Over the past couple of weeks we have discussed the failed border policies of the Biden administration. These failed policies have unleashed violence and crime on innocent American citizens as well as dangers to illegal immigrants. The first of those posts can be accessed at:
https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2024/07/bidens-failed-immigration-policies-and.html
However, during that time, American politicians have continued to show how inept and useless they are so let’s spend a few days catching up on our favorite topic, political class insanity.
1)Many times we have reviewed the total and utter failure that the “defund the police” movement was. In mostly liberal cities across the country, local politicians belittled, criticized, and antagonized local police officers for something that the vast, vast majority of them never did. These politicians then reduced their cities’ police budgets as an additional insult to the brave people who protect us every day.
As a result, police officers retired early, moved to other cities where their dedication and bravery was appreciated more,, or left the profession altogether. This resulted in fewer police resources on the streets to combat crime and a skyrocketing crime rate in these liberally run cities, endangering the lives and property of their residents.
And many cities now end up with the situation that is present in Seattle:
Seattle politicians have been particularly cruel and unrelenting in harassing and criticizing their police force.
This behavior has killed morale and driven officers out of the city’s police force.
Over the past five years, the Seattle police force has shrunk down by 735 officers and now consists of only 913 people on the force, about a 45% drop.
Given those numbers, it is no surprise that crime has skyrocketed in the city: between 2019 and 2024, crime overall has increased 8% with assault cases rising by 21% and murders up a ridiculous 78%.
Now, given the lack of warm bodies to fill the vacant police slots, local politicians, the same ones that drove trained officers out of the police department, have had to consider hiring illegal immigrants who entered the country as children and were registered with the Deferred Action For Childhood Arrival program.
Do stupid things, get stupid results, sometimes fatal results. Crime is up, those willing to serve on the city’s police force are down, so the need for additional officers has led to hiring folks, who may be perfectly qualified, who were originally illegal immigrants to man the force.
2)We have often discussed the real possibility that a major American city or an entire American state will soon go bankrupt as a result of fiscal and political idiocy of their respective politicians. Top states that we think have a good chance of going bankrupt soon include New York, California, New Jersey, and Illinois.
The politicians in these states have been unable or unwilling to keep state government spending under control which means:
Higher and higher taxes for residents and businesses.
The higher taxes drive residents and businesses out of the state.
This out migration reduces the tax base resulting in less state government tax revenue.
Less state government revenue drives politicians to raise taxes and cut services such as police, fire, and education.
All of which drives more residents and businesses out of the state and the financial death spiral is in place.
And this same death spiral scenario is happening in major liberal politician-run cities with cities like Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland looking down the barrel of their own financial death spiral.
Over time, our opinion has varied on which state and which city will be the first to declare government bankruptcy. However, the latest out of Chicago indicates that Chicago may have taken in the lead in the race to bankruptcy court:
Chicago mayor, Brandon Johnson, recently announced that the city is facing an almost $1 billion budget deficit in the 2025 fiscal year budget.
This is about twice the original budget deficit he had to wrestle with in the 2024 fiscal year, i.e. financial conditions for the city government are getting worse.
According to Johnson: "The size of the budget gap is significant. It's going to require decisions that will speak to our overall collective desire to build an economy that works for working people. There will be sacrifices that will be made."
According to his budget director, Annette Guzman, the problem is due to “underperforming revenue,” i.e. they did not collect enough in taxes.
“Underperforming revenue” sounds like the financial death spiral discussed above. Thus, the city will have to cut budgets, probably across the board, meaning fewer police, fire, EMT and education resources, meaning more crime and suffering for citizens, which means more residents and businesses will leave this failing city, and “underperforming revenue” becomes an annual affair.
Thus, Chicago may now be the leader heading for bankruptcy.
3)There are very few Federal government functions that are worth the taxpayer wealth that they receive:
Social Security - going bankrupt
Medicare - going bankrupt
Department of Education - has failed to educate our kids for decades.
Department of Energy - no accomplishments to show for anything as far as creating cheap and abundant energy sources.
Department of Defense - so huge and out of control that even professional auditors cannot audit its finances.
The list goes on and on. And let us not forget the latest bad news from the US Post Office:
The Post Office is continuing to slowly go bankrupt and thus, recently announced some changes to its operation.
To save money, it is considering plans to slow down the delivery of mail to rural areas.
Specifically, “The agency cannot afford to maintain the same [delivery] for deliveries to far flung areas.”
This worsening delivery model for some Americans comes on the heels of a recent 5 cent per stamp increase in July.
Higher prices and worse service, not a formula for success and customer satisfaction but business as usual at the Federal government.
4)The Federal government and the politicians that operate it failed spectacularly when it came to Afghanistan. Twenty three years ago they sent our military forces over into the country to unseat the Taliban. And over the next twenty years spent about $2,000,000,000,000 of taxpayer wealth, caused thousands of American armed services people to die or be wounded, probably directly caused the death of untold thousands of Afghanistan citizens and left the country with the government of Afghanistan firmly in the hands of who else, the Taliban.
But it gets worse, as another failure of the Biden administration has come to light:
Somehow the Biden administration has mistakenly sent $293 million to the Taliban over the past couple of years.
This astonishing and disgusting waste of taxpayer wealth was uncovered by the Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.
The money was misdirected due to a failure in adhering to so-called “counterterrorism vetting requirements.”
Apparently most of the screw ups in sending the Taliban millions of dollars came out of the State Department and its following departments: Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) and International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL).
Incredible incompetence and an insult to the American taxpayer and those brace service people who served in the country.
Enough for today: funding the Taliban, the Post Office in a death spiral, Chicago going bankrupt, and Seattle is desperate to fix their defund the police debacle.
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If you agree that we need to deseat every member of Congress for their lack of success and accomplishment, then please consider going to the following petition link to help the cause:
https://www.change.org/p/deseat-congress-reset-freedom
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