skip to main |
skip to sidebar
I am always amused when politicians actually try to do their job and get all in a lather, especially when they are on camera during Congressional hearings. They are outraged, they want answers, they want copies of documents and emails, they want people fired, they want to know how the injustice under investigation could ever happen, yada, yada, yada.
Recently such an explosion of caring actually erupted within the political class. It is now pretty certain that regional employees of the Federal government's General Services Administration (GSA) threw themselves a lavish, over-the-top Las Vegas party that was thinly disguised as a business conference/convention. About $832,000 of taxpayer wealth was wasted on dumb team building activities, entertainment, food, etc. The most disgraceful part of the festivities were skits put on by Federal employees who mocked the very taxpayers who paid their higher than average Federal salaries and better than average Federal benefit packages.
Congressional hearings were held, political class outrage was expressed. People involved in the actual conference were fired or suspended from their jobs. Their leaders, who had no direct input or control over the perps, were also fired or suspended from their job for not being good supervisors and managers.
When it was all said and done, the politicians patted themselves on the back for a job well done. I, however, would disagree somewhat on their performance:
- Why did the political class and their roles of Congressional oversight not make sure this did not happen in the first place? Step 34 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would see that those politicians sitting on Congressional committees with GSA oversight would also lose their jobs, on those committees, for allowing this type of behavior and waste to occur in the first place.
- Why I definitely agree that the $832,000 was money wasted away and the people responsible be made to pay the price for their wasteful ways, is it possible that the showboating and Congressional hearings looking into this episode of government gone wild actually cost the taxpayer more than the original $832,000 (politicians' time, staff time, testifying time, document preparation time and cost)? Was there no better and less expensive way to handle the the wasting of $832,000 that was more efficient and cost effective?
- Wouldn't the political class get a bigger bang for our buck if they showed such ardor and enthusiasm in going after the Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security bureaucracies that waste over $200 billion a year of taxpayer wealth? The annual waste from these government entities is more than 240,000 times larger than the $832,000 wasted by the GSA. Their enthusiasm in dealing with this large pile of waste would be much more appreciated by the American taxpayer.
- Wouldn't the political class get a bigger bang for our buck if they showed such ardor and enthusiasm in going after the IRS and reasons why it is incapable of collecting the $385 billion a year that tax evaders get away with in this country? The annual loss from tax evaders is about 470,000 larger than the $832,000 wasted by the GSA.
Yes, it was good to go after the GSA perps who wasted $832,000. However, I would be so much happier, and the country would be so much better off, if these same politicians used their energies to go after the really big destroyers of taxpayer wealth that exist within the Federal bureaucracy today.
And besides the handful examples listed above, I have a great suggestion on another simple way to save over $100 million of taxpayer waste. According to the June 11, 2012 issue of Business Week magazine, American taxpayers are again going to finance the political conventions of the Republicans and Democrats later this summer.
According to Business Week, this year we will have to pay about $136 million so that people we mostly despise, according to most pubic opinion polls, can go to an unnecessary convention to just party for three or four days. These conventions are unnecessary relics from our political past.
These conventions no longer decide who will be each party's Presidential candidate, the primaries have already decided that.
These conventions no longer are needed to develop their party's platforms. These platforms were and are never read by anybody anyway.
The only people that want to have these conventions are the political elitists in this country that want to act important in front of the cameras for a few days, pumping up their own egos, and partying their butts off, all on taxpayer expense. This travesty and need for change was documented as Step 13 in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government:" Stop funding political conventions with taxpayer money. All costs, including security costs, should be the responsibility of each political party."
If Congress really wants to do something worthwhile, they should terminate the wasteful tradition of using taxpayer money to fund their political conventions. Other political parties (Libertarian, Socialist, Green, Constitution) do not get free money to run their conventions, the Republicans and Democrats should also not get any taxpayer support.
The $136,000,000 that will be expended this year is 163 times more wasteful than what the GSA employees did. Thus, the political class would be 163 times more effective if they attacked the wasting of taxpayer money on their conventions with the same enthusiasm they used in attacking the wasting of taxpayer money on the GSA "convention." Heads, not good times, should roll because of the wasteful convention spending.
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/
It was refreshing to come across some good news from Washington for a change, news that is a small step towards reviving the concept of living in a free country in America. It is indeed a small step since it is not the law of the nation yet, but any step in the right direction of liberty is positive news.
The House Of Representatives recently passed H.R. 359, a piece of legislation that has two components. The first component is the termination the funding program for the Democratic and Republican parties to use taxpayer money to fund a portion of their Presidential conventions every four years. This component is totally consistent with Step 13 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" which requires the Federal government from "funding political conventions with taxpayer dollars. All costs, including security costs, will be the responsibility of each political party.
