Day 6: An Eight Part Series Of Logic And Sanity That Prove Raising Taxes On Any American Is Just Plain Stupid

This is the sixth in a series of posts that prove without a doubt that President Obama’s insistence at raising taxes on certain Americans, in this time of lousy economic performance, is short sighted, boneheaded, and idiotic. The Federal government that President Obama oversees as chief of the executive branch wastes hundreds of billions of dollars every year, as we have documented and discussed over the past five days:

• Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid waste well over $200 billion a year due to wasteful spending, inefficient operations and widespread criminal fraud.
• The IRS admits that it fails to collect over $380 billion a year from tax evaders across the country.
• The President’s own deficit reduction commission identified over $100 billion a year in Defense Department spending that could be eliminated without endangering our national defense.
• This week we have pointed out examples of billions of dollars being wasted in the past few years by many Federal departments including the Navy that spent $300 million dollars on two ships it never used, the State Department that spent $80 million on an Afghan consulate building it will never use, the TSA that has almost $200 million in airport security equipment sitting in warehouses it will never use, etc.

Yes, every level of government in this country and its occupying political class faction spend and waste far too much taxpayer wealth for the benefits taxpayers receive back. But how much in taxation do we pay? That is our topic today, a documenting of how far reaching and disgusting the taxation level in this country has become. After understanding the extent of this oppression, you decide whether or not we are getting good value for the oppression.

Rather than review some of our past posts as we have done in the five previous parts of this series, consider the PARTIAL list of taxes that Americans pay, as compiled by:

http://www.blacklistednews.com/Show_This_To_Anyone_That_Believes_That_Taxes_Are_Too_Low/22964/0/38/38/Y/M.html


#1 Building Permit Taxes

#2 Capital Gains Taxes

#3 Cigarette Taxes

#4 Court Fines (indirect taxes)

#5 Dog License Taxes

#6 Drivers License Fees (another form of taxation)

#7 Federal Unemployment Taxes

#8 Fishing License Taxes

#9 Food License Taxes

#10 Gasoline Taxes

#11 Gift Taxes

#12 Hunting License Taxes

#13 Inheritance Taxes

#14 Inventory Taxes

#15 IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)

#16 IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)

#17 Liquor Taxes

#18 Luxury Taxes

#19 Marriage License Taxes

#20 Medicare Taxes

#21 Medicare Tax Surcharge On High Earning Americans Under Obamacare

#22 Obamacare Individual Mandate Excise Tax (if you don’t buy “qualifying” health insurance under Obamacare you will have to pay an additional tax)

#23 Obamacare Surtax On Investment Income (a new 3.8% surtax on investment income that goes into effect next year)

#24 Property Taxes

#25 Recreational Vehicle Taxes

#26 Toll Booth Taxes

#27 Sales Taxes

#28 Self-Employment Taxes

#29 School Taxes

#30 Septic Permit Taxes

#31 Service Charge Taxes

#32 Social Security Taxes

#33 State Unemployment Taxes (SUTA)

#34 Tanning Tax (a new Obamacare tax on tanning services)

#35 Telephone Federal Excise Taxes

#36 Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Taxes

#37 Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Taxes

#38 Telephone State And Local Taxes

#39 Tire Taxes

#40 Tolls (another form of taxation)

#41 Traffic Fines (indirect taxation)

#42 Utility Taxes

#43 Vehicle Registration Taxes

#44 Workers Compensation Taxes

#45 Federal Income Taxes

#46 State Income Taxes

#47 Local Income Taxes

Granted, not all Americans pay all of these taxes. However, I would bet most Americans pay at least a dozen of them as they go through life. I pay at least twenty of these taxes and I bet you do also.

But the insanity does not stop in just the amount of things we pay taxes on or for. The article from www.blacklisted.com goes on to review some more insanity of our taxation oppression (the link above contains additional links that verify the accuracy of the following assertions):

1. Thanks to Proposition 30, many high income residents of California will be paying marginal income tax rates of 51.9% in 2013 if the fiscal cliff is not avoided. Keep in mind that the 51.9% figure only includes federal and state income taxes. It does not count any of the dozens of other taxes that we pay each year. Thus, some Americans in California will be paying more than half of their income at some point to dysfunction government entities in Sacramento and Washington.

2. If a fiscal cliff deal is not reached, many residents of New York and Hawaii will also be paying marginal income tax rates of more than 50%.

3. If Americans fully funded the government through their taxes without any government borrowing, the average American would have to work for 197 days just to meet the expenses incurred by government. This is not taxation, this really is approaching slavery when you have to work 197 days out of the 250 days a year to pay for government expenses.

4. The U.S. tax code is now 3.8 million words long. If you took all of William Shakespeare’s works and collected them together, the entire collection would only be about 900,000 words long. This is a prime reason why tax evasion is so high, too many loopholes, too much complication.

5. According to the National Taxpayers Union, U.S. taxpayers spend more than 7.6 billion hours complying with Federal tax requirements each year. Imagine what our society would look like if all of that time was spent on more economically profitable activities.

6. 75 years ago, the instructions for Form 1040 were two pages long. Today, they are 189 pages long.

7. There have been 4,428 changes to the tax code over the last decade. This comes out to 1.2 tax changes EVERY DAY for ten straight years. It is incredibly costly to change tax software, tax manuals and tax instruction booklets for all of those changes.

8. According to the National Taxpayers Union, the IRS currently has 1,999 different publications, forms, and instruction sheets that you can download from the IRS website.

9. Our tax system has become so complicated that it is almost impossible to file your taxes correctly. For example, back in 1998 Money Magazine had 46 different tax professionals complete a tax return for a hypothetical household. All 46 of them came up with a different result.

10. In 2009, PC World had five of the most popular tax preparation software websites prepare a tax return for a hypothetical household. All five of them came up with a different result.

11. The IRS spends $2.45 for every $100 that it collects in taxes. That is incredibly inefficient.

12. According to The Tax Foundation, the average American has to work until April 17th just to pay federal, state, and local taxes. Back in 1900, “Tax Freedom Day” came on January 22nd.

13. When the U.S. government first implemented a personal income tax back in 1913, the vast majority of the population paid a rate of just 1 percent, and the highest marginal tax rate was just 7 percent.

14. Residents of New Jersey pay $1.64 in taxes for every $1.00 of federal spending that they get back.

15. The United States is the only nation on the planet that tries to tax citizens on what they earn in foreign countries.

