January, 2015 Update, Will the Center Hold: Common Core, Horrid School Lunches, Gun Control, and More

On a semi-regular basis, we run a discussion on whether or not “the center will hold?” In other words, what happens if and when Washington issues a law or a decree and the rest of the country simply ignores it, will the center hold? Never in my life have I seen the country so divided and struggling to push back on the over reaching politicians in Washington.

From gun control to school lunches to warrantless spying on citizens to Common Core education standards to health care to many other issues, states and individual citizens are more and more taking formal and informal action and telling Washington types to butt out of our lives, our wallets, and our freedoms. We have gotten to the point where state legislatures are actually passing legislation saying that they will not abide by certain Federal decrees and laws and making such compliance a crime within their state borders.

To review the many previous posts we have done on this question, enter “will the center hold” in the search box above to see the widespread resistance that is building up across the country. For the latest push backs against Washington, continue reading below and you decide: will the center hold?

1) One of the biggest issues that the rest of the country is resisting from Washington is the so-called Common Core education standards. Common Core seeks to impose one set of educational standards on every state and every child in the country, standards that are written by Washington bureaucrats. Needless to say, given Washington’s poor record of getting anything right, many states are having second thoughts of surrendering their education principles to Washington. 

The second major reason for resisting Common Core is that in states where it has already been deployed, test scores of kids in those states have declining substantially compared to test scores prior to the Common Core standards. Thus, logic says, why surrender to a set of standards that fail to accomplish what they promised and are substandard relative to the status quo?

The latest state to consider dumping Common Core is Mississippi. Recently, Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant attended a stop Common Core rally in his state.

Bryant spoke at the rally: “We’re not here today to say take away those academic challenges. We’re here to say make them better but take them away from the control of the federal government.” 

He and other state politicians were present at the rally to try and pressure the rest of the state legislature to act and formally withdrawal the state from the Common Core program. Another state that might tell Washington to pound sand, this time as it applies to Federal educational guidelines.

2) One of the biggest rebellions against the Federal government has been against the new school lunch program guidelines that Washington implemented, and which were vigorously supported by First Lady Michelle Obama. These guidelines were supposed to make kids eat healthier lunches at school in order to combat childhood obesity.

Unfortunately, as we have reported many times, the program has largely been a failure since the kids are not eating the supposedly healthier meals that schools must provide under the Washington guidelines. While the food might be healthier, it does not matter if the kids do not eat it. Horror stories have been reported around the country of how putrid and/or tasteless the new lunches are and how they are just not being eaten. You can lead a kid to a healthy lunch but that does not mean he will eat it.

So much “healthy” food was being thrown out at one school district we reported on that they cut a deal with local hog farmers to use the thrown out food as hog feed at the farms. According to the Education Action Group website, at Rogers High School in Gers, Arkansas, much of the “healthier food was also being thrown out: “We’re feeding trash cans a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables,” Robin Kinder, president of the Arkansas School Nutrition Association and assistant child nutrition director for Springdale Public Schools, told NWAonline.com.

This high school had the following experiences with the new guidelines:

• The school forced students to take healthy food options when going through the cafeteria line but even forcing them to put the health food on their trays did not result in it being eaten, it usually just got dumped in the trash can: “It would just go straight to the trash sometimes,” Estefany Corleto, a junior at Rogers High School, says of the foods students are required to take. “I think it was just a waste of food.”
• According to Kinder, low-sodium and low-fat foods were not developed with kids’ tastes in mind.
• The low-sodium mashed potatoes, for example, were roundly rejected: “I have never seen children throw mashed potatoes away,” she says.
• Pickles can only be served with “certain meals.”
• As a result, the school managers found that food costs and garbage volumes were going up while sales were going down.

Another top down Washington program that made a current issue worse. Rather than kids eating more of less healthy meals, they are now eating far less of healthy meals, getting far less calories than they need to grow and thrive in school rooms and school activities. Healthy eating habits needs to be addressed by a nationwide, long term public health campaign and education effort. That is how you resolve the problem. Washington mandating a non-solution will never work.

This problem, like most problems, will not be solved by having faraway Washington bureaucrats and politicians trying to dictate what is on a kid’s lunch tray.

3) One of the more hotly contested issues that the country is pushing back against Washington is the effort President Obama has undertaken to bypass Congress and the American people and to unilaterally give amnesty and government benefits to millions of illegal aliens. Since the states are going to have to absorb the costs and burden of many of these illegal aliens, they are now pushing back, through the judicial processes to block this unConstitutional and illegal Presidential dictate.

