administration has added more to the national debt than every other Presidential administration that came before it. Of the more than $18 TRILLION in debt that the country now owes, $8 TRILLION of that came just from the Obama administration. This $8 TRILLION comes out to about $67,000 for every American family in the country.

The Obama administration and the current Washington political class has added so much debt that the Obama White House now estimates that by 2021, the country will be spending more on interest from the national debt than on the entire Defense Department budget. Given that the current annual Defense Department budget is about half a TRILLION dollars a year, by 2021, on average, every American family will be spending over $4,000 a year in taxes just on interest payments alone. Insanity.

2) According to an article in the December 12, 2014 issue of The Week magazine, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie recently vetoed a piece of legislation that would have banned the use of restrictive gestation crates for breeding pigs that affect about 9,000 pigs in the state. As a former resident of New Jersey I do not have a position on whether this is a humane thing to do or not.

But as a former resident of New Jersey, I know there are far bigger issues that state politicians should be worried about and focused on than the comfort of 9,000 pigs:

• The state’s unemployment level continues to run higher than the rest of the country.
• The state’s long term unemployment rate continues to be one of the worst in the country.
• The state’s cost of living and tax burden continues to be one of the highest in the country.
• The state spends more and gets relatively less bang for its investment in education relative to many other states in the country.

But why focus your legislative efforts on issues that affect most of the state’s residents when you can develop and pass legislation that focuses on 9,000 pigs. Horrible, horrible political priorities.

3) But New Jersey is not alone in state politicians that are focusing on the wrong priorities. The city of Charlotte, North Carolina invested over a $100 million of taxpayer funds to help build the NASCAR Hall of Fame in the city. Unfortunately, this investment is not paying off since only 400,000 people are visiting the Hall Of Fame each year while the city planners expected over 800,000 to show up annually. 

This 50% attendance shortfall has resulted in the city having to put up another $5 million of taxpayer funds to pay off some of the debts that the Hall Of Fame has incurred in addition to the $137 million in debt it incurred to build the Hall. Additionally, banks who invested in the project will get back about a third of which they invested and royalties to NASCAR have been suspended for the near future.

As with New Jersey, I am sure there are far better needs and issues that city lawmakers and politicians should have been spending their time on than building a white elephant of a hall of fame. Bad priorities.

4) According to a recent article written by Tyler Durden that appeared on the www.zerohedge.com website, the United States and the inferior lawmaking ability of the nation's politicians have resulting in two depressing facts:

• The United States has the highest prison and jail incarceration rate of any country in the world.
• This high incarceration rate has greatly diminished the punitive and preventive effective of crime and criminals.

Just another example of politicians coming up with a solution that makes the original problem even worse. Details of these conclusions include the following facts and realities:

• There are about 2.3 million Americans in prison or jail. 15 states have total populations less than 2.3 million.
• There are more Americans in prison than the combined populations of Alaska, Vermont, and Wyoming.
• The U.S. has 5% of the world’s population by 25% of its prisoners.
• One out of every three black men will spend time in prison or jail.
• 2.7 million kids across the country have a parent who is jail or prison.
• The U.S. imprisonment rate has grown by 400% since 1970.

Despite the every increasing incarceration rate, a recent study and research effort from the Brennan Center For Justice at the NYU School of law found that this increased incarceration rate has had a limited effect on crime rates over the past two and a half decades. One reason driving this diminished effect on crime is that a lot of those currently wasting away in prisons and jails are there for non-violent and victimless crimes such as illegal drug use. 

Author Durden writes: “America’s incarceration rate has become so saturated that it has absolutely no meaningful impact in lowering crimes rates anyway. The time for prison reform and the elimination of mandatory minimum sentences is long overdue.”

Thus, politicians’ efforts to make us safer are not having any real effect any longer while costing billions of dollars in taxpayer wealth to make us the most imprisoned planet in the world. Something is worn here, something is insane here.

U.S. imprisonment rate per 100,000 people since 1880:



5) It is not uncommon in life for a person to turn to alcohol when they are really depressed or really bored. Not sure what the reasons were for Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg getting a little unsober at the recent Obama state of the union speech but who can blame her? She had to sit still for a long time while listening to empty promises and arrogance from the President of the U.S.Justice Ginsburg had drunk so much pre-speech wine that she actually nodded off in the middle of the state of the union proceeding. She apparently was unaware that she passed out during the speech until she returned home and got a call from her granddaughter saying, “Bubbe, you were sleeping at the State of the Union.”But the Justice had enough integrity to admit she was not sleeping: “The audience — for the most part — is awake because they’re bobbing up and down all the time and we sit there, stone-faced, sober judges. At least I wasn’t 100 percent sober because before we went to the State of the Union we had dinner. Justice Kennedy brought in … it was an Opus something or other, very fine California wine that Justice Kennedy brought, and I vowed this year just sparkling water, stay away from the wine. But in the end, the dinner was so delicious, it needed wine to accompany it.”Again, who can blame her? This President has made more promises that never got fulfilled, has spent more tax money that has resulted in minimal improvement in Americans’ lives, has violated more laws and Constitutional tenets than any other President, and continues to shower himself and his family with golf rounds, international vacations, and privileges of royalty to the extent that no other President would have dared to do. At least viewers at home could turn off the President and go to another TV channel. Justice Ginsburg had no other option than to overdrink and pass out to escape the depression and boredom that is the Washington political class on display at the state of the union message. So what did we learn to today from the political class insanity we reviewed:

• Obama’s budgets will eventually crush the country and its economy.
• New Jersey politicians worry more about pigs than citizens.
• North Carolina city politicians worry more about NASCAR than citizens.
• We are the kings of incarceration relative to the rest of the world.
• Even Supreme Court Justices are being driven to drink by the Washington political class.

More reasons to drink due to politicians’ ineptness tomorrow.

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Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
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http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w