September, 2016, Political Class Insanity, Part 2: The Looming Debt Disaster.Pentagon Credit Card For Strip Joints,and MOre

It is the beginning of another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

The current monthly record for the number of days that were needed to cover one month's worth of insanity is ten. We almost equaled that record last month when we needed nine days to cover one month’s worth of political class insanity. There is a very good chance that the ten day record could fall this month since as we get closer and closer to the election, the volume of ineptness grows almost exponentially. 

But today and for all of the posts this month, let’s start off with a welcome piece of honest political dialog. It comes from a State Department spokesperson.Mark Toner, who is about to start the daily State Department press briefing. In a joking matter, he makes the following quote: "Welcome to the State Department. I think we have some interns in the back. Welcome. Good to see you in this exercise in transparency and democracy." 

He then bursts out laughing at his own quote, indicating he also knew what a joke the Obama administration has been, especially Mr. Toner’s State Department, when it comes to cover ups, lack of transparency, denial of Freedom of Information Act requests, the prosecution of whistleblowers, etc. But at least it was a little refreshing to finally hear some actual honesty out of Washington as we see from the actual clip of the news conference:

http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2016/08/when-even-the-state-department-spokesperson-cant-keep-a-straight-face-about-things-anymore-video/

With that context of honesty, let’s see what other insanity has been going down:

1) Yesterday, we discussed the scandal where the Pentagon had lost over $6.0 TRILLION over the years, trillions that could not be properly accounted for by the auditors. Today we get an idea where a little of that money may have ended up. According to a recent Washington Free Beacon article by Morgan Chalfont, a recent analysis of government issued credit cards to Pentagon employees found that those cards were often used for personal expenses at casinos and stip clubs.

Details of the misuse of the credit cards included the following:

• A sampling of credit card usage found that almost two dozen Pentagon employees charged $8,544 to their government credit cards for personal use, of which some of those dollars were obtained by using ATMs at casinos.
• This came out in a follow up audit from 2015 where the inspector general found that over $1 million had been improperly charged to government credit cards by Pentagon employees.
• The latest inspector general probe confirmed that Pentagon management had not taken enough appropriate action after the first audit found the misspending.
• One Navy civilian employee was found to have misspent almost $30,000 of taxpayer wealth at casinos and other locations even though that employee had been explicitly identified in the first audit.
• In addition, the latest audit found that of the 29 employees reviewed, 22 were improperly reimbursed for 131 vouchers totaling $8,544 during the review period. Thus, over 70% of those audited had misused their government credit cards.
• The original audit found that 4,427 improper credit card transactions totalling $952,258 were done at casinos and 900 transactions were done at “adult entertainment establishments” between July 2013 and June 2014.

Now we at least know where some of the lost $6.0 TRILLION ended up. The frustrating thing is that the Pentagon management was told what was going on as a result of that first audit and the second audit found virtually no improvements in behavior had occurred. Insane.

2) Let’s stay in the defense area for this next piece of insanity. According to a recent article on the Freedom Post website, written by Tim Brown on August 23, 2016, a Federal judge recently sentenced Wenxia Man, a California citizen and a naturalized citizen, to jail for trying to illegally export military equipment to a foreign nation.

But she was not trying to export a few rifles or grenades. Federal prosecutors presented evidence that she was trying to send F-135, F-22 and F-16 engines from Air Force fighter jets to China as well an MQ-9 Reaper drone aircraft, worth = $50 million. She was caught in a Federal law enforcement undercover operation before she could ship any military hardware to a “technology spy” in China.

The pure insanity of this situation is that despite trying to ship major military equipment and military secrets to a foreign, semi-hostile power, she was given only four years in prison. Are you kidding me? People selling marijuana get more jail time and in no way do they endanger our national security like this woman tried to do. Talk about bad law enforcement and judicial priorities and penalties. Insane.

3) We recently did a dedicated post that showed how bad the Obama administration and the Washington political class had handled our country’s economic affairs over the past eight years or so:

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Despite the favorable tailwinds of a massive economic stimulus program, low energy costs, and trillions of dollars pumped into the economy by the Federal Reserve, the resulting economic results were historically anemic and pathetic. Low overall economic growth, stagnant wage growth, doubling of the national debt, various unemployment problems, etc. were the result of their ineptness.

And those results are not getting any better, as outlined in a recent Washington Free Beacon article by Ali Meyer on August 26, 2016. That article reported that the U.S. economy expanded at a pathetic rate of 1.1% in the second quarter of 2016, a downward revision from the original estimate. This second quarter, 2016 growth in the GDP was much lower than the same period in 2015 when the quarterly growth was a more respectable 3.7%.

Thus, the worst economic recovery in the possibly the past 80 years continues with the Washington political class having no idea how to bust out to a more robust economic environment.

