June, 2015,Part 9, Political Class Insanity: Obama's Failed Promises, The Failed Promises Of Home Ownership Rates, Silk Scarves Or Bribes, and More

It is the start of another month which means it is time to review the latest political class insanity that the American political class has dropped on our heads in the past month or so. We do this review every month in order to continually prove our view that we are currently being served by the worst set of politicians in the history of our country. Their inane quotes, their failed programs and laws, their wasteful spending, their ineptness, and continued focus on their own careers and self enrichment at the expense of taxpayers is constant and disgraceful.

This month could be one of the worst ever, given the backlog that needs to be discussed. The insanity will cover a full range of areas where today’s politicians continue to disappoint and fail us. As always, the new ways they find to screw up is never ending and always creative.

Today is the ninth update to the insanity for this month:

1) Starting with the Carter administration and accelerated during the Clinton administration, mostly Democratic politicians strived to make homeownership more affordable for Americans. This lead to the Federal government, via Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, taking on more and more less creditworthy customers and their mortgages which led to the housing bubble which led to the Great Recession.

In turn, the Great Recession led to record high foreclosure rates, trillions of dollars of wealth lost in the housing market, high unemployment, major banks and financial institutions going out of business or requiring billions in taxpayer bailouts, and the American taxpayer getting stuck paying billions and billions of dollars to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Throughout all of this heartache, stress, and cost at least more American own their homes today, right? Wrong, consider the percentage of homeownership as reported by the U.S.Census over time:

Back in the Carter years and through most of Clinton’s years, the homeownership rate in America stayed pretty constant at around 65%. Six years after the Great Recession ended, after trillions of dollars of wealth was lost as a result of the housing induced recession, the homeownership in America is….about 65%. We have come full circle as a result of the political class’s actions in the housing market. And have nothing to show for it except a weakened economy and trillions more in national debt. A typical Washington program, no progress at great cost. Insane.

2) Followers of this blog know that the Washington political class has never been a beacon of integrity and honesty over the years. This reality was driven home again in a short article that appeared in the May 29, 2015 issue of The Week magazine:

• The House Ethics Committee is looking into a foreign trip that was made by ten members of Congress and 32 members of their staffs to Azerbaijan. 
• While the trip apparently did not cost the American taxpayer any direct money, those on the trip were allegedly showered with expensive gifts and tens of thousands of dollars in trip expenses. 
• The gifts included such items as silk scarves, expensive native rugs, and crystal tea sets with the travel expenses alone costing almost $113,000.
• The trip was secretly sponsored and paid for by the Azerbaijani oil company, SOCAR, who was looking to to have a gas pipeline project it wants to do with Iran exempted from the current economic sanctions the West has placed on Iran.

If Washington politicians had any sense of integrity they would have simply said “No” to the exemption request because that is why the sanctions are in place. Instead, they milked their positions and possibly compromised their integrity for a few scarves and rugs and an expensive trip. Pathetic.

3) We have covered the many failed promises, lies and deceptions of this President too many times to count over the years:

• If you like your current insurance policy, you can keep it under Obama Care. False.
• If you like your current doctor, you can keep him under Obama Care. False.
• Annual insurance costs will go down up to $2,500 for American households under Obama Care. False.
• We will go through every line of the Federal budget to root out wasteful spending. False.
• We will reduce the annual Federal deficit by half by the end of my first term in office. False.
• I will operate the most transparent administration in the history of the country. False.

We could go on and on but you get the idea, this administration has either failed to deliver on every promise or never had any intention of delivering on any promise, using lies and deceptions just for election purposes. And another one of those grandiose promises was broken according to a recent Businessweek article:

• In 2011, the President boldly stated that: “I’m directing our departments and our agencies to make sure 100% of the vehicles they buy are fuel-efficient or clean-energy cars and trucks by 2015. Not 50%, not 75% - 100% of our vehicles.”
• Fast forward to the Businessweek article: In the past six years, only  7% of the Federal government vehicle purchases have fulfilled Obama’s 2011 goal of 100% of vehicles purchased be fuel efficient or clean energy.

Close, missed this goal by just 93%. But I guess this is a better performance than the TSA which failed 96% of the time to find test bombs and weapons at its airport checking stations.

Really sad that whenever we hear Obama boldly state something, anything, we have to assume it is false, a lie, or will never happen, given his poor track record on everything from the budget to Obama Care to government vehicle purchases. Unfortunately, if he should ever tell us something important that is true, we are likely to never believe him, given his abysmal track record of false and empty statements over the years.

That will do it for today’s political class insanity and also this month's insanity. It is not as if we covered it all but after eight posts, and the depressing news that each post contained relative to the ineptness of America’s politicians, it is time to move on to other depressing topics.

Rest assured that the same time next month we are likely to have just about as many examples of wasteful spending, political greed, inept government programs, and who knows what new insanity awaits the American taxpayer.

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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