16. According to Forbes, the 400 highest earning Americans pay an average federal income tax rate of just 18 percent.

17. Warren Buffett had an effective federal income tax rate of just 17.4% for 2010.

18. The top 20% of all income earners in the United States pay 86% of all federal income taxes.

19. Sadly, you could take every single penny that every American earns above $250,000 and it would only fund about 38% of the Federal budget.

20. The United States has the highest corporate tax rate in the world (35%). In Ireland, the corporate tax rate 12.5%. This is causing thousands of corporations to move operations out of the United States and into other countries.

21. Some tax havens are doing a booming business in setting up sham headquarters for U.S. corporations. For example, the city of Zug, Switzerland only has a population of 26,000 people but it is the headquarters for 30,000 companies.

22. In 1950, corporate taxes accounted for about 30 percent of all federal revenue. In 2012, corporate taxes will account for less than 7 percent of all federal revenue.

23. In a previous article, I discussed how many of our largest corporations make huge profits and yet pay less than nothing in taxes….

What U.S. corporations are able to get away with is absolutely amazing.

The following figures come directly out of a report by Citizens for Tax Justice. These are combined figures for the tax years 2008, 2009 and 2010.

During those three years, all of the corporations below made a lot of money. Yet all of them paid net taxes that were below zero for those three years combined.

How is that possible? Well, it turns out that instead of paying in taxes to the federal government, they were actually getting money back.

So for these corporations, their rate of taxation was actually below zero.

If you have not seen these before, you are going to have a hard time believing some of these statistics…..

*Honeywell*

Profits: $4.9 billion

Taxes: -$34 million

*Fed Ex*

Profits: $3 billion

Taxes: -$23 million

*Wells Fargo*

Profits: $49.37 billion

Taxes: -$681 million

*Boeing*

Profits: $9.7 billion

Taxes: -$178 million

*Verizon*

Profits: $32.5 billion

Taxes: -$951 million

*Dupont*

Profits: $2.1 billion

Taxes -$72 million

*American Electric Power*

Profits: $5.89 billion

Taxes -$545 million

*General Electric*

Profits: $7.7 billion

Taxes: -$4.7 billion

Are you starting to get the picture?

24. Exxon-Mobil paid $15 billion in taxes in 2009, but not a single penny went to the U.S. government.

25. If Bill Gates gave every single penny of his entire fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for 15 days.

26. The number of traffic accidents spikes each year right around April 15th. The following is from a recent Bloomberg article….

Deaths from traffic accidents around April 15, traditionally the last day to file individual income taxes in the U.S., rose 6 percent on average on each of the last 30 years of tax filing days compared with a day during the week prior and a week later, according to research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

27. The elite are not stupid. They are not just going to sit there and let our politicians tax them into oblivion. In fact, many of them will openly cheat if that is what it takes to avoid taxes. Most of them have become masters at avoiding taxes or they have hired people that do that kind of work for them. According to the IMF, the global elite are holding a total of 18 trillion dollars in offshore banking havens such as the Cayman Islands.

28. It has been reported that 80 percent of all international banking transactions involve offshore banks. A whopping1.4 trillion dollars is being held in offshore banks in the Cayman Islands alone.

29. An article that appeared in the Guardian estimated that a third of all the wealth on the entire planet is being kept in offshore banks. One of the primary reasons for this is tax avoidance.

30. If a deal is not reached and the “fiscal cliff” is not avoided, the average American taxpayer can expect to pay about $3,500 more in taxes next year.

Too many taxes, too many tax evaders, too little benefit from government services. No matter how much Obama taxes the rich, it will be a drop in the bucket relative to our annual deficit spending and our overwhelming national debt.

THE GOVERNMENT AND THE POLITICIANS THAT OPERATE IT SPEND AND WASTE TOO MUCH OF TAXPAYER WEALTH. We have a government out of control problem, not an under taxation problem. We have pointed out in the past, that even if you taxed millionaire earners in this country at 100%, you would not come close to eliminating Obama’s annual deficit spending never mind making a dent in the national debt.

Why? Because according to recent IRS data, there are only about 239,000 Americans earning over a million dollars a year. They comprise only about .14% of all income tax filers in the country.

We have pointed out in the pass that even if the government confiscated and monetized the total wealth, not income, of the richest people in this country, you would not come close to funding one year’s worth of Federal government operations and less than 15% of the national debt. You cannot fix this country by raising taxes, only by drastically reducing spending.

And Friday we will show you how to do that. We have found a way, leveraging the work of some very smart Americans, to take $9 TRILLION out of our national debt over the next ten years with relatively little pain to most Americans. It is relatively easy to do since most of the analytical work has already been done. Just seems that our political class is not capable of understanding basic math and basic logic.

I leave you today with these parting, and oh so true words: “The politicians don't just want your money. They want your soul. They want you to be worn down by taxes until you are dependent and helpless. When you subsidize poverty and failure, you get more of both.” James Dale Davidson, National Taxpayers Union

Dozens of taxation processes, over 50% marginal tax rates, $16.3 TRILLION in crushing debt, billions of dollars wasted every day, divisive class warfare, tax freedom days that get longer and longer, gross tax evasions, all to fund a dsyfuncitonal government. "Soul crushing" sounds about right with President Obama the lead soul crusher.

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.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Fun With Math, Part 3 - Turning The Tide To Our Favor On Our $16 TRILLION National Debt

As we discussed last week, the U.S. Federal government national debt went over the $16 TRILLION threshold during the Democratic National Convention. This debt level is $5 TRILLION higher than when President Obama took office and will grow anywhere from about $3.4 TRILLION to over $7 TRILLION in the next five years if no fundamental change is made to the size, scope and wasteful spending of the Federal government.

Yesterday, we did some scenario analysis of what might happen if nothing is done to change the current trajectory of government spending. Hyperinflation, the collapse and devaluation of the dollar, widespread unemployment, a shrinking economy, draconian cuts to government programs, etc. were part of our discussion. Truly dire consequences if we do not get government growth and wasteful spending under control soon.

But there may be some hope. The following recommendations are from a post we did earlier this year in support of our United States of Purple President campaign. We proved in that post, and hopefully again in this post, that getting government spending under control is possible, is relatively straight forward, is easy to understand and sell to the American public, and will minimize the economic impact on most American citizens.
Most importantly, the work and analysis on how to do the reduction has already been done by many fine analysis organizations in the U.S. Given that the groundwork as already been laid, we do not have to wait for the political class to get around to doing what has to be done, waiting that will never result in an substantial debt reduction actions.

