American Politicians and Mass Transportation: Massive Failures, Massive Costs, Minimal Benefit

We have talked hundreds of times how the Washington political class and other American politicians are very, very poor when it comes to executing a program efficiently, effectively, on time, and on budget. Even if a project gets completed, it is always late, overly expensive, and falls short of fulfilling the original promise.

Today let’s focus on mass transportation and the projects that politicians have failed so miserably at or continue to fail:

- Several decades ago, Washington and Massachusetts got together to manage a mass transportation called the “Big Dig.” The purpose of the Big Dig was to get rid of the old, overhead roadways that hovered over the streets of Boston and build tunnels and roads under the city to bury the roads underneath the ground.

The project was supposed to cost several billion dollars but after years of delays and cost overruns, it ended up costing the American taxpayer well over $20 billion, about tenfold more than the originally promised cost. And the quality was not that good to boot since at least one driver was killed when part of the roof fell onto her car and killed her.

- Washington politicians and the government agencies they oversee have been operating the AMTRAK train system for decades. And despite that experience, AMTRAK continues to be a money losing operation every year, it has not grown its coverage for years, and has killed more people over the past few years than have died in airline crashes in the country. Expensive to operate, unprofitable to operator, and dangerous to operate, very sad.

- Early in the Obama era, Obama had this vision of building out a new high speed rail system across the country. We proved how stupid the program was in our area down here in Tampa Bay from a cost, convenience, and usage perspective. Obama’s program never got off the ground because it was too expensive and too useless to buildout.

- The state of California was going to show the country how to do mass transportation and high speed rail the right way. The governor at the time, Jerry Brown, and the Democrat controlled legislature threw all they had into the program. It was eventually going to be a high speed rail line from northern California to southern California, allowing travelers to avoid the notoriously bad and crowded California highways.

But despite extensive planning and the actual purchase of land for the right of way for the tracks, the program eventually collapsed onto itself: bad plans, cost overruns, contractor scandals, etc. Thus, a state and its politicians who were really dedicated to mass transportation found that even they couldn't do it.

But these past failures are now joined by two new failures, the first of which is in Hawaii:

• Hawaiian politicians thought it would be a great idea to build a mass transportation rail line from the western suburbs of Honolulu into the city.
• But like Washington politicians, they are failing miserably in this transportation project also.
• The cost of the project has almost doubled in cost form the original estimate of $5 billion to a current estimate of $9 billion.
• The city started the project without first having a complete set of plans for the project which required almost 100 contracts to be redone as the project proceeded, causing delays.
• A judge halted to project for over a year when it was in conflict with sacred Hawaiian burial grounds.
• An audit report in 2016 found that there were hundreds of millions of dollars unaccounted for.
• The planners built the beginning tracks too close to power lines so additional costs were incurred to move those power lines to overcome the bad planning.
• The quality of some steel cables that were inside precast concrete pieces will now have to be closely monitored for 20 years since some of them have already failed.
• The Federal Government is now withholding its share of the project expenses, given how poorly the project is proceeding.
• Another state audit concluded that officials misled the public about the effort’s shaky financials.
• A grand jury is now investigating shady contractor dealings.
• Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell has publicly acknowledged that there were “crucial missteps” but is still optimistic.
• As costs rose, politicians increased an excise tax on businesses and increased a current hotel tax.
• Ten years after the project started it is still not complete and the current boss of the operations somehow now thinks he can finish the project by 2025 without an increase than the current cost estimates, which seems doubtful given the history of the project.

What a mess, what a typical mess when it comes to politicians trying to build a simple rail line. The sad part of this Hawaiian transportation effort is that this is only a 20 mile rail line. It is not the length of California, which failed, it is not the length of what Obama wanted, which failed, and certainly doesn't have the mileage of AMTRAK which fails every day.

But it is not just rail line mass transportation efforts that politician always screw up. Consider the failure of the mass transportation electric bus effort that is failing in Albuquerque, New Mexico:

• Central Avenue is the main street going through Albuquerque, a six lane road that includes part of the historic Route 66.
• But despite being the main thoroughfare, the traffic on the road has been greatly reduced because of the failed Albuquerque Rapid Transit (ART) system effort.
• ART was originally to be a light rail line but in 2011 the city politicians gave up the rail idea and turned to a “bus rapid transit” approach that was based on dedicated bus lines throughout the city.
• The original plans estimated that there would be 15,000 daily riders using the system’s 19 stations.
• While the former mayor called ART a “game changer” the current mayor calls it “a bit of a lemon.”
• On Central Avenue, ART took over most of the street’s traffic lanes, causing car traffic to get get squeezed down to a single lane each way and resulting in shoppers and diners going elsewhere to avoid the congestion.
• A restaurant on Central Avenue, the Frontier, has seen its business drop 10% and has stopped hiring because of the decrease in customers coming by because of the reduced access caused by the bus lanes.
• An ART spokeswoman told the local newspaper that some businesses may see a 40% decrease in business because of the failed bus project.
• A car wash owner claims that his monthly revenue has dropped thousands of dollars and a burger place went out of business, causing 20 workers to become unemployed.
• The dedicated ART bus lanes got rid of left runs on many side streets making access difficult and making the drop in business described above a reality.
• The bus lanes are empty and unused today, 16 months after the first bus went on line, despite spending $23 million for a fleet of 18 all electric buses.
• Turns out the only half of the ordered buses ever showed up and those that were delivered had problems with their batteries, air conditioning, brake systems, and doors.
• The new mayor finally decided to take the electric buses off the streets, return them to the manufacturer, and buy old fashioned buses that run on petroleum.
• But those buses will not be ready for use until at least 2020, more than a year from now.
• In the meantime, even though there are no buses, the cost of the project is now at least 33% beyond its original $100 million budget,
• Without bus riders supporting the project, the city has had to take money out of its general revenue fund which has led to an overall city deficit of $20 million.

So now in Albuquerque, the costs are higher than expected, the project’s plans have made traffic worse in the downtown area, businesses are suffering because of the bus plans, and yet no buses are running, no people are using the buses, and the project is delayed at least for another year plus.