4) It is no secret that the Obama administration and its economic mismanagement has resulted in:

• The doubling of the national debt in eight years.
• Four consecutive years of having an annual Federal budget deficit of over a trillion dollars.
• So far, incurring the seven highest annual Federal budget deficits in the history of the country.
• Raising the national debt to annual total GDP ratio to over 100% from only 60% when Obama took office.
• Horrific budget management that will burden future generations of Americans with really heavy debt loads and interest payments.

And according to a recent Heritage Foundation article by Michael Sargent on August 24, 2016, this situation is not about to change any time soon:

• The budget deficit in 2016 is likely to rise again after falling for a few years down, from the whopping trillion dollar deficits earlier in the Obama Presidency.
• Not only are the budget deficits likely to start rising again but a recent analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicted that this year’s budget deficit will be $50 billion higher than they last estimated.
• This year’s budget deficit is now estimated at $590 billion, a deficit that would require every U.S.household to pay an additional $5,000 or so in incremental income taxes to cover.
• This is a 35% deficit increase in just one year from 2015 to 2016.
• The CBO expects trillion dollar deficits to return by as soon as 2024 unless Washington gets its act together.
• Within ten years, at the current spending rate, the national debt load will be up to $28 TRILLION, almost triple what it was when Obama took office.
• If interest rates jump up unexpectedly, then the debt increase would be even more dramatic.
• And no amount of tax increases will overcome the anticipated spending increases of the Federal government.
• Only four spending categories, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest on the debt will eat up the majority of Federal government spending, going from 69% of the Federal budget today to 77% in ten years.
• Think about that last number: three out of every four dollars spent in ten years will be on these programs with far less left for the military, infrastructure improvements, welfare assistance, education, and other functions.
• Annual interest on the national debt by itself will triple over the next ten years. 

The good news, which is really bad news, is that we are likely to see the collapse of the economy and the country long before we reach these horrid milestones. 

Thus, what Hitler, Stalin, Putin, Mussolini, and many others could not do to us, we are likely to do to ourselves because no one in Washington or on the campaign trail wants to talk honestly about what needs to be done to prevent this fiscal meltdown. Not Trump, not Hillary, not any Democrat or Republican Congressional person running for office. 

The insanity is that problem is right there in black and white numbers and no one in the political class has the nerve, the courage, the smarts, or the will to fix what is the biggest issue facing the country today: runaway government spending and waste. So sad.

Two days into the insanity and we already see the highly probable end of the republic. Imagine what the rest of the insanity that still needs to be covered in the coming days.

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

Political Class, Insanity, Antics, and Stupidity That Leave Me Scratching My Head

As I have said many times, writing this blog so easy since the American political class always provides new material that is so easy to ridicule, bellittle, and bemoan. The nation's politicians continue to demonstrate why the many steps to fixing the country, as outlined in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," are needed as soon as possible. We are dealing with a growing government buruearcracy at all levels of government that continues to squander taxes, resources, and time on idiotic or trivial matters while major issues and problems go unattended.

So, without further adieu, the latest from the political class that encompasses the insanity, antics, and stupidity of the people we have elected (with the except of the first two points, the remaining events/actions were all reported in the past few issues of The Week magazine):