The data below comes from a wide range of government and non-government sources, representing some heavy analytical work and research into how to make our Federal government more inexpensive, efficient and effective without causing unnecessary harm or hardship to most American citizens. The organizations listed below come from the left to the right side of the political spectrum. Sources for the following government budget cut recommendations include:

•U.S. Public Interest Group

•The National Taxpayer Union

•General Accountability Office

•Congressional Budget Office

•Associated Press

•Senate Reports

•The Cato Institute

•Housing And Urban Development

1) Let's start with the tremendous amount of tax wealth annually lost to waste, inefficiencies, and criminal fraud in the following Federal programs:

•Medicare: $60 - $90 billion

•Medicaid: $30 - $40 billion

•Social Security: $100 billion

•One Federal Unemployment Program: $19 billion

•One Federal Food Stamp Program: $2 - $3 billion

•Total: $172 - $222 billion, midpoint = $197 billion

•Savings over ten years if you eliminated 50% of waste, inefficiencies and fraud - $985,000,000,000

2) Annual uncollected taxes due to the Federal government but not collected from tax evaders: $385 billion

•Savings over ten years if you just reduce the illegal tax evasion by 50% - $1,925,000,000,000 ($1.925 TRILLION)

3) The U.S. has about 84,000 combat troops unnecessarily stationed in Europe, about 30,000 combat troops unnecessarily stationed in South Korea, and about 25,000 combat troops unnecessarily stationed in Japan, serving defense purposes that were obsoleted decades ago. The Obama administration is about to unnecessarily deploy about 2,500 troops in Australia. If 75% of these troops were brought home, the country would save about about $212,000,000,000 over ten years.

4) If we cancel the production of the V-22 Osprey aircraft because it is over budget, likely to under perform, and has been designated as not critical by the Sustainable Defense Task Force, we would save $6.2 billion over the next five years.

5) If we cancel the production of the F-35 jet fighter which, according to the Sustainable Defense Task Force, "may represent all that is wrong with our acquisition process" and "would provide a capability that is not warranted considering emerging threats," we would save $22.5 billion over the next five years.

6) If we cancel the military Space Tracking and Surveillance System, which can be replaced with lower cost and more reliable options, we would save the Pentagon $5 billion over the next five years.

7) If we cancel the outdated, unreliable, and unneeded Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, because the General Accountability Office has cited the program's history of cost growth, schedule misses (14 years late), and performance failures as reasons for terminating the program, we would save $16.3 billion over the next five years.

8) The General Accountability Office found that the Army, Navy and Air Force are wasting billions of dollars a year by purchasing items that were either never used or were never required. The GAO identified purchasing reform processes that could save $36.9 billion a year or about $369 billion over ten years.

9) Terminating various unneeded corporate welfare programs would produce substantial savings. These programs include the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the Market Access Program, trade association subsidies for foreign marketing, subsidies to large agriculture business and wealthy farmers, tax credits for the blending of ethanol, the ultra-deepwater natural gas and petroleum research program, public timber sales subsidies, and Southeastern Power Administration. Ending these corporate welfare programs would save about $12 billion a year or about $120 billion over ten years.

10) The Federal government owns more than 55,500 buildings that are either not used or are underused. A detailed analysis suggests that if 50% of these buildings were eliminated over the next five years, not an unrealistic target, savings in the area of $48 billion would be realized.

11) According to government audits of Housing and Urban development, the Federal government wastes about $4.5 billion a year due to bad accounting and billing processes. Fix this problem and save about $45 billion over twelve years.

12) Using conservative estimates, annual earmarks, which are usually nothing more than thinly disguised ways for incumbent politicians to fund their re-election campaign with taxpayer money, cost the Federal government about $16 billion a year in unneeded expenses. Eliminating earmarks would save $160 billion over ten years.

13) According to the General Accountability Office:

•The Federal government has 15 different agencies overseeing food safety laws.

•It has more than 20 programs helping the homeless.

•It has 80 programs to help economic development.

•It has 82 agencies working on improving teacher quality, few of which are working if you see how poorly American kids are being educated vs. the rest of the world.

•It has 47 agencies working on job training.

•It has 18 programs working on food and nutrition assistance.

This type of redundancy results in tremendous waste and unneeded overhead, duplicate responsibilities, and inefficient service. A formal Senate report and analysis of the situation, estimates that between $100 billion and $200 billion a year could be saved by consolidating and downsizing these functions. If we take the midrange of the estimates, we end up with $1,500,000,000,000 ($1.5 TRILLION) in savings over ten years.

14) A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report identified savings in the area of government spending on Science, Space and Technology - savings over ten years - $25.26 billion

15) The CBO found Agriculture savings over ten years - $3.87 billion. This does not include the termination of unneeded ethanol subsidies and other farm support programs that are no longer needed, given how well the American farming industry is dong today.

16) CBO - Natural Resources and Environment savings over ten years - $32.23 billion. These savings are mostly concentrated in programs that support corporations, not endangering basic government environmental programs.

17) CBO -Commerce and Housing savings over ten years - $5.42 billion. This does not include the savings that could be found by cutting back on the widespread fraud and mismanagement in government housing programs.

18) CBO - Transportation savings over ten years - $141.64 billion

19) CBO - Community and Regional Development savings over ten years - $21.94 billion

20) CBO - Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services savings over ten years - $45.42 billion

21) CBO - Income Security savings over ten years - $68.83 billion

22) CBO - Veterans Benefits and Services savings over ten years - $21.50 billion

23) CBO - Allowances savings over ten years - $2.54 billion

24) CBO - Administrative of Justice savings over ten years - $10.26 billion

25) CBO - Social Security savings over ten years - $388.52 billion. Part of these savings are compatible with the recommendation from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" which was to raise the retirement age to 70.

Not included the $388 billion is another step from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," which was to uncap the total amount of earnings subject to Social Security tax. The CBO estimates that raising the cap amount the way they want to would provide an additional revenue of $503.4 billion to the Social Security finances over ten years.

This estimate also does not include the final "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" Social Security recommendation which was to terminate Social Security payments to anyone whose net worth is over $3 million in assets, i.e. people like Donald Trump, Warren Buffet, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Bill Gates who do not need the checks to live comfortably will not get them.