From the Big Dig to AMTRAK to Obama’s dreams to California to Hawaii to New Mexico, every mass transit project that American politicians touch become a self made disaster: under performing, over budget, safety issues, and other burdens on businesses and taxpayers. There has to be a better way, a way that does not allow politicians or government bureaucracies to get in the way and make a mockery of common sense and execution.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

https://www.amazon.com/Walter-Bruno-Korschek/e/B002KYU08Q/ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


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

February, 2016, Part 8, Political Class Insanity: More Bad Employment News, Water Vs.Choo Choos In California, and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

So let’s get started with the latest insanity:

1) Many times we have discussed how Obama’s management of the economy coming out of the recession has been horrific: persistently high unemployment and underemployment, tens of millions of Americans still getting Federal food assistance every month, stagnant wages and household income levels, astronomical national debt, over regulation, historically low labor participation rate, 14 million Americans either unemployed or underemployed, etc.

But for American citizens, according to the latest monthly national economic data, the Obama mismanagement of the economy is worse than these top line realities. According to the government statistics, the number of native-born Americans with a job decreased by more than half a million people last month. The Bureau Of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that that 123,710,000 native-born Americans (ages 16 and over) were employed during the month of January, 567,000 Americans fewer than the month of December.

Other bad news for native born American workers included:

• The number of unemployed native-born Americans increased by 669,000 reaching 6,956,000 people in January.
• The number of native-born Americans out of the labor force increased by 69,000, hitting 80,704,000.
• Native-born Americans had an unemployment rate of 5.3%, higher than the total national unemployment level
• The labor force participation rate of native-born American workers was 61.8%.
• But you are much better off in this economy if you are a foreign-born worker.
• The unemployment rate for foreign-born workers in the U.S. was 5.1%, less than the unemployment rate for native-born Americans.
• The labor force participation rate for foreign-born workers was at 65.0% was much better than the rate for native-born Americans.
• The working-age foreign-born population has increased by 6 million since Obama’s took office, while the working-age native-born population has increased by 11.6 million people. During that same timeframe, foreign-born people in the U.S. gained 4 million jobs and native-born Americans gained 4.6 million jobs, much better economic performance for foreign-born workers.

Thus, while the economic recovery has been anemic for the entire country, the Washington political class has somehow managed economic strategies and tactics that reward foreign-born workers much better than native-born Americans. Insanity.

2) Two major things going on in California. The state is in the midst of an epic drought with severe water shortages all over the state. Second, the California political class wants to spend tens of billions of dollars to build a high speed rail line from northern California to southern California.

According to a Breitbart article by Daniel Nussbaum on January 15, 2016, these two programs are about to enter an epic political fight. On one side are regular citizens that would like to have water in their lives to drink, bathe and basically continue to live. On the other side are vain politicians that want to spend limited resources on a pipe dream high speed rail line that may not be needed and that may be impossible to build, given the ineptness of today’s politicians to get anything done on time and on budget:

• A recent Hoover Institution Golden State opinion poll found that 53% of likely California voters would approve a measure to strip funding from the high speed rail line project to fund construction of surface and groundwater water storage facilities. Only 31% would not strip funding.
• In light of this sentiment, two California politicians have introduced legislation to put that question on the ballot in November.
• The poll also found that 62% of those polled want the state to prioritize water storage construction in its spending plans and that only 39% of voters support the high speed rail line while 41% oppose it.
• Previous reporting by Breitbart found that the high speed rail line would cost upwards of $93 billion of which only $26 billion has been budgeted for.
• Given that the Big Dig in Boston cost over $20 billion to build years ago and that was a small, in town project, the $93 billion to build a long high speed rail line of which nothing currently exists is likely a very low estimate also.

Should be interesting to see what happens. Whether the state's citizens can take back control of how their tax dollars are spent in order to basically survive or if ego driven politicians continue to waste money on projects that will affect a small minority of citizens but boost their own self esteem. Everyone needs water to survive, no one needs a high speed rail line to survive. Or as a water storage advocate said in the article: “While trains are nice, water is a necessity for survival, food and our economy.” 

Given that truism, I would bet that the high speed rail line goes forward to disaster while Californians continue to struggle just to have enough drinking and bathing water.

3) Abbie Van Sickle, writing for the Washington Post on January 28, 2016, had some very distressing news. According to her writing, the Obama administration failed to protect the welfare of thousands and thousands of Central American children who showed up at the southern border in 2011. A Senate investigation found that many of those kids ended up in the hands of human traffickers and were abused by Federal government approved caretakers.

Details of this humanity failure include:

• The Office of Refugee Resettlement, a government entity within the Department of Health and Human Services, did not do proper background checks of adults who claimed the children, allowed sponsoring adults to take custody of multiple unrelated children, and often placed children in homes without vetting the locations ahead of time. 
• After placement, caseworkers were often prevented from doing follow up checking on the kids.
• A typical case of abuse involved Central American teenagers who were taken to work on an egg farm in Marion, Ohio and lived in a rundown trailer park.
• Ohio Senator Rob Portman called the situation modern day slavery: “It is intolerable that human trafficking — modern-day slavery — could occur in our own backyard. What makes the Marion cases even more alarming is that a U.S. government agency was responsible for delivering some of the victims into the hands of their abusers.”
• The Senate report concluded that, “HHS places children with individuals about whom it knows relatively little and without verifying the limited information provided by sponsors about their alleged relationship with the child.” 
• As another example, the Senate report discussed a kid from Guatemala who ended up with a sponsor who forced the boy to work 12 hours a day to repay a smuggling debt.

It is bad enough when the Federal government does not fulfill its obligations to take care of our veterans or would rather pay billions of dollars to resettle foreigners into this country but not use those funds to help feed our hungry, shelter our homeless, or treat our addicted. But now it not only accepts waves of immigrants from other countries but it abuses the kids within those immigrant masses. Pathetic and insane. 