Political conventions are basically relics from our political history. It was there that the two parties gathered their delegates and voted, often many times, to chose their Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates every four years. However, over time, the parties implemented caucuses and primary elections in each state which were used to divvy up delegate votes for the nomination. Thus, almost always, the convention attendees convene already knowing who their candidates will be. The convention then becomes nothing more than a pep rally for the party's supporters, a public relations bonanza from a press coverage perspective, and a four-five day reason to party, partly at the expense of the taxpayer.
In researching "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," I found several sources that estimated a taxpayer bill of around $100 million for the 2004 Presidential conventions. According to the Parade magazine article cited in the book, $100 million could hire 2,400 additional teachers for a year, pay for basic health insurance for 25,000 American families, or provide 41 million school lunches for needy children Thus, in the future, if this bill is approved, there may be more teachers, more lunches, more insurance coverage, or a smaller Federal deficit. If the two major political parties still want to party at their conventions, H.R. 359 would make them pay for their party themselves.
The second component of H.R. 359 would terminate the Presidential Election Campaign Fund. This fund provides Federal tax dollars in the form of matching funds to candidates in Presidential political primaries if those candidates agree to certain spending and contribution rules and limits. This fund basically subsidizes the two major political parties and their continuing grip on the reins of government, allowing taxpayers to pay for their needs rather than have the candidates themselves prove their worth and get support on their own merits. As we all know, all but two of all contending candidates for President are eventually successful so that millions and millions of taxpayer dollars are wasted on losing campaigns.
The fund is financed by checkoffs on taxpayer income tax returns and then put into the hands of the political class who fund their own candidates with these funds. The funds rarely, if ever, go to new and secondary parties, the funds are primarily used to cement the duopoly power of the Democrats and the Republicans. However, participation in the program has dropped from 28.7% of income tax returns designating money for the fund in 1980 to only 7.3% of income tax returns designating money in 2009. Thus, even the taxpayers have realized that continuing to subsidize the low performing members of the Democratic and Republican parties is no longer a good idea.
Passage of this component would save taxpayers over half a billion dollars over the next ten years while requiring all candidates to stand on their own merits when it came to raising campaign finance donations. Elimination of this fund would not infringe on anyone's freedom of speech rights since they would still be free to contribute to any candidate they wanted. They would actually be freer since they would control where their funds went, it would not be left up to the political class. This might also help newer, smaller political parties get established to challenge the two existing parties.
So let's see what we would have:
- Less wasteful spending of taxpayer money since if the politicians want to party at a convention, they have to do it all with their own funds, not the funds of the taxpayers.
- Voters would be freer since they would control where their political donations went, it would not be put into a giant slush fund controlled by the existing political class.
- Smaller parties would have less competition for funding since the Presidential fund would be eliminated, leveling the field for fund raising across both established and new political parties.
The vote to move on this legislation was 239 for it and 160 against it. It came out of a very vibrant process that the Republicans introduced last year called You Vote. Every week over the past six or seven months, ordinary American citizens could go to the You Cut page at Majority Leader Eric Cantor's website and vote on one of several wasteful spending programs that the Federal government operates.
When Pelosi and the Democrats controlled the House, these cost cutting initiatives were either voted down or blocked from even coming up for a vote. Now that the Republicans are in charge in the House, we may finally see some sunshine be shone on wasteful government spending. This bill, H.R. 359, is the first You Cut winner to be approved. The process is an excellent way for Americans to get involved in their government's priorities, an option that was not available under Pelosi's watch.
Reducing government spending increases your freedom by either reducing your taxes today or relieving some of the astronomical national debt the political class has piled up over the years. Getting campaign funding sources out of the hands of the established political machines also saves money but levels the funding competition between new and established candidates/incumbents and new and established political parties, increasing our freedom of choice. Having input to what the government spends our taxpayer dollars on via You Cut increases our freedom to determine how our government behaves, putting them back under our control and not allowing them to control us.
The big question is where will H.R. 350 go from here? Will the Democratic controlled Senate and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid even consider it? Will Obama sign it if it gets through the two houses of Congress? Given its downside of funding political activities of only the two major parties, the upside of increasing our freedom in many different ways, and the severely decreasing popularity of the program, there is no reason to keep this program and its two components alive any more. It's a first, small step back towards freedom. Let's see if Harry Reid in the Senate and President Obama in the White House take the next two steps towards approval and freedom.
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