27) CBO - General Government expense savings over ten years - $5.21 billion

28) Since Obama came into office, the Federal payroll has grown by 231,000 civilian employees despite reduced tax receipts, the lingering impacts of the Great Recession, and the overall dire employment situation throughout the country. Since most of us would agree that we have not seen a corresponding rise in the quality of government service since these people have been hired, getting rid of them, like most efficient businesses would do, would not result in a degradation in Federal government services.

If we conservatively estimate that the weighted taxpayer cost (wages, benefits, and retirement costs) for these newly hired employees is $80,000 a year, than letting them go would result in annual savings of about $18.48 billion a year or $184.8 billion over ten years.

19) In any measure of education attainment, U.S. kids usually fare very poorly when compared to the education received by kids in other countries. Usually, the U.S. is bested by a dozen or more countries when it comes to comparing standardized test results. The Department of Education has been around for about thirty years and has done nothing to change this low performance.

Thus, given its nonperformance, the entire department should be eliminated. Cato suggests that this ill performing government entity be terminated at once, its responsibilities becoming the responsibility of the states to educate their own kids and the American taxpayer can save the annual $107 billion cost of the department. I would put a twist to this termination recommendation.

I would phase out the department over a four year period but would send the department's budget as block grants to the states during that four year phase out. The states could use the block grants to improve the teaching ability of their own state's teachers, improve their technology infrastructure, improve their curriculums, and improve their universities' teacher education curriculum.

At the end of four years, the states would be in a much better position to educate our kids, heaven knows the Federal Department of Education has not done anything worthwhile. 10 year savings - $909.5 billion.

30) Much like the Department of Education, the Federal government's Department of Energy has done nothing to get us to a coherent national energy strategy and policy and has not funded any breakthrough energy technologies. Terminate the entity and let the private market research and development new energy technologies. 10 year savings according to Cato - $382.8 billion.

31) Cato has done similar analyses on just about every other Federal organization, some of which we have already touched on. In order to avoid double counting, I will not go into their agriculture subsidy reductions and military spending reductions, given what we have already identified some of them above.

However, they have identified 10 year savings of $21.2 billion from the Commerce Department and if you conservatively accept only half of their Department of Transportation cuts, you get another 10 year savings of $424.4 billion.

These cuts alone would save the Federal government almost $9 TRILLION in expenses and costs over the next ten years with minimal impacts on needy Americans and ordinary American citizens. The $9 TRILLION does not include additional savings that would come from the following areas:

•More military cuts not listed above. Obama's own deficit reduction commission found that $100 billion a year could be taken out of the Pentagon's annual budget without endangering our national defense. Since the defense cuts suggested above do not add up to $100 billion a year, additional savings in this area are available.

•Reining in Medicare and Medicaid costs beyond the fraud and waste savings listed above.

•Deny Social Security payments in retirement to any American who has a net wealth of over $3 million.

•Savings from interest payments not paid because the Federal government took $9 TRILLION of debt out of play.

•The repeal of Obama Care which would save the country from expending an additional $300 billion over the next ten years, if you believe the recent analysis from the head actuary of the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

•The termination of the Federal Housing Authority, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac government agencies and the associated hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies they are likely to consume in the next ten years.

•Elegantly privatize some government functions such as what Canada and other European countries have successfully done with their national air traffic control processes and postal systems and allow private contractors do the TSA screening function at all U.S. airports. We know from experience that they can do a far better job for less budget money than government employed TSA screeners.

•Elimination of traditional defined benefit pensions for future Federal government hires since most Americans no longer can receive such pensions. Thus, from a fairness perspective, Americans who cannot get a traditional pension should not be subsidizing pensions for government workers.

•Elimination of life long pensions and benefits for past, current, and future Federal politicians. They are in office to serve their country for a limited amount of time, not create a life long revenue and benefit stream for themselves. Besides, given their horrible performance of nonaccomplishments over the past few decades, they do not deserve such rewards. 

People far smarter than me can determine the value of these additional efficiencies in government operations. In fact, Cato has already done all of this work and summarized it at their fabulous website, http://www.downsizinggovernment.com/. Their comprehensive analysis found a way to reduce annual Federal government spending over time by about $1.16 TRILLION a year, creating a ten year debt reduction of $11.6 TRILLION.

This is in the same ball park of our $9 TRILLION in identified savings and the additional unquantified savings in the list above. Two separate analyses, about the same results, indicating that this is doable without raising taxes on any American, rich or poor.

And while many of these cuts are one time spending reductions, e.g. the cancellation of some military hardware programs, the majority of these spending reductions are ongoing, annual spending reductions that will continue on beyond the ten year window. These include improved tax evasion detection, reduction in criminal fraud in government programs, and a smaller Federal workforce.

Thus, implementation of these changes will help insure that government spending reductions continue on into the foreseeable future and help keep the national debt from ever getting so large again.

The above cuts are a great start. However, one of the first acts as President in the United States of Purple would be to convene a commission of smart Americans that have already analyzed the need for drastically reduced government spending, put them in a room, and have them work together to overlay their plans together to come out with one overall plan, based on their expertise and past experiences in this area.

Members of this commission would be drawn from at least the following organizations:

1.President Obama's defunct and severely underutilized Deficit Reduction Commission

2.The Cato Institute

3.The Concord Coalition

4.The General Accountability Office

5.The Congressional Budget Office

6.The Urban Institute

7.The National Taxpayer Union

8.The U.S. Public Interest Group

9.Bipartisan Policy Center

10.Others TBD

There you have it. Almost $9 TRILLION in ten year savings, savings and deficit reduction that are attained without raising taxes and with minimal financial impact on most Americans except criminals that currently rip off the American taxpayer to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars a year, defense contractors who are building unneeded military hardware, and unnecessary Federal employees.

And there is potential for more savings from the unquantified further steps listed above, e.g. more military reductions. However, it is unlikely to happen as long as we allow our current set of politicians to continually get reelected. Most of them have been in office too long and have not proven they are able, willing, or competent enough to get the job done.

We need leaders, starting with the President, who are willing to wade into the nitty-gritty working of government to wring out the fraud, incompetence, and inefficiencies that have accumulated over the decades within the Federal bureaucracy.

We need leaders, starting with the President, who are more concerned about the future fiscal integrity of the country than enjoying the overblown perks and benefits of being in office such as photo ops with athletic teams, five week vacations, golf rounds, high salaries for low production, etc.

We need leaders who can pull together and consolidate the budget work already done by the many organizations identified above and can make the sale to the American public that these are cuts are necessarily critical to the continuation of our democracy.