According to a Heritage Foundation article written by Hans von Spakovsky on December 31, 2014, 25 states, half of the states in the union, have filed a Federal lawsuit to block his unilateral plan to grant amnesty. The lawsuit claims that Obama has “unilaterally suspend[ed] the immigration laws as applied to 4 million of the 11 million” illegal aliens in the United States.

The states are requesting that a judge find that Department of Homeland Security directives implementing Obama’s plan violate the "take care that the laws be faithfully executed" cause  of the Constitution, as well as various provisions of the Administrative Procedures Act because they are arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion and were issued without regulatory authority or the required notice and opportunity for public comment.

Here are the 25 states involved in the lawsuit:

Alabama

Arizona

Arkansas

Florida

Georgia

Idaho

Indiana

Kansas

Louisiana

Maine

Michigan

Mississippi

Montana

Nebraska

North Carolina

South Carolina

North Dakota

Ohio

Oklahoma

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Half of the country thinks Obama and his administration are wrong when it comes to this action and are spending money and resources to push back on this clearly illegal action. Makes you wonder what will happen if Obama tries to force his will through anyway, regardless of what the courts say: will the center hold if half the country tells Washington no on amnesty? What would Washington do if half the states do not do what Washington wants them to do on this issue? Interesting times we live in.

4) One last piece of resistance for today. Earlier in 2014, the Idaho governor signed state government legislation would ignore and nullify all future Federal government gun laws. The legislation was passed unanimously in both the house and senate of the state legislature.

Erich Pratt, Director of Communications for Gun Owners of America, cheered the governor’s action. “By signing this nullification bill into law, Idaho has joined an elite class of states that are telling the feds to ‘get lost’ — especially when it comes to unconstitutional gun control infringements.” 

Specifically, the law will: “protect Idaho law enforcement officers from being directed, through federal executive orders, agency orders, statutes, laws, rules, or regulations enacted or promulgated on or after the effective date of this act, to violate their oath of office and Idaho citizens’ rights under Section 11, Article I, of the Constitution of the State of Idaho.”

The legislation continues to establish: “Any official, agent or employee of the state of Idaho or a political subdivision thereof who knowingly and willfully orders an official, agent or employee of the state of Idaho or a political subdivision of the state to enforce any executive order, agency order, law, rule or regulation of the United States government as provided in subsection (2) of this section upon a personal firearm, a firearm accessory or ammunition shall, on a first violation, be liable for a civil penalty not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000) which shall be paid into the general fund of the state…”

As a result of this action in Idaho, but related to the bigger issue of states and citizens fighting back against Washington overreach, Tenth Amendment Center executive director Michael Boldin said that the new Idaho law has opened Pandora’s box even wider: “People are beginning to realize that this practice is completely constitutional and legal. In the near future, you will see a wave of states passing even broader legislation to fight the federal government on everything ranging from more traditionally liberal issues like hemp and marijuana, to more conservative issues like Obamacare. Nullification isn’t a left vs. right issue. It destroys the fallacy of the left right paradigm and is the remedy for all unconstitutional laws.”

Just another day in the country's desire to get out from under the repressive and aggressive actions of an out of touch and incompetent Washington political class. Today we learned that Mississippi is just the next state to fight back against Common Core, the Michelle Obama dictatorial healthy school lunch plans are still failing across the country, half the country is formally fighting Obama and his forced and illegal unilateral amnesty program, and Idaho has joined several other states to proclaim they will not obey Washington gun control laws. Will the center hold?

Check back on a regular basis as we will continue to review this fascinating, if somewhat scary potential future, a future that may see the rest of the country decide what, if any, Washington actions it will obey or ignore.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

November, 2014, Part 2, Political Class Insanity: Bingo Busting in Mississippi, Killing the American Dream, and Keystone Pipeline Insanity

It is the start of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity that has been dumped on us by the worst set of politicians to ever hold office in the history of this country. From wasteful spending to bad priorities to general ineffectiveness, the insanity rolling out of Washington and other political centers and government around the country seems to be accelerating as the idiocy of our political times increases.

Last month we set a record by needing almost two full weeks of posts to get all of the insanity documented and discussed. Given what I see today, we will be hard pressed not to get close to or exceed that record of insanity this month. It keeps getting worse and worse and the effectiveness of the political class gets less and less.

