April, 2015, Part 3,Political Class Insanity: The Afghanistan Black Hole Of Waste, Economic Ignorance, and Potential Political Bribery

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) One of the worst government efforts when it comes to abusing taxpayer wealth is the complete mismanagement of anything that went on within Afghanistan. We have often reported on how money disappeared, how shady characters were paid off, and how money was misspent for nothing viable in return.

Well, that insult to taxpayers continues with new news from the Afghanistan inspector general. According to reporting at www.medium.com by Matthew Gault:

• In the past thirteen years, Congress has approved $104 billion to be spent to rebuild Afghanistan and more than half of that sum, $66 billion, went through the Pentagon.
• When asked by the inspector general to account for those tens of billions of dollars, the Pentagon found that could account for only a measly third of its $66 billion allocation.
• In other words, due to faulty accounting systems in the Defense Department, the American taxpayer will never know how, where, when, or to whom the missing $45 billion ended up.

It is probably a safe bet that a lot if not most of that $45 billion did nothing for the rebuilding of Afghanistan and ended up in the hands of corrupt Afghanistan officials and probably also in the hands of the Taliban and other terrorists. The insanity from this military disaster seems to never end.

2) We have often pointed out how bad an economic forecaster President Obama is of the future. Back in 2009, he promised that if his economic stimulus plan was not passed unemployment could go as high as 8%. It was passed and unemployment soared up past 10%. He predicted that if his economic stimulus was passed, unemployment would drop to 5% by 2014. Here we are already in 2015 and we are not close to the 5% level.

A recent article by Neil Munro, writing for the Daily Caller website, recently reported on the reality that the U.S. economy is $1 TRILLION, yes TRILLION, short of where it is supposed to be compared to Obama’s 2010 economic forecast and financial plan. Theoretically, if his forecast had been right, every person, adult and child, would have reaped over $3,000 in wealth if that $1 TRILLION could be spread out over the entire population.

In a related news release from the administration, overall economic growth in 2014 was only 2.2%, continuing the trend of living through the worst economic recovery in at least the past century. The following chart is what Obama predicted in 2010 and what actually happened:




On a per household basis, inflation and the less than stellar right hand column above resulted in inflation adjusted median household income in 2014 being $54,332, which is 3.9% lower than January, 2000 and lower than it was at the end of the Great Recession. This anemic economic growth was achieved despite having three strong tail winds that should have resulted in great economic growth:

1. The Obama administration spent over $800 billion on an economic stimulus package.
2. The Fed pumped several TRILLION dollars worth of paper money into the economy.
3. An energy revolution helped keep energy costs down, provide energy industry jobs, and allow people to direct their wealth to other areas of expenses.

Thus, between faulty forecasting and bad economic policy and strategies, this administration and the Washington political class again prove themselves incapable of instituting economic policies that are robust and positive. A TRILLION dollar miss is a LARGE miss and 2.2% economic growth is a SMALL growth rate.3) Before getting into this next piece of insanity, let me be clear that I adhere to the concept of innocent until proven guilty. That is the basis of our judicial system and that right should be extended to every American, even politicians.Having said that, let me point out that Senator Harry Reid has been involved in some pretty shady dealings and shenanigans in the past that we have already covered in this blog. Some involved overly cozy financial relationships with alternative energy companies looking for taxpayer handouts. When a Nevada ranger had his range under siege by Federal law enforcement there were unproven rumblings that Reid and his son were maneuvering to get control of the rancher's land in conjunction with Chinese energy companies. But again, innocent until proven guilty.But that does not mean we cannot discuss potential foul play and law breaking.  Cause of Action, a nonprofit government oversight group, recently called for a criminal investigation into Reid, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe and Department of Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. They want an investigation to look into “their participation in unlawful political activity, possible coercion and fraud related to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program.” The group sent a letter to the Acting Chief Public Integrity Officer at the Public Integrity section of the Justice Department. The letter wants an investigation into Inspector General reports of potential fraud and campaign finance violations stemming from a visa-for-cash program run by the DHS. The supposed wrongdoing and scandal revolves around the Immigrant Investor Program, also known as the Employment-Based Preference Five (EB-5), which grants visas in exchange for an investment of at least $500,000 in certain select high-employment areas. There is evidence that points to both Reid and McAuliffe pressuring Federal immigration officials to fast track visas for wealthy people leading to the potential that the visa program is being used as a method to obtain campaign donations unethically. Cause of Action had already submitted an ethics complaint against Reid for this same alleged transgression in 2013. Amazingly, the Senate Ethics Committee somehow “lost” all records of that complaint, which is why it has been filed again along with the letter demanding an investigation.Lost records (see IRS/Lois Lerner methods for avoiding criminal charges), money for favors, and a history of law breaking. Just saying.4) Sarah Westwood, recently writing for the Washington Examiner, has uncovered yet another Afghanistan fiscal disaster. It seems that Afghanistan government entities wasted billions of American taxpayer dollars indirect aid because U.S. government officials ignored problems with in country accounting deficienies to preserve the illusion of success of success in the war against the Taliban.According to Westwood: “Officials with the Combined Security Transition Command told the U.S. Department of Defense Inspector General that they felt "pressure to maintain hard-fought gains" in the development of Afghan security forces and as a result, were willing to "overlook" troubled contracts made possible by U.S. and coalition funds.”

A Pentagon inspector general audit determined that Afghan agencies used no formal spending and accounting requirements to protect the huge amount of funding the U.S. and other nations dumped into the country to support the developing national security forces: "Until it mitigates these challenges, [the government of Afghanistan] will continue to depend on coalition-provided capabilities," the report said. "Future direct assistance funds are vulnerable to fraud and abuse."

The Pentagon has already dumped $3.3 billion into Afghanistan's security forces between 2010 and 2013 and plans to contribute another $13 billion between 2015 and 2019. Thus, we are looking at a substantial amount of money that was likely abused and drained away to corruption within the country and government.

Another day, another set of political class insanity. Wasting billions and billions of dollars in Afghanistan in new and varied ways, continued economic ignorance in forecasting and operating a coherent economic strategy for the country, and possibly illegal political shenanigans and bribes from Virginia to Nevada. More insanity tomorrow, probably also in new and varied ways.