Thus, not only do we need to all of the budget reduction steps outlined and identified above, we also need to implement Step 39 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," a step which would implement term limits on all Federal political offices. Those currently serving in Washington are the ones that allowed government spending to get so out of control, they are indeed part of the problem and need to be "reduced" along with government spending, i.e. swept out of office with the rest of the unnecessary Federal bureaucracy.

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

"Off With Their (Political) Heads!" Shouted The Queen Of Hearts

Any number of recent events have reinforced the notion that many in our political class really do not know what they are doing. The world has gotten so complex but their grasp of it's realities is so naive. Unfortunately, every time they screw up it usually costs us in wasted tax dollars, lost freedom, or in the Wikileaks scandal, potentially human lives. In an "Alice In Wonderland" world, we could follow the advice of the Queen of Hearts and chop off their political heads and move on, hopefully filling their position with someone more competent.

However, we do not live in Wonderland. But if we did, wouldn't it be great to chop off the political careers of the following politicians:

- According to Robert Scheer, writing in The Nation, and summarized in the December 20, 2010 issue of The Week magazine, of the $44.4 billion increase in U.S. corporate profits this past quarter, about $33.3 billion of those increased corporate profits went to Wall Street banks and investment houses. Many of these firms are the same ones that were at the center of the financial meltdown with their risky investments and some were saved with taxpayer bailout money. What's more irritating is that these same financial firms, flush with cash and profits, are not making very many loans to businesses and consumers, loans that might finally get the economy moving again.

Why are they not making any loans? According to John Cassidy, writing in The New Yorker, the banks can make more money "exploiting complex security trading, day-to-day movements in the markets and other financial schemes. They do not have to make traditional loans anymore in order to make oodles of money.

Who were the brilliant politicians who worked on the bailout process that saved many big financial firms, firms that were "to big to fail," wasted billions of taxpayers dollars, and apparently included nothing in the financial industry reform legislation to prevent the banks from getting bigger and less responsive to the market? Off with their heads!

-Continuing along in the same industry, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Ben Bernanke, has this wonderful plan to get the economy jump started. It is called quantitative easing but in layman's terms it means our central bank, the Fed, is going to create $600 billion out of thin air ("print money") and use it to buy back government bonds owned by the same financial firms discussed in the previous point. His hope is that the banks, flush with this new pile of money, will go out and start making loans, getting the economy growing again.


Hey Ben, I may not be an expert on quantitative easing but won't these banks and other financial institutions just take the money and use it the way they have been using their own profits and cash, i.e. play the market rather than grow the market? If they can make a lot of money playing with their tens of billions of dollars, imagine how much money they can make playing the market with the hundreds of billions of dollars you are going to give them, apparently with no stipulation that they loan it out. Off with his head!


- Recent results form an Associated Press/CNBC poll indicated that 59% of those surveyed prefer cutting Federal government budgets and services and about half that many (30%) preferred raising taxes. 85% of those surveyed are worried that our high national debt will be harmful to future generations.


Thus, average Americans understand what our problem is, high national debt is really a government spending problem, not a government revenue problem, and the current trend of deficit spending will be detrimental to future generations of Americans. How does our political class respond? They cannot come to a consensus on the President's Debt Reduction Commission, with only 11 of the 18 members approving the final recommendations of the Commission, three short of the 14 votes that were needed to get put before Congress. Off with their heads, especially the Commission's Democrats who voted against the plan, stating that there were not enough tax increases and there were too many spending cuts in the recommendations. Apparently they did not get the poll results.


- Let's talk about the Wikileaks fiasco. An ordinary U.S. Army private logs onto his government computer and with about $5.00 worth of hardware, a blank CD disc and a portable USB drive, downloads hundreds of thousands of documents that expose many valuable secrets of the U.S. military around the world. These documents identified local contacts in countries such as Afghanistan who were working closely with the U.S. military in fighting the Taliban. The documents placed them and our fighting troops in additional danger.


Apparently no computer security firewalls were breached. No complex, online security measures were hacked and undermined. Just a USB drive and a CD disc. How simple can it get? And to my knowledge no one has been fired for such lax security. Yes, the private has been arrested and is in custody, but someone, whether it is the Secretary of Defense or someone underneath him on the organization chart needs to fall on their sword for this one. We spend hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars a year for the defense Department and is it this simple to expose the entire U.S. military data systems to this soldier's downloads? Off with someone's head.


- Wikileaks, Part II. Let's move over to the State Department where the damage might be even more devastating. Previous State Department documents release by Wikileaks showed how the State Department worked and contained personal references and appraisals by U.S. diplomats of leaders from around the world, often in non-flattering terms. These disclosures have damaged our relationships with world leaders in ways that we have no idea how yet. Why would anyone in a foreign government tell our diplomats anything valuable or personal in the future since the State Department has proven via Wikileaks that we cannot keep a secret from the world?


But it gets worse and the potential damage far more lethal. In a December 6, 2010 Associate Press article, we find that Wikileaks has posted a secret U.S. cable on its website that lists entities worldwide that our government considers critical to our national security. The article quotes U.S. officials fearing that the publication of the cable gives a hit list to terrorists. The cable, "Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative List," included such things as border crossings, hydroelectric dams, undersea communications lines, food suppliers, shipping lanes, manufacturers of components used in U.S. weapons systems, and vaccine sources.


Here's the sad part. Hillary Clinton deemed the list so important that if these sites were "destroyed, disrupted, or exploited, would likely have an immediate and deleterious effect on the United States." In other words. the Secretary of State knew how important and dangerous this list was and still Wikileaks was able to get their hands on it. What do these people use for computer security if they cannot even protect this most valuable piece of intelligence? Unbelievable.


And apparently Wikileaks is not done. The website apparently held back some disclosures as "insurance." This information was stored and downloaded by multiple people in an encrypted file that can be opened only if the Wikileads head guy, Julian Assange, gives out the password. He claims he kept the really good stuff in that file as insurance for himself. Who knows what other damaging information the State Department has let leak out and now an entire Federal government department is at the mercy of a single man.


As with the defense information leaks, someone, be it Hillary or someone high up at the State department needs to be fired. This breach of security is historic and could be fatal for a lot of people. In real life, outside of politics, people lose their job every day for incompetence. Same thing should apply to government work, especially a screw up this large. If Gates and/or Hillary got fired by Obama for this mess you can bet it would get the attention of a lot of other government bigwigs. I would bet these highly paid folks would  immediately would be taking a long hard look at beefing up their own data security procedures, a hard look that hopefully would be to the benefit of all Americans. Off with their heads!