• About a week ago, an Oregon seven year old girl, with the help of her mother, decided to set up a lemonade stand at a community event. Simple enough, kids have been setting up lemonade stands for decades. According to the news reports I read, the little girl was very meticulous in the her preparation, wiping her hands with santitary wipes and keeping her raw material protected from being contaminated. Shortly after having set up her stand, an employee of the county board of health came over and told the child that she either had to purchase a $120 temporary restaurant license or close down immediately. If she did not close down her stand, she would face a $500 fine. Thus, I find this to be just stupid government run amok, we actually hire and pay people with nothing better to do than to hassle a lemonade stand. Now, some folks might say that the health inspector was just doing her job and protecting the public's health. But, what if the girl had purchased the $120 temporary restuarant license? Do we really think that the government would have made the public any safer as a result of that license purchase or is the license just a shake down of a little girl to feed the government bureaucracy? I guarantee you that the product served from that lemonade stand would not be any different in quality or safety if the license had been purchased, defeating the argument that the public's health is protected by this law.
• Within the last week, a firefight broke out between the Lebanese army and the Israeli army when members of the Israeli army tried to trim a tree on the border of Israel and Lebanon. Who was at fault could be debated forever but a short Associated Press follow up story revealed the fact that the United States and other western nations provide military equipment and arms to the Lebanese government and army. This is supposed strengthen the Lebanese government against the terrorist Hezbollah forces that exist throughout Lebanon. But think of it: our foreign policy has gotten so insane and twisted that we may actually be arming the very people that will attack and exchange gun fire with our ally, Israel. Unbelievable.
• Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, who is one of the welathiest people in the Senate and possibly the country, has been cited by a story in the Boston Herald for intentionally berthing his $7 million, 76 foot boat in Rhode Island, not Massachusetts, in order to avoid $430,000 in Massachusetts sales tax and a $70,000 annual excise tax. This is the same guy that wants to raise taxes on the rich while he tries to avoid taxes that exist in the state he represents in Congress. According to the Herald, Kerry said he never intended to avoid Massachuseetts taxes (he has written a check to the state for the full amount owed while not admitting he did anything wrong). Yeah, and Charles Rangel never intended to incur thirteen alleged ehtics violations and Maxine Walters never intended to incur three alleged ethics violations and ex-Senator Tom Daschle never intended to avoid paying over $100,000 in owed taxes and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner never intended to avoid paying his back taxes... How stupid to they think we are?
• The Washington Post has reported that journalists in Nuevo Laredo in Mexico on the United States border have stopped reporting on that city's drug wars and violence in order to not get themselves killed. As an example, the article cites a recent 12 hour gun battle between drug gang members and soldiers that left 12 people dead but did not get mentioned by any local news media. One reporter cited in the article said that "we are under complete control" of the drug gangs which tell the reporters what to report and what not to report. How insane is this, the violence and problems related to our drug policies and situation get more and more dangerous every day and nothing seems to be done by the political class to address the situation. Maybe the President should have passed on his meeting with the NFL champion New Orleans Saints team members this week to work on a real problem.
• Congress is about to pass another mini-stimlus bill this week to help out those states with deep state budget woes. However, a recent CNNMoney.com report indicated that Connecticut has the largest debt burden, averaging out to almost $4900 per Connecticut citizen while Nebraska's debt burden averages out to $15 per citizen. The difference? Nebraska lived within its means from a state government perspective, as did some other states, while Connecticut and states like Califronia spent taxpayer money like drunken sailors and are now facing bankruptcy. The stupidity is why do the citizens in states that did the right thing, i.e. spent money they had not money they could borrow, have to bailout out their drunken brethren, allowing the debt stupid states to get off the hook for their outrageous wasteful spending? Seems both stupid and unfair.
• One of the most stupid and hypocritcial laws passed during the Bush administration was the one that outlawed online gambling. The Bush rationale was that online gambling was detrimental to society in that it resulted in increased addictive gamblers. However, if that was the case, why didn't Bush outlaw horse race betting (both off track and at track betting), politically sanctioned casino betting, and state lotteries since they obviously could have the same affect as online poker and other forms of gambling? What happened as a result of the law? According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, millions of Americans have still found a way to do online betting, spending about $6 billion a year on offshore gambling Internet sites, making the United States the "largest betting market on the planet." In other words, the law did nothing to curb online gambling and thus ,was just an antic by the political class to shut down a competitor of horse race betting, casinos, etc., probably at a cost of campaign donations for those politicians that voted to shut it down., Would it not be better to recognize reality, decriminalize the behavior and tax the winnings of online gambling?
• On a final note, apparently U.S. polticians are not the only ones that are stupid, insane, and wasteful. The last article from The Week we will disucss today concerns Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France. According to the article, Sarkozy has always envied Air Force One and wanted his own version, which he now has. His version has a full bedroom, a special air filter system so he can smoke cigars on board and has a wingspan two feet longer than Obama's Air Force One. I believe that France has the problems that we face from an economic perspective, high debt, high unemployment, etc., but at least Sarkozy' plane envy problem has been neutralzied. Nice priorities, Nicolas.

There you have it, just a few weeks of political class insanity, antics, and stupidity, both domestic and foreign. Notice that issues like failing public schools, the war on drugs, insecure borders, lack of a national energy policy, rising health care costs, etc. never seem to get the high priority vs. politicians trying to avoid paying taxes, looking for new sources of re-election campaign funds, busting up lemonade cartels, etc.

That is why November is so important. We need to dump the current set of politicians and get a set that will work on a much smaller set of higher priority issues in a smaller, less wasteful government structure. Longer term, passage of term limits is critical in order to keep new blood and new ideas coming into government as well as removing the stench that funding re-election campaigns creates. These new people must know how to prioritze the most pressing issues and then solve the problem by identifying the root causes of the problem, not use the problem to their own personal benefit. To do otherwise, is just insane and stupid on our part.



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.

Also visit the following sites for freedom:

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

Earmarks To The Right Of Them, Earmarks To The Left Of Them Into The Valley Of Waste Rode Every Politician Imaginable.