The first post in this month’s insanity can be accessed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/11/november-2014-part-1-political-class.html

1) It never ceases to amaze us at how much and in so many varied ways that politicians and governments at all levels can waste taxpayer wealth, especially when there are so many other more important priorities and needs facing Americans. Consider a recent article by Steve Wilson writing for the website, watchdog.org.

Consider the track record of a Mississippi law enforcement organization:

• The Mississippi Gaming Commission’s Charitable gaming Division employs eight dedicated law enforcement agents. 
• This division is responsible for regulating the state’s…wait for it… bingo industry.
• Those eight agents have made four arrests since 2003 or one arrest about every three and a half years.
• The good news is that the agency used to have twenty full time law enforcement agents to make sure bingo games do not break the law.
• Now, the agency has issued 279 citations and collected fines of $176,672 since 2003, according to Rodney Smith, division director II with the Charitable Gaming Division. But that only averages out to about 25 citations and about $16,000 in fines per year.
• If we assume that each of those 20 law enforcement people earn $40,000 a year in salary, than the agency is paying out about $800,000 a year in salaries just to collect $16,000 in fines, a horrible pay back on taxpayer dollars. And that $800,000 does not include overhead expenses, benefits, etc. making the payback even worse. 
• At $40,000 a head in annual salary, the cost benefit ratio is about 50, meaning that for every $50 that Mississippi taxpayers put out for this agency, they get back one dollar for their efforts.

Talk about insane priorities.

2) Five years after the recession has ended, after five years of the Federal Reserve printing money to prop up the economy, over five years after the Obama administration spent over $800 billion to stimulate the economy, the political class has still not learned how to manage and support a growing economy. Food stamp enrollment is still sky high, long term unemployment is still high, the real unemployment rate is still over 10%, and household incomes have DROPPED during the post recession period, an unheard of historical event.

But things are probably worse than these top line numbers show. Consider a recent USAToday article by Erika Rawes that showed how the middle class could longer afford the following six luxuries and necessities of life:

- Vacations - A recent Statista survey found that this year 54% of people gave up purchasing big ticket items like TVs or electronics so they can go on a vacation. Others made financial sacrifices like reducing or eliminating trips to the movies (47%), reducing or eliminating restaurants meals (43%), or avoiding purchasing small ticket items like new clothing (43%) just to afford a vacation. Traditionally, middle class households did not have to make financial sacrifices just to take a vacation.

- New cars - Historically, middle class families could easily afford a new car every once in a while by choosing from a host of cars and brands that offered moderately prices cars for moderate income people. However, Interest.com recently analyzed the prices of new cars and trucks, as well as the median incomes across more than two dozen major cities.

Unfortunately, they found that new cars and trucks were now not affordable to most middle-earners: "Median-income families in only one major city [Washington DC - no surprise there] can afford the average price Americans are paying for new cars and trucks nowadays." As of 2013, new cars are priced at $32,086, according to the study which is about 60% of the median household income in this country. 

To pay off debt - Once reason Americans cannot afford vacations and new cars as easily as in the past is because the heavy debt load they are carrying, meaning that a lot of household income is going to paying off debt and not other parts of the economy. Consider the findings from Debt.org: "More than 160 million Americans have credit cards. The average credit card holder has at least three cards. On average, each household with a credit card carries more than $15,000 in credit card debt."

This is just credit card debt. It does not include mortgage debt, car financing debt, student loans, health care debt, etc. We have so much debt that, just like vacations and new cars, we cannot even afford our debt any more if you believe the work and analyses done Money-Zine.

Money-Zine evaluated household debt growth and income growth over the past few decades and found that "back in 1980, the consumer credit per person was $1,540, which was 7.3% of the average household income of $21,100. In 2013, consumer debt was $9,800 per person, which was 13.4% of the average household income of $72,600. This means debt increased 70% faster than income from 1980 through 2013."

Emergency savings - it used to be that households had enough money left over every month to have a “rainy day” fund inc ase expenses popped up unexpectedly or there was job loss. The rule of thumb back in those days was to have enough cash saved up to survive a six month financial crisis.

However, today it seems like most households cannot even find enough left over funds to save for any kind of emergency. A Bankrate survey found that:

• Only around one out of four households have six months of emergency money saved. 
• Another one-fourth have no emergency savings at all.
• The remaining household have a small to moderate amount of savings, but not enough to cover six months of expenses.

- Retirement savings - Social Security was never intended to be a person’s sole source of financial support during retirement. Middle class workers were encouraged to also set aside money for their retirement. However, the