Maybe the Queen of Hearts had it right, off with their heads. As an alternative to this rather drastic approach, Step 34 from "Love My Country, Loathe My government," would be a good start. Step 34 would remove any member of Congress sitting on a Congressional committee or subcommittee if the government functions those committees were overseeing fail at executing their responsibilities. Alternative methods of determining failure are outlined in the book under Step 34.


Thus, this step would remove those Congressional members from any committee responsible for Defense Department and State Department data security. These leaks will cost us in so many ways including additional tax dollars to repair the damage, lost credibility with world leaders, and potentially lost human lives due the the military and other intelligence that is now in the hands of our enemies. Not only should high ranking  members of these two Departments pay for the leaks but Congressional members also should absorb some kind of negative hit, short of, of course, "off with their heads."


Our recent 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/

Cutting Our Budget Deficit Using Smart Americans Vs. Using The Political Class

I know the title today is a little cruel but I believe it is true. The Federal government's debt that the political class has run up over the decades is now at shocking levels, levels that may take generations of future Americans to pay off. The issue was a major factor in the recent midterm elections and every politician in Washington is tripping over themselves to prove they can cut the budget. But since they got us into the budget mess in the first place, do we really think they are the right people to get us out of it?

An article in the October 29, 2010 issue of Businessweek does not think so. According to the article and Alice Rivlin, who sits on the President's commission to recommend ways to reduce government spending:

• The commission has excluded Medicare from their discussions, analyses, and recommendations even though it is one of the biggest and fastest growing part of the Federal budget.
• Most Republicans on the commission are dead set against any recommendations that would raise taxes.
• Democrats on the panel are dead set against any recommendations that would change Social Security.
• According to Rivlin, the commission is paralyzed by politics, even though its final report is due in only three weeks.
• Given the division on the commission, and the fact that 14 out of 18 commission members must endorse a recommendation for it to be accepted for consideration by Congress, the odds of any concept being enacted is next to nothing.

Now take this discouraging news and consider a November 20, 2010 Associated press article where the two co-chairmen of the President's deficit reduction commission revealed some of their current thinking on how to reduce the deficit:

• According to the article, both suggested that their recommendations will be unpopular and go nowhere in Congress. This raises the question then why even bother?
• One of their suggestions is to raise the full retirement age to 68 in 2050 and 69 in 2075. How does putting off these changes for at least forty years solve the short term and intermediate term national debt problem?
• Wealthier Social Security recipients would receive smaller Social Security payments. Good idea but when would this change be implemented, the next century? Plus, Step 11 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" has already made a similar suggestion and did it without the need of a Presidential commission. Talk about low hanging fruit. In fact, Step 11 would be more effective since it would not only reduce payments for wealthier retired Americans, it would eliminate them altogether for Americans that had a net value of over $3 million.
• The article also sounds the bell of pessimism that the Businessweek article predicted, namely that few if any of the commission's recommendations will be endorsed by the 14 required commission members, making the chance of any recommendation getting to Congress very low.
• Even if all of the current commission proposals were implemented, the Federal budget would not be balanced by 2015, an original objective of the commission. Given that one Democratic congressman was already quoted as saying: "This is not a proposal I could support," regarding the commission's Social Security recommendations, the balanced budget by 2015 objective is pretty far away from reality.
• There were several other potential recommendations in the article that the commission might propose but each has a serious flaw. One option is to eliminate all Congressional earmarks, an action that would save upwards of $20 billion a year. However, since earmarks really serve as a clandestine way for politicians to fund their election campaigns, unless this recommendation is coupled with significant election campaign reform, our politicians are unlikely to give up this source of revenue for their perpetual re-election.
• Another recommendation is to eliminate the the tax deduction for the interest charged within mortgage payments. However, given the horrible financial shape of the housing market today, removing this benefit of owning a home would surely heap further ruin on an industry that is dragging down the economy. Thus, unless you can get the housing industry healthy enough to absorb another shock, this is also a nonstarter, at least in the short run.
• A third additional recommendation is to increase the gasoline tax by $.15 a gallon to fund transportation programs. Two things wrong with this proposal. First, how is this a deficit reduction recommendation? This expands government spending and has nothing to do with deficit reduction. Second, this proposal needs to be part of a bigger strategy as it relates to having a much wider national energy policy that takes into account energy independence, global warming, infrastructure. this is a tactic in search of an overarching strategy which does not exist.
• A final recommendation, one that I could fully support, is to freeze Federal pay levels for three years and reduce the Federal workforce by 10%. We have seen recent studies that show most Federal governments employees are much better paid with richer packages than their private sector counterparts so this recommendation fits into today's reality. Given that the Federal payroll has expanded significantly under the Obama administration and we are theoretically going to trim back the size of government, a 10% reduction in the workforce also seems fair and doable, with the right leadership.

Given what we know about the President's deficit reduction commission, from both the AP story and the Business week article, I think it is not unfair to say it will be a failure. First, the politicians are already moaning about how these cuts will affect their constituents, putting any proposal in the hole out of the gate. Second, it does not appear that there is a comprehensive strategy behind how the commission went about their business. These proposals all look disconnected and disjointed. We have a short term, immediate proposal to freeze Federal worker pay but the commission won't touch Social Security for another forty years. In forty years, most of the baby boomers will be dead, how is that effective?  We want an increased gas tax which fits no overall energy strategy or structure, very disconnected.

And finally, none of these potential recommendations show any kind of creative thinking. In fact many of them are already in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government:"

• Step 11 - prohibit anyone from even drawing a Social Security check who has over $3 million in assets.
• Step 12 - increase the retirement age to 70 over ten years, not raise it to 69 over 40 years!
• Step 23 - develop a national and rational strategic energy plan. Only when you have this is place can you decide what transportation taxes to change.
• Step 28 - unlike Obama Care, implement the process recommended in this 28 to finally and effectively understand the root causes of rising health care costs and develop a plan to address those root causes. This should remedy the skyrocketing costs of Medicare.
• Step 44 - prohibit the use of Federal tax dollars on any program or project that does not materially a large percentage of citizens of at least five states, e.g. stop allowing earmarks.