Today we do a take off on the famous Alfred Lord Tennyson work, "The Charge Of The Light Brigade" which contained the memorable lines "Cannon to the left of them, cannon to the right of them... into the valley of death rode the 600." Unfortunately, we have more than 600 politicians that constantly charge through the Valley of Waste.

We start today with reports out of California. Recall that the state government of California is about $20 billion short in its next fiscal budget. The LA Times has run a series of articles this week that tell how some state welfare recipients have been using their welfare debit cash cards not to buy food and clothing but to visit strip clubs and casinos where they then received cash from the ATM machines at those locations. The obvious conclusion is that the welfare money from those debit cards was then used as entertainment at either the strip club or casino where that ATM machine was located. The Times estimates that at least $4.4 million was cashed out using welfare debit cards at casinos and over $12,000 was used at strip club ATMs.

Now, it could be that somebody on welfare just happened to come across a needed ATM machine inside a casino or inside a Strip club and nothing nefarious went on. However, it is doubtful that nothing nefarious went on for over $4 million worth of cash outs. Second, this is the amount of fraud that state investigators have identified, how much more fraud of this type and other types are also going on in a state about to go bankrupt? The state is now blocking those ATMs at strip clubs and casinos from accepting welfare debit cards but obviously, a welfare recipient could almost as easily take cash out of their debit card in a local supermarket before going over to the strip club or casino, which would still constitute fraud. Another government program that sounds great on paper but as usual, gets fouled up in implementation, much like every other government program.

There is some good news on the fraud and waste front. Three people in the New Jersey state government have set up a website, "Report New Jersey Government Waste" (www.stopgovernmentwastenj.com) which allows state workers to identify waste, fraud and abuse within their own departments via an online form process. A person may remain anonymous if preferred. However, if their suggestion is implemented, they could be eligible for extra paid vacation days. An enhanced form of recognition in the form of cash is being considered but has not been funded yet.

The originators' strategy was based on a simple problem analysis (how quaint, politicians doing a root cause problem analysis!) and their conclusion that the front line government workers are the best source of information on wasteful government spending. Given that New Jersey is about $10 billion short relative to its next fiscal budget, these three New Jersey politicians (Caroline Casagrande, Declan O'Scanlon and Jennifer Beck) should be applauded for thinking out of the box relative to taming wasteful government spending. Or maybe, they read Page 5/Step 1 in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" which proposed the exact same process for the Federal government.

No blog on government waste would be complete without a quick visit to my favorite website, www.cagw.org, the website for Citizens Against Government Waste. Every year they publish their annual "Pig Book" which categorizes and documents the thousands of wasteful spending items in the Federal government budget and who sponsored the waste. If Step 44 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" was implemented, almost all of these wasteful spending issues would go away since Step 44 would prohibit any Federal spending for any program or project unless it significantly impacted the lives of citizens form at least five states. If a program did not meet that criteria, the Federal government would leave the funding up to those states involved and the saved Federal tax dollars would be used to reduce taxes and the national debt.

Thus, in closing, just a smattering of wasteful spending form the "Valley Of Waste" known as the 2009 Federal budget, as documented in the 2009 Pig Book:

• $2.2 million for the state of New York's Center For Grape Genetics. Given that the New York wine and grape industry is worth about $6 billion, the Federal government should make New York state or the industry pay for the Center.
• $1.8 million for swine odor and manure management research in Iowa. I told you that Federal wasteful spending stinks. Let the people in Iowa cope with the smell or fund their own research.
• $866,000 for stable fly control in Nebraska.
• $1.8 million for a honey bee lab in Texas.
• $243,000 (and $12 million since 1995) for floriculture support in Hawaii even though the floriculture industry in that state is worth over $105 million. Obviously, the in state industry has enough pollen to cover the $243,000.
• $200,000 for the tattoo removal violence prevention program in California. Let's see, remove tattoos, violence goes down. I don't think so. Anyway, let California pay for it. Oops, they cannot because their money is being spent by welfare recipients in casinos and strip clubs.
• $800,000 for a New Jersey program to prevent malaria and dengue fever. Trust me, having lived in New Jersey most of my life, there is not an $800,000 malaria and dengue fever problem in that state.
• $5 million for lighthouse improvements at the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. Hey, if the Statue Of Liberty did not get any federal tax dollars for its improvement and restoration, the lighthouse at Apostle Islands should not get any either.
• $270,000 for the Hood Canal Dissolved Oxygen Study in Washington state. You cannot make this stuff up.
• $400,000 to save the Salisbury House in Iowa, home of cosmetics pioneer Carl Weeks. Same argument here relative to the Statue Of Liberty.

That's enough for today, the Valley Of Waste is wide and deep, we will ride into the Valley in the future whenever we want to get depressed.


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.

Also visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/