3) One of the few energy strategies the American political class concocted over the past years has been to force the American driver to put up with ethanol in their gas tanks. We were told that diverting agricultural output into ethanol production would be good for the environment, would strengthen the economy, and would hope ween us off of foreign oil. As a result, a massive amount of taxpayer wealth was diverted to farmers to grow more corn, the most common crop used to produce ethanol in this country and that ethanol was introduced into our gas supplies.

Now, I said it was a strategy but not that it was a good strategy. A recent review of this idiotic government program by Nicolas Loris of the Heritage Foundation summarized what went wrong:

• Ethanol has only two thirds the energy of regular gasoline so drivers end up paying more to get the same amount of energy for their cars, certainly not a way to strengthen the overall economy, increasing consumer costs.
• It obviously did not reduce energy prices since any number of times over the years we have seen gas prices explode to over $4.00 a gallon. The only reason prices are so low today is because the Saudis are flooding the market with oil, not because we have a little corn syrup in our gas tanks.
• The ethanol political mandate diverted farming resources and land to making fuel rather than food which increased the price of many, many food products. By 2012, the amount of corn produced in this country just to produce ethanol was more than the entire corn consumption of the entire continent of Africa.
• But the biggest reason for ethanol, to improve the environment, never panned out either. The EPA reported that the levels of nitrous oxides, hydrocarbons, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, ground-level ozone, and ethanol vapor emissions, among other air pollutants, all increase as a result of producing and using ethanol.
• Iowa State University researchers concluded that ethanol production causes adverse environmental impacts, resulting in increased soil erosion, sedimentation, and nitrogen and phosphorus runoff into lakes and streams.

So, the political class thought that ethanol would reduce fuel prices. It did not. It was supposed to get us off of foreign oil. It did not. It was supposed to strengthen the economy. It did not. It was supposed to be good for the environment, It was not. It did increase food prices though, an unintended consequence of a bad piece of legislation. A typical politician course of action: they came, they saw, they made the situation worse. You cannot make this stuff up.

4) One last piece of insanity for today and for this month. A number of times this week we showed how screwed up our immigration policies, strategies, and execution is. No doubt about it, our borders leak, the government is incapable of preventing illegal immigration or deporting those that are here illegally, especially criminals. What a mess and failure of government and especially the Obama administration.

But consider this aspect of our failed immigration situation that was recently reported on the Daily Wire website:

• According to a new government report, the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended more Pakistani and Afghan men of “military age” in just over a month in the San Diego area than they had over the previous twelve months.
• At least two of those detained have known terrorist ties.
• Quoting Border Patrol chief Richard Smith: "We have detained more Pakistanis and Afghans in the first month of this fiscal year than we did all last year."
• He went on to say that these men are of military age and were carrying U.S, cash.
• A report in the San Diego reader stated: "Between October 1, 2014, and Sept. 30, 2015, the San Diego sector of the Border Patrol detained 18 Pakistanis and 1 Afghan, according to Border Patrol statistics. Between October 1 and mid-November of last year, 2 Afghans and 22 Pakistanis reportedly surrendered to Border Patrol agents. ... In the month and a half since mid-November, 3 more Afghans and 6 more Pakistanis were detained by the Border Patrol (not including those detained at the ports of entry)."

Feeling safe yet? Makes you wonder what the Texas Congresswoman was talking about when she said Obama had been successful in securing the southern border. 

That will do it for now. Another month’s worth of political class insanity, lunacy, delusion, incompetence, and wasteful spending. As we often say you cannot make this stuff up, it is wild how out of control and inept the American political class can be. And next month I am sure we will be right back with more of the same.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

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

Why Obama's Free Community College Education Is Just Another Inane Obama Idea

As we discussed yesterday, President Obama in tonight's State Of The Union address is going to propose that the Federal government raise taxes and fund a Federal government program that would provide a free community college education for any American who wanted it. The estimated cost of this program would be $60 billion over the first ten years of its existence.

Yesterday, we showed how stupid and worthless it would be to raise taxes to fund such a program since the Federal government wastes so much of our tax money as it is already. From the Pentagon to the National Science Foundation to Federal welfare programs, just tightening up the waste and criminal fraud that is rampant in these existing programs would easily pay for the $60 billion cost. 

That is why no American, rich or poor, should pay a penny more in taxes to fund this program. It can easily be funded by Obama and the rest of the Washington political class actually doing their job to protect taxpayer wealth they have control of now.

But just because you can do another government program is no reason to say you should do a new government program. Let's look at some reasons why this is such a bad idea, regardless of how it is funded:

1) First of all, lets be clear that this program, if approved, will not cost $60 billion. I know of no major government program that has ever come in at or below cost. The "Big Dig" road project in Boston was supposed to cost a few billion dollars and ended up costing over $20 billion.

Chris Edwards, writing for Cato back in September, pointed out that the new train station being built at the site of the destroyed World Trade Center towers was supposed to cost under $2 billion. The project is now eight years behind the schedule and the estimated final cost will likely come in between $3.7 and $4.0 billion or about double what the project was sold to the public for.

The Wall Street Journal reported on a bridge that was supposed to connect Oakland to San Francisco at a cost of $1.4 billion. The final cost of the project is likely to be as high as $6.4 billion, more than four times as expensive.

Obama Care was not supposed to "add one dime to the national debt" but in reality will add over a trillion dollars to the national debt.

Former mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown, at least had the honesty to tell us the truth when talking about a local project he oversaw: "We always knew the initial estimate was way under the real cost. Just like we never had a real cost for the Central Subway or the Bay Bridge or any other massive construction project. So get off it. In the world of civic projects, the first budget is really just a down payment. If people knew the real cost from the start, nothing would ever be approved. The idea is to get going. Start digging a hole and make it so big, there’s no alternative to coming up with the money to fill it in.”

Obama's $60 billion cost estimate just digs the hole, you can rest assured that more taxpayer wealth will end up being needed to fill it in.

2) We have previously reported on how for-profit schools have taken the American taxpayer for a very expensive ride. The Federal government, using taxpayer wealth, helps to fund the tuition at these schools, many of which are offering very inferior educations. 

The strategy of the schools has been to get as many students enrolled as possible to maximize the revenue they obtain from the Federal government. Once the students are enrolled and their tuition paid for by the taxpayer, the schools could care less if their students get an education, they already have the money.

We outlined how the fraud and money grubbing occurs from a previous post:

- An article in the September 21, 2011 issue of The Week talked about the potential for defrauding the Federal government via scams from the for-profit colleges and schools:

• There are 2,000 for-profit colleges in the country which serve 12% of all American students involved in higher education today, up from 3% ten years ago.
• Critics contend that these colleges mislead applicants about loan costs, overstate the post graduation salaries, target the homeless and disabled veterans to increase enrollment, and provide dubious educations and degrees that do not lead to better paying jobs and careers.
• As an example, they cite the University of Phoenix, the market leader, which graduates less than 9% of its students in six years.
• Bridgepoint Education posted a $216 million profit last year from its 78,000 students despite the fact that 84% of its students drop out within two years of enrolling, the school has 1,700 recruiters but only one job placement person on staff, and according to Senator Tom Harkin, the school is "an absolute scam."
• Many students report worthless degrees with mountains of student loan debt after attending these for-profit institutions.
• The largest for-for profit company has annual revenue of almost five billion dollars and the CEO of another leading for-profit education company took down an annual salary of $42 million, sixty times more than what the president of Harvard University made.

Why should the American taxpayer care about this seemingly shoddy education performance and experience? According to the article, about 75% of the revenue for these companies running the for-profit schools comes from the Federal government via grants and loans. At Bridgepoint Education, 87% of their revenue comes from the Federal government.

A recent Congressional committee report stated that "Some for-profit schools are efficient government-subsidy collectors first and educational institutions second." Some critics claim that the for-profits intentionally target poor and minority students for the express purpose of leveraging their status to get Federal government aid money, which has grown from $4.6 billion in 2000 to $26 billion today.


Don't think for a minute the same thing will not happen when the Federal government incrementally moves tens of billions of dollars into the community college world. Getting Federal dollars will overwhelm the desire to provide a good education at a reasonable price.

3) Simple economics and basic human psychology will cause another problem when something is free. Supply and demand relationships tend to keep price rational and reasonable in a free market. 

However, much like what happened with four year colleges and the massive amount of Federal money that goes to them, by increasing demand for community college educations by reducing the end user/student price by at least $60 billion, the cost for a community college education will go up substantially. It is simple economics, increase demand without increasing the supply, price has to go up. That is why college education costs at four year colleges continually outpace inflation.

When the community college education price goes up, the Federal government will need to put more money into the program to stay whole which will cause more upward price pressure and the death spiral continues on with artificially higher and higher costs.

As with most government projects and programs, the exact opposite happens from what is intended: government interference in a free market transaction results in higher prices and costs, not lower.

4) Let's assume that the the $60 billion cost estimate is really twice as much or about $120 billion, based on our discussion above. I think the cost will be much, much more but let's stay conservative for the sake of discussion.

This comes out to just over $1,000 per U.S.household if the cost was evenly spread out across everyone. Which raises an issue: why should every American household have to kick in over $1,000 so that someone else might get a free community college education? In a free country shouldn't everyone pay for what they want and desire and not rely on the government confiscating wealth from everyone else to give them what they want for free?

5) As we previously reported in this blog, the number of college graduates that are returning home to live with their families is at an all time high since they cannot find jobs in the economy that are commensurate with their college degrees. 

Do we really want to finance more college educated people who cannot find a job because the jobs that the economy needs do not require a college education? I remember reading a story a little while back about how welders had to be imported from China to work on a California bridge project because the buidlers could not find enough American welders to do the work. 

Seems we have plenty of unemployed or under employed college graduates but not enough welders in this country. Why would we want to create more artificial demand for a college education and not be able to do anything with it relative to real jobs  and careers in the real economy?

6) If you really want to improve education int his country, I am sure that if properly spent, that $60 billion would do a much better job if spent on elementary education long before our kids are college aged. We do a horrible job educating our kids relative to the rest of the world, as measured against standardized testing results from other countries.

Find an innovative way to better educate our kids in grammar and high school and the return on that $60 billion investment would be far greater than wasting it on free community college ideas. I emphasize, though, that the $60 billion would have to be spent better and differently than how we currently spend education dollars. History shows that our current status quo way of spending education dollars is basically a failure.

7) And finally, what exactly are we investing in? According to the Community College Research Center website and Federal guidelines, only 22% of community colleges attendees get their community college degree three years of beginning their attendance. Thus, only about one in five community college attendees actually get their degrees, about an 80% failure rate.

Furthermore, only about 15% of community college attendees go on to get a four year degree within six years of first attending a community college, an 85% failure rate. You can bet that these failure rates will go even higher once the Federal government starts subsidizing community colleges with $60 billion. 

Those colleges will look to bring in as many students as possible to maximize their portion of the $60 billion and many of those incremental students will never go on to get a college degree, the same sad story that occurred with the for profit colleges we discussed above.

There you have it, seven good reasons why Obama's free community college idea is a bad idea. And really, nothing in life is free. A free community college education is not free, those costs have not gone away, they have just been redistributed to other taxpayers. And those costs could easily be picked up by government efficiencies, not more taxes as we saw yesterday.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

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

The Atrocity and Fraud That Is Budget Planning By The American Political Class

One of the main themes we have always tried to drive home in this blog is that government and the politicians that operate it are not very good at getting any problem resolved. In fact, the solutions often proposed and implemented by the American political class, often make a problem worse rather than better.

We often use the analogy that entities like the U.S. Federal government have degenerated into the Star Wars character, Jabba the Hutt. Jabba is an overweight, over bearing, oppressive figure that constantly uses up resources, terrorizes all those he comes in contact with, and generally never accomplishes anything worthwhile. A better description of the ineffectiveness of today’s politicians does not come to mind.

Consider the major issues of our times and how the politicians in Washington, and elsewhere, have been complete failures in finding solutions to those problems, problems that have plagued Americans for decades:

• Despite spending tens of trillions of dollars since the 1960s, Washington’s war on poverty has not eliminated poverty and, depending on how your measure poverty, may have actually made it worse.
• Despite the oil shocks and the recessions those shocks caused in the 1970s, we still do not have a strategic and comprehensive national energy plan.
• Our war on drugs is over 40 years old and the only things it has accomplished is to fill our jails with low level drug users and dealers, cost us trillions of dollars without reducing drug usage, and created some of the most violent and wealthy criminal cartels ever.
• Our escalating and high health care costs in this country continue to get higher and higher despite an over 2,000 page piece of legislation, Obama Care, that is making health care insurance costs higher, health care quality lower, and endangering the lives of millions of Americans.

And these failures are not the whole record of ineptness of the American political class. Not only cannot they not resolve the large issues of our times, they cannot operate an efficient and effective set of government programs:

• Social Security - going bankrupt
• Medicare and Medicaid - going bankrupt 
• Veterans Administration - so inefficient and corrupt that it is killing our veterans through neglect and bureaucracy.
• IRS - readily admits that it fails to collect almost $400 billion in owed taxes each year why it fails to admit it has become a political tool of the current administration in stifling dissent and free speech.
• Department of Defense - so screwed up that even its auditors gave up trying to get out of control spending and corruption under control.
• Border Security - given that we are home to over 10 million illegal immigrants, enough said.

A recurring theme in our book, “Love My Country, Loathe My Government,” was advocating for a much smaller Federal government in order to give the political class a chance of finally resolving an issue or two. Right now they do a whole lot of things poorly. Maybe if they focused on only a small set of activities they might eventually resolve a problem or make a government function more efficient and effective.

Three steps in particular from our book would point us in that direction:

1. Step 1 would reduce Federal government spending by 10% a year for five years in order to not only balance the budget but force Washington politicians to really prioritize and work on only the most important issues since they would not have the budget to work on the trivial any more.
2. Step 34 would hold Congressional committee members actually responsible for the work and oversight duties of their committees. If they failed at their oversight job and allowed government spending and behavior to be less than satisfactory, they would lose their positions on those committees that under perform their oversight job.
3. Step 37 would allow the country to grade politicians work output and performance every year and tie their pay checks to that performance rating.

Do fewer things but do them better should be the strategy. To really drive home this point, consider some work that was done several years ago the Cato Institute’s Chris Edwards. He went back through time and looked at dozens and dozens of government projects, comparing the final cost of each project against what the original promised and budgeted costs were.

His results are very sad but not surprising. Cost overruns are always the menu of the day, the Washington politicians are incapable of doing anything on schedule and on cost. And we are not talking about going 5-10% over budget. Many of the project researched by Mr. Edwards were orders of magnitude over budget.

But nobody was held accountable, no one was called on the carpet to explained what went wrong. The bureaucrats overspend and the Congressional oversight committees never crack down. These are just dozens of reasons why we need the steps listed above to reduce government size but increase government effectiveness.

Consider some of the bigger screw ups by the Federal workforce and the Congressional people in charge:

- The Federal Department of Energy's (DOE) wanted to clean up radioactive waste at its nuclear facilities. In trying to do so, the General Accountability Office noted: "DOE's efforts to treat and dispose of high-level waste have been plagued with false starts and failures." The GAO estimates that the total estimated costs of DOE's clean-ups jumped from $63 billion in 1996 to $105 billion in 2003, an increase over budget of 67%.

- In 1993, Congress approved construction of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) to research nuclear fusion. The NIF is supposed to focus 200 high-power lasers at a small point to generate a big release of energy. Unfortunately, the project is at least seven years behind schedule, and the total estimated cost has ballooned from $2.1 billion to $4.2 billion, a 100% forecast miss.

- The FutureGen project was started in 2003 by President Bush with an objective of building a low-emission coal power plant and demonstrating carbon capture technologies. The project was budgeted at $1 billion, but the cost has increased to at least $1.8 billion and it is still not complete.  

- The so-called Big Dig road and tunnel project in Boston was one of the worst offenders relative to poor budgeting. Originally budgeted at a couple of billions of dollars, the final Federal government cost came in at over $14 billion. Even with that overage in budget, the final product ended up having hundreds of leaks in the project's tunnels after it was completed, and one of tunnel ceiling panels collapsed, killing a passing motorist.

- The Wall Street Journal reported that the program to develop a new Presidential helicopter was also in a shambles from a budgeting perspective. The program initially called for about $6.1 billion in spending to develop and build the next generation of so-called Marine One choppers. However, the expected cost of the program has now an estimated $11.2 billion, almost twice as much as originally forecasted.

- In 2008, the GAO did an analysis and review of the costs and schedules of 72 weapons programs. It found that the average cost overrun for development of the systems was a whopping 40%.

- A new Capitol Visitor Center jumped up in cost from an estimated $265 million in 2000 to $621 million when it was completed in 2008, a more than doubling of the original cost estimate.

- The Kennedy Center in DC recently got a parking lot retrofit. That project tripled in cost as it was being completed. 

- In the stampede rush to hire more airport screeners in the wake of the 9-11 attacks, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) put forth an initial job recruiting contract for $104 million. Unbelievably, the cost final cost rose more than sevenfold to $741 million. The Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security found that the TSA did virtually no planning for the effort and it ignored warnings that project costs were far exceeding the approved budget. No wonder the costs went up so much.

- Bad budgeting and/or dishonesty pervades just about every part of government. When Medicare Part A was enacted in 1965, annual costs were expected to rise to $9 billion by 1990. However, the actual costs were $67 billion that year, almost eight times higher. 

- When home care benefits were added to Medicare in 1988, they were expected to cost $4 billion by 1993. They ended up being $10 billion a year. 

- When the 1996 farm law was passed, subsidies were expected to cost $47 billion in total between 1996 to 2002, but they ended up costing $121 billion, almost three times miss of the forecasted costs.

You get the idea. This massive incompetence, lack of accoountability, lack of awareness, and plain old bureaucracy parading as worthwhile Federal government projects. And I bet not a single Federal worker, executive or member of Congress was ever punished for this incompetence and wasting of taxpayer money. 

If these cost overruns had happened in the private sector, many jobs and careers would have been ended as a result of such ineptness. In government work, we just get the American taxpayer to ante up more of their hard earned wealth.

Just these few examples show how out of touch and inane some of our politicians are. Last year during the sequester debates, Nancy Pelosi publicly decried there is nothing left to cut in the Federal budget and that the sequester cost reductions would be devastating. Given the above real life examples of government incompetence, her ranting makes her look all the more foolish.

That is why the three steps above, plus one more, need to be implemented so that these examples of gross mismanagement and waste never happen again:

1. Step 1 - reduce government spending by 10% a year for five years so that Washington politicians have less money to waste.
2. Step 34 - force Washington Congressional people to give up their committee seats when the government functions they are supposed to be overseeing fail so miserably at delivering on time and on budget results.
3. Step 37 - pay for performance for Washington politicians. If they allow government entities to waste our money, they should get less money for being so negligent in their duties.
4. Step 39 - institute term limits for all Washington politicians so that they do not become complacent in their duties and hopefully, actually oversee the parts of the government they are responsible for overseeing and directing. We include this step here also since it is pretty obvious that staying with the current set of incumbent politicians in office in Washington is not going to solve the problem since they were in office when these cost overrun problems occurred.

The first step in term limits starts here:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

But we should not be surprised by all of these government cost overruns. Former San Francisco mayor, Willie Brown, once explained how politicians work when it comes to budgeting. While his insights are depressing, it does shine a light on how taxpayers always get screwed when politicians budget:

“News that the Transbay Terminal is something like $300 million over budget should not come as a shock to anyone.”

We always knew the initial estimate was way under the real cost. Just like we never had a real cost for the Central Subway or the Bay Bridge or any other massive construction project. So get off it.

In the world of civic projects, the first budget is really just a down payment. If people knew the real cost from the start, nothing would ever be approved.[my emphasis] 

The idea is to get going. Start digging a hole and make it so big, there’s no alternative to coming up with the money to fill it in.”

Disgraceful but true. Lies, all lies.

Although we listed a handful of atrocious budget examples above, they are just a very small sub-sample of government incompetence. Cato’s Chris Edwards work highlighted dozens of other affronts to the American taxpayer and they are listed below. The first number listed after each project is the original cost estimate and the second number is the actual, final cost result along with the year of each event. 

Boston Big Dig highway project: $2.6b (1985), $14.6b (2005)

Virginia Springfield interchange: $241m (1994), $676m (2003)

Denver International Airport : $1.7b (1989), $4.8b (1995)

Hiring of airport security screeners: $104m (2002), $741m (2006)

Airport security technology upgrade: $1b (2002), $3b (2005)

Hanford nuclear waste clean-up: $4.3b (2000), $12.2b (2008)

All nuclear waste sites clean-up: $63b (1996), $105b (2003)

National Ignition Facility: $2.1b (1995). $4.2b (2000)

Clinch River Breeder Reactor: $400m (1971), $4b (1983)

Superconducting Supercollider: $4.4b (1987), $11.8b (1993)

FutureGen clean coal project: $1b (2003), $1.8b (2008)

Global Hawk surveillance plane: $989m (2001), $3.7b (2007)

Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle: $1.6b (2000), $3.6b (2007)

C-130J Hercules: $10.9m (1996), $430.3m (2007)

Extended Range Munitions: $86.9m (1997), $500.1m (2007)

DDG 1000 destroyer: $2.2b (1998), $9.3b (2006)

V-22 Osprey helicopter: $4.0b (1986), $12.5b (2006)

Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter: $388.3m (2005), $750.9 (2007)

Space Based Infrared System High: $4.2b (1996), $8.5b (2006)

Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter: $388.3m (2005), $750.9 (2007)

NPOESS Satellite System: $5.0b (2002), $7.9b (2007

Coastal Patrol Ships: $220m (2004), $350m (2007)

Joint Strike Fighter: $232b (2001), $337b (2008)

Marine One (VH-71) helicopters: $6.1b (2005). $11.2b (2008)

Coast Guard, NSC ships, per unit: $250m (2002), $536m (2007)

Air traffic control modernization: $8.9b (1998), $14.6b (2005)

FBI Trilogy computer system: $477m (2000), $600m (2004)

Pentagon airborne laser system: $1b (1996), $2b (2004)

Border radiation detectors: $2.1b (2008), $3.1b (2008

International Space Station: $17b (1997), $30b (2001)

Mars Science Laboratory: $1.6b (2008), $2.3b (2009)

Glory satellite: $266m (2008), $348m (2008

Capitol Visitor Center: $265m (2000), $621m (2008)

Kennedy Center opera house: $18.3m (1995), $22.2m (2003)

Kennedy Center concert hall: $15.1m (1995), $21.3m (1997)

Kennedy Center parking lot: $28m (1998), $88m (2003)

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

California Mass Transit and Politicians' Deficient Math Skills

We have discussed the severe math deficiencies of our politicians many times in this blog:

- When the Federal government offered the state of New Jersey several billion dollars to build a new mass transit rail tunnel from New Jersey to Manhattan, the deal looked too good to be true. The construction of such a tunnel would create many short term construction jobs, long term tunnel-related jobs, and facilitate the local New York/New Jersey economy. Since the original cost of the entire construction job was only about $5 billion, with more than half of that being paid for by all American taxpayers via the Federal government, it looked like a great opportunity.

However, very shortly, that $5 billion estimate became an $8 billion estimate. That $8 billion estimate shortly became a $10 billion estimate. The current governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, then pulled the plug on the project when his staff estimated the cost could be between $11 billion and $14 billion, with all of that expanded cost being picked up by the New Jersey taxpayer. Given that New Jersey has been hard hit by the recession, like most of the rest of the county, the Governor correctly realized that limited state funding should not be wasted on a tunnel whose cost continued to escalate, even before significant construction had begun.

Obviously, someone in the Federal political class and the government the political class operates had some pretty poor math skills if the original estimate was off by an order of magnitude between two and three times as much within five short years, going from $5 billion to over $10 billion.

- Governor Christie may have been drawing on the horrendous experiences of the Boston and Massachusetts taxpayers relative to the infamous "Big Dig" tunnel program in Boston. The objective of the Big Dig was to take down an ugly elevated highway through the center of Boston and reroute the roadway under the city via the digging of traffic tunnels.

The original cost estimate was supposed to be around $2 billion if my memory is correct. However, many years past the deadline, the final cost was well over $20 billion, for an end piece of construction that is shoddy and fatal, given the infamous event when one of the faulty ceiling panels came lose and crushed a passing motorist to death.

In this case, the political class's original math estimate was off by a factor of tenfold relative to the final cost. You wonder if the voters in Massachusetts would have tolerated a $20 billion construction burden if the politicians' math skills had been a little sharper at the start of the project?

- Two years ago, the political class, namely the Democrats and President Obama, told us that the gross cost of Obama Care in the first ten years would be $940 billion, no Americans would lose their current health care insurance from their employer if they chose not to, and the national debt would be reduced by about $130 billion in the first ten years.

Last week, we found out the the ten year gross cost is really closer to $1.76 TRILLION (about double what the estimate was just two years ago), between three and five million Americans will likely lose their current health care insurance from their employer (about three to five million more than the zero estimate from just two years ago), and that Obama Care will likely increase the national debt by over $300 billion in the first ten years (versus reducing it by about $130 billion, a missed forecast of $430 billion, about $4,000 more for every American household).

Talk about bad math skills. From $940 billion to $1.76 TRILLION in just two years. From zero to possibly five million in just two years. From a gain of $130 billion to a loss of over $300 billion in just two years. Bad political class math skills do not get any worse than this.

- A couple of years ago,  Hillsborough County and its Tampa metro area were considering putting in a light rail system to serve the area. Such a system would require additional taxation and voter approval. It was looking like it might get approved under the original estimate which said it would cost about $70 million a mile to construct the rail line. However, as the vote got closer, the original estimate was revised upwards to $85 to $120 million per mile, a 21% to 72% potential increase in cost.

Fortunately, for the Tampa area voters, unlike the Boston and Massachusetts voters, this bad political class estimation process was brought forth before the vote, which was defeated in light of the more realistic math estimates.

Which brings us to the latest example of politicians' bad math skills, which in this case, is combined with pure stubbornness. A short article in the latest edition of Reason magazine, lays out the problems that the California High Speed Rail Authority is having, of which bad math is a major part:

• California is rushing to start building in-state high speed rail route in order to qualify for Federal funding to support the construction.
• In January, 2012, its CEO resigned.
• Then the Chairman of the Board resigned.
• The local newspapers are calling the project the "train to nowhere."
• The California state government auditor and the Authority's own inspector general have concluded that the project has unrealistic cost estimates (sound familiar?), has a lack of oversight, and inadequate research on eventual ridership, i.e. they really do not know how many people would actually ride this train to nowhere.
• All of the analyses from the state and the Authority recommended that the project not go forward until it was substantially revised.
• What has already been substantially revised is the original cost estimate of $40 billion, which is now obsolete with current cost estimates ranging between $98 billion and $118 billion (i.e. off by a factor of up to three times as much).
• A recent opinion poll showed that 64% of Californians would vote against the project now, probably given it out of control costs, 11 percentage point higher than the number of citizens that voted for the project just four years ago.

But this is where bad math and stubbornness get really dangerous. Governor Jerry Brown wants to forge ahead with a project that is behind schedule, poorly managed, without veteran leadership, and most importantly, has a set of underlying math that is slippery at best, deceitful at worst.

An interesting, philosophical question that should be answered is: "Are the math skills of the political class and those in government really that bad that they can be off a factor of two, three, or ten in their original estimates vs. the final costs or is there some deliberate deceit going on in their dealing with us, the American taxpayer?"

If they are really that bad in math, they should not be in office. The inability to develop credible and realistic estimates of any government project should be a prerequisite for being in office. Otherwise, the taxpayer gets screwed for actually believing in politicians' math skills, we never get the value for the money that was promised, and we end up with over $15 TRILLION worth of national debt.

If the answer to the philosophical question is that they are good at math but intentionally lie to get their ways and get their favorite projects approved, than they should not be in office either. Lying to one's constituents should not be a prerequisite or a characteristic of holding elected office. It is destructive to taxpayer wealth and weakens the foundations of our democracy when the leadership of our government becomes a lying sham.

Three steps form "Love my Country, Loathe My Government," would help address this bad math syndrome, whatever the underlying causes are (i.e. they are actually bad at math or they lie):

• Step 34 would hold members of Congressional committees accountable for their math estimates and performance, removing them from their committee posts for bad math skills. For example, any Congressional member who sat on the committees and subcommittees that developed and approved the Obama Care numbers would be removed from those committee posts for incompetence. You cannot say you are doing your job when your math estimates are so wrong so soon after you espoused them.
• Step 38 would require all elected officials to sign a shared values oath every year of which integrity was a primary part of that oath. At least if they have to think of the word "integrity" every year they might finally have some in their math skills and estimates.
• Step 39 would impose term limits on all politicians so that the focus is only on finally getting good, high potential problem solvers in office that will develop some long term strategies with solid math underpinnings rather than short term vanity projects with no math underpinnings.

Without these steps, the bad political math and the heavy waste of taxpayer wealth will continue. Its as simple as 1-2-3.




We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/

American Political Class Projects - Promises, Progress, and Economic Estimates That Never Materialize

A recent article in the September 4, 2010 issue of The Economist magazine reminded how the promises, progress, and economic estimates made by the politicians in America never materialize. The article's title was "Atlantic City - A Struggling City By The Sea." Atlantic City had long been a famous and quality place to vacation in the summer, beginning with the local Lenni-Lenape Indians who summered in the place where the city exists today. In 1850, a local doctor started to develop the area which received a big boost a few years later when a rail line brought city residents to Atlantic City for their vacations.

However, a little over a century later the city was facing hard times. It had become rundown from an infrastructure perspective with a high crime rate and a declining tourism industry. Someone in the political class came up with the great idea of allowing casino gambling only in Atlantic City. The political thinking and the argument they used to force through the legislation was that casino gambling would rejuvenate the city while also contributing some of the gambling taxes to other state programs in New Jersey. As a New Jersey resident, I remember Governor Brendan Byrne telling us how much money would flow into Atlantic City and how it would create a tourist mecca right there on the Jersey shore.

Let's fast forward to today and see what the Economist article has to say about Atlantic City:

• The unemployment rate is 12%, more than two percentage points higher than the national average.
• 24% of the housing units in the city are empty.
• The city's poverty rate is slightly higher than it was in 1978 when casino gambling was introduced.
• Outsiders view the city as unsafe and unclean.
• The main industry of the city, casino gambling, is in the decline with the Casino Control Commission recently reporting that the city's casinos had reported a 23% decline in operating profits in the second quarter of 2010.

Thus, the promises, progress and economic estimates that Governor Byrne presented to the state's residents never permanently materialized. Poverty, high unemployment, and a bad reputation still exist, and rejuvenation is still a dream. And it may forever stay a dream since many surrounding states are opening their own gambling options to make up for state government shortfalls. After more than thirty years, the political class could not deliver on its promises in Atlantic City.

But Atlantic City is not an isolated situation. The political class has had some spectacular failures in recent years that drawf the failed political agenda and goals of Atlantic City. These failures came up far short of the promises, progress and economic estimates they used to sell their ideas to the American public:

• The Big Dig was a massive Boston road and tunnel building project that was supposed to relieve Boston downtown traffic and get rid of some unsightly overpass roadways in the middle of the city. In 1985 the original estimate to build out the system was $2.8 billion. By 2006, the actual costs had reached $14.6 billion, five times higher than the original estimate. A July 17, 2008 Boston Globe article estimated that the final costs, when you account for higher interest payments to finance the buildout, would be $22 billion, almost 8 times the original estimate. Not only did the political class blow the budget, they also blew the implementation with numerous problems still plaguing the project and at least one death which occurred when faulty cement roof tiles fell on and killed an unsuspecting motorist.
• The original incremental costs of executing the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the Bush adminstration was estimated to be about $60 billion. Looking back, that estimate looks quaint. Depending on your measurement methodology and what is included and not included as a cost of the invasion, a conservative cost estimate of the Iraq war will be at least one TRILLION dollars. This is about 16 times more than the original Bush estimate. Missed that estimate also, more spectacularly than the Boston Big Dig.
• The Obama administration claimed that the health care reform legislation that was passed earlier this year would cost less than $900 billion and would actually help offset the national debt to the tune of $135 billion over ten years. However, the underlying numbers that led to these conclusions are already starting to come apart. The Associated Press has pointed out in their analysis that the cost of many of the programs in the legislation were not included in the budget estimate. Thus, the Congressional Budget Office estimate of the of the $135 billion in cost savings may actually be closer to only $20 billion over ten years in order to accurately compare what is in the legislation with the cost of providing what is in the legislation. On a more detailed basis, the Cato Institute estimated in their analysis that Obama Care will actually cost the nation $2.7 TRILLION, no $900 billion, and will add $352 billion to the national debt, not save $135 billion. I would tend to trust Cato than the political class, especially since Nancy Pelosi was widely quoted prior to the passage of the legislation that "We need to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it." With inane statements like this and the track record of the political class when it comes to over promising and under delivering, I have much more faith in Cato's numbers and estimates than Obama's.
• And finally, lets go back to New Jersey. According to an October 8, 2010 Associated Press article, Governor Chris Christie has decided to scrap  New Jersey's plans to build a new rail tunnel from New Jersey into New York City. The reason to scrap the project that has Federal spending and is already underway? The original  budget estimate for the project in 2005 was $5 billion. By 2008 the budget estimate had grown to $8.7 billion. Recently, a Federal official has stated that the project is likely to cost between $9 and $10 billion, doubling in size in just five years. Christie stated in the article that the cost of the project could now be between $11 billion and $14 billion. If Christie is right, the cost estimate could be almost three times larger than the political class estimated in 2005. As you look at the shifting numbers you get the deja vu feeling of the Boston Big Dig project all over again: costs keep going up unchecked and timetables keep slipping. I applaud Governor Christie for putting his foot down to unlimited wasting of taxpayer money, something that was not done in Boston. His exact words were: "I simply cannot put the taxpayers of the State Of New Jersey on what would be a never ending hook." Compare this with the statement from one of the state's Federal Senators, Senator Frank Lautenberg, who stated that cost overruns on a project of the tunnel's size were inevitable but said Christie's numbers were inflated. Note that he did not say that the Federal official's estimate of $9 to $10 billion was inflated, double the original estimate.

This is what we are dealing with. Political class promises never materialize, the progress they promise never happens, and from an economic perspective, the taxpayer always gets the short end of the deal. And we should not be surprised. We have politicians that need to pass legislation before they understand what is in it and what the impact will be (Pelosi), we have politicians that have finally admitted that their estimates are worthless since cost overruns are "inevitable" (Lautenberg), we have politicians that are either to naive or are being dishonest when presenting their budget and economic numbers (Bush and Iraq, Obama Care, and the Big Dig), and we have politicians that will promise rejuvenation that never occurs (Atlantic City gambling). Why should we believe anything they tell us?

And, that is the crux of the problem facing the nation today. We trust no one in political office, especially if they are from the "other" political party. Without trust, the opportunity to solve the major issues facing the country is virtually non-existent. Thus, until the political class is replaced with new people that have some degree of integrity and will tell us the truth, not some shabby, low ball estimate that they use to get their plans approved, we can expect to overpay for under performance, whether it is for health care, transportation infrastructure, or foreign policy.

We can start a new era of integrity in November by dumping all of the incumbent politicians that are party to the never materializing promises and progress (and lies) and start over with a clean slate. Longer term, the implementation of term limits as proposed in Step 39 in "Love My Country, Loathe my Government is the best way to turnover politicians and prevent them from eventually turning into the types of people of low integrity we have today.




Our new book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Visit these other sites for freedom:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/