The President should have just read "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," he could have saved the taxpayers the cost of the commission if this is all they can come up with. Very unoriginal and uncreative. In fact, if he had gone to the book's website, http://www.loathemygovenrment.com/, he would have come across over forty Federal programs where site visitors can vote on whether they are worthwhile expenditures of taxpayer money. So far, well over 90% of the votes have been against using taxpayer money for the listed federal programs, programs that would be a good start for downsizing the Federal government.

However, all is not lost. Many smart Americans are working on this issue in one form or another. They are not burdened by political office so they can come up with the right ideas, not the politically acceptable ideas. The U.S. Public Interest Research Group and the National Taxpayers Union recently issued a joint extensive report, highlighting their fine analysis on how to cut Federal spending. Their analysis shows that if their recommendations were implemented, they would result in over $600 billion in cost savings by 2015. Their general suggestions include better government operations in addition to outright cancellation of some non-vital government programs. Their underlying data came from a wide range of authoritative sources and their recommendations are detailed, specific, and actionable.

I will not include all of their recommendations here but consider their creativity, originality and detailed analyses (savings are for the years from 2010 through 2015):

1. Save $1 billion by eliminating the Market Access Program which subsidizes advertising for private American companies in overseas markets. These companies include McDonalds, Nabisco,, Fruit of The Loom and Mars. This is nothing but corporate welfare, let the companies themselves and their shareholders pay for their own advertising.
2. Save almost $23 billion by eliminating refundable tax credits for ethanol, another corporate welfare program for large oil companies that blend gasoline with corn based ethanol. Given we now have ample evidence that ethanol as a fuel additive is bad economic and environmental policy, eliminate this program immediately.
3. Save $135 billion by finally implementing the acquisition reforms identified by the bipartisan Defense Acquisition Panel.
4. Save $34 billion by finally eliminating Homeland Security contracts the Defense Contract Audit Agency has already identified as unnecessary and corrupt.
5. Save almost $36 billion by ending the process that orders obsolete spare parts and supplies for the Defense Logistics Agency, save $18 billion by ending the process that orders obsolete spare parts and supplies for the Army, save almost $38 billion by ending the process that orders obsolete spare parts and supplies for the Navy, and save over $93 billion by ending the process that orders obsolete spare parts and supplies for the Air Force.
6. Reduce the backlog of buildings owned by the Federal government that are not utilized or are underutilized. Currently, the Federal government has a mind boggling 55,000 buildings that are not utilized or are underutilized, worth over $96 billion.

Enough, their fine work goes on and on on, eventually saving American taxpayers over $600 billion. As you can see from this short list, none of these cuts would have more than an absolute minimal effect on the average American. They would be a painless way to finally reducing the size of government.

The other encouraging aspect of their work is that these two organizations usually represent different sides in all political debates and issues. They have come together despite the fact "our organizations have often differed about the proper regulatory scope of government and a host of tax policies" and "we are united in the belief that we spend far too much money on ineffective programs that do not serve the best interests of the American people." If only our political class could act so maturely and responsibly.

But they are not the only smart people in the room of deficit reduction. The Cato Institute is undergoing a detailed line by line, department by department review of every aspect of the Federal government in search of cost savings. Their work so far is outstanding. Not only to they tell you what should be cut from the Federal budget, but why it should be cut, how much should be cut from a department, and who or what would fill the void if the government support or program went away. The brief list below does not do their work justice but does give some examples of their detailed analyses and recommendations:

1. Reduce the Commerce Department's budget by over $2 billion a year by taking a number of action which include eliminating many private sector support programs that should be paid for by the private sector, if at all.
2. Phase in Defense Department changes that would eventually save the American taxpayer about $150 billion a year. These savings would be attained by reducing the number of troops by one third while at the same time repurposing the remaining forces for the current and likely future threats to the country, not the old, obsolete ones. Cato also recommends many of the foreign deployed troops be brought back to within America.
3. Eliminate the Federal Department of Education. Although it spends over $107 billion a year, test scores and the education quality of American students has steadily gotten worse despite the $107 billion. Cato would recommend that the department be disbanded and the $107 billion budget be sent back to the states who could not do any worse job of educating America's youth and hopefully, could do a better job.
4. Cato would also totally eliminate the Department Of Energy, saving $38 billion a year. Although the 1970s oil and energy crises happened over thirty years ago, the Department of Energy still has not developed a rational and strategic national energy policy for the country. The most heavily subsidized energy projects they have funded over the years have been duds. Cato would transfer any defense energy related work over to the Defense Department and save the rest of the Department Of Energy's budget to pay down the deficit. Given the department has not done anything right or worthwhile after three decades, we can pretty safely assume that it will not reverse that trend of failure anytime soon.
5. The Cato study also does a nice job of quantifying what the savings would be per U.S. household. Just these four departments' savings would be worth just under $3,000 a year per U.S.household. None of these savings proposals would impact many households but would put almost $3,000 in their pockets every year and would be a great, annual economic stimulus.

Again, please go to Cato's site to fully explore their excellent work. They are probably about half way through the Federal department organization chart with more savings to come. As with the U.S. Public Interest and Research Group and the National Taxpayers Union work, the Cato work is in-depth, quantifiable, and actionable compared to what we have seen from the President's commission on deficit reduction which is simplistic, general, and nonactionable, at this point in time.

But wait, there is more hope. We know from the Business Week article cited above that Ms. Rivlin sits on the President's commission. However, she also sits on another, non-political panel that predates the President's commission. This other panel's focus is also deficit reduction and is described in the article as a "shadow deficit commission." It's sponsored by the Bipartisan Policy Center, contains both Democrats and Republicans, and is actively meeting. This shadow panel is actively and aggressively addressing the Federal benefit programs of Medicare and Social Security and the testy issue of raising taxes. Again, smart people willing to take on difficult analyses and challenges.

Just a reminder, why is all this work necessary. Consider the following facts form the Business Week article:

• U.S. government spending is on an unsustainable path with the 2010 fiscal deficit of $1.3 TRILLION accounting for an unacceptable 8.9% of the total economy.
• Between 1960 and 2000, national debt as a percentage of GDP averaged 37%. By 2020 it will be 78% of GDP if nothing is changed.
• Medicare spending is currently $519 billion a year or 3.6 % of GDP. It will likely grow to $929 billion by 2020 and will be insolvent within seven years if nothing is done to reverse current trends.
• Social Security will rise from 4.8% of GDP to 6.1% by 2035.

If these debt and deficit issues are not addressed quickly, confidence in the U.S. government fiscal solvency would rise, forcing the Treasury Department to pay higher rates on its bonds, which could trigger another economic downturn or recession which would bring greater unemployment which would bring more debt...

The real question it not how to bring fiscal sanity to the Federal government. Alice Rivlin, the Cato Institute, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, the National Taxpayers Union, and "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" have already done the heavy lifting and analysis. The only thing required is the intestinal fortitude of the political class to stand up, show a little courage and finally show some leadership.

That is why many of the newly elected representatives are going to Washington, to fix this problem. If they cannot join with the current incumbents and the President to work through this issue, for the good of the country, then we need to make sure that the 2012 elections are another bloodbath for incumbents, including the President. The numbers are reality, the numbers do not lie. Americans want this change, hopefully the politicians are smart enough, for once, to do it.


Our recent 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/

Obama's Lack of Leadership And Our National March To Bankruptcy Continues

According to a NY Times article from July 23, 2010 by Helene Cooper, the Obama administration trimmed its estimate of the Federal budget deficit for this year (the good news) but said the continuing weakness in the economy will lead to an increased deficit next year (the bad news). Details of the announcement include the following:

• The expected deficit was trimmed $84 billion to $1.47 TRILLION, or only about 5.4%.
• This new deficit is still a record in dollar terms.
• This new number still represents about 10% of the nation's total economic output, more than three times the level generally accepted to be safe from an insolvency perspective.
• For 2011, the expected deficit estimate has been raised to $1.42 TRILLION, up $150 billion from the previous estimate and 9.2% of the economy's size next year. This is an increase of almost 12%, wiping out the measly 5.4% decrease listed above.
• Expected unemployment is only expected to drop to 9% from its current level of 9.5%.

Let's do some simple math based on these latest estimates:

• In the past two years. this administration has run up budget deficits exceeding $2.8 TRILLION. This equates to every American household kicking in an additional $8,800 over the past two years just to cover the deficit.
• If next year's deficit estimate is right, than that $8,800 becomes about $13,200 to cover the budget deficits that have been put in place since Obama became President.
• The Federal government is now spending about $168 million an hour that it does not have revenue to cover or about $2.8 million a minute that it does not have.

Whichever number you take, $8,800 or $13,200, that is how much money that the American consumer cannot plow back into the economy to spur growth and decrease unemployment. The numbers are mind boggling and will take decades to pay off.

And what does the political class do in light of these horrid budget results? As usual, nothing constructive. Democrats claim that deficit spending and stimulus programs are needed to get the economy going even though we have shown in this blog several times that, using Obama's own numbers, the cost of creating or saving a job under the stimulus program easily exceeded $200,000. You cannot cure unemployment by paying over $200,000 to create or save a job that is likely to pay far less than that.

Obama claims that he is waiting for the recommendations from his national deficit commission. However, that just delays the eventual confrontation with reality and puts off the hard decisions that the political class loves to put off, particularity in an election year. While the commission meets, billions of dollars a day are added to the national debt. In past posts to this blog we have listed out short term, relatively painless things that the political class could do ahead of the commission to start the long journey back to fiscal responsibility including:

• Bring home our troops from Iraq, which is what Obama the campaigner promised but Obama the President did not do.
• Bring home our hundreds of thousands of troops from Japan, South Korea, Germany, England, Italy, and elsewhere, troops that were deployed for another era and which no longer serve any purpose, and in many ways are counterproductive to American foreign policy.
• Freeze all military recruitment immediately, the hundreds of thousands of troops coming home should fulfill any military manpower requirements.
• Freeze all Federal salaries since recent reports have shown that 80% of Federal job titles and position now pay better than the private sector, most Federal employees are better off than the private employers who support them via taxes. This freeze extends to all members of Congress and the administration.
• Immediately freeze all government hiring at the Federal level and allow the expected high level of attrition to whittle down the size of the Federal work force over the next few years to their historic levels.
• Immediately terminate the Federal pension program as it applies to new hires. Since most new hires in the private sector no longer can get a traditional pension, that perk should be phased out for new Federal government hires once hiring resumes.
• Do an immediate ground up, zero based review of all government functions and programs, as outlined in Step 1 of "Love my Country, Loathe My Government," looking to terminate those that no longer serve a substantial portion of the American public and combine and economize the remaining ones into a more effective management structure even if it means shutting down and consolidating Cabinet organizations. Check out the great work in this area that the Cato Institute is doing in this area.
• Eliminate the entire practice of earmarks immediately, saving around $20 billion a year according to the Citizens Against Government Waste.
• Eliminate the $100 billion a year the Obama administration freely admits is paid out fraudulently from government programs.

If I can come up with this short list, I am sure politicians could come up with a longer list if they had the courage to do so. If you look at this list, it could start saving hundreds of billions of dollars right away without putting undo strain on Social Security, Medicare, unemployment benefits and other people-related government programs. And I am not just talking about the Democrats, deficits ran wild under the Republicans also. But nobody wants to take the hard actions to fix the problem.

One of the big problems that still exists is the focus of the American public. Go to just about any blog or chat room and you see frenzied arguments being put forth on who is to blame regarding the national debt, Obama vs. Bush, Democrats vs. Republicans. the arguments and venom go back and forth and solve absolutely nothing. An NFL football coach once said: "You are what your record is." That also applies to the national debt. We are what our budget is and that is dreadful, regardless of who is to blame. By trying to pin the historic blame on the "other side," we play right into the hands of the political class. They use this anger to keep getting themselves elected and the the problem of the budget and the other major issues never get solved since we keep fighting ourselves.

This is what we are talking about when we talk about "tribes" in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government." The politicians want us to beat each other up, kind of like the gladiators in Roman times. The elite sit up in their boxes and party and the gladiators kill each other off for the bemusement of the politicians. The fact is we are in deep trouble regarding our nation's fiscal solvency. How we got here and who to blame is relatively unimportant. The more important factor is who can assume a position of leadership to get us out of the mess we are in. Winning the argument of whether or not it is the fault of the Bush administration or the Obama administration as far as our national debt is concerned is meaningless if the country goes bankrupt.

Regarding leadership and courage, however, I do not see it coming from Obama, at least in the budget arena. His delay in acting until the national deficit commission gives him some air cover is unacceptable, we do not have the leisure of time to start getting our economic house in order. But I guess I should not have expected anything more. Obama is just like any other politician regarding courage, a word that does not appear on the resume of most members of our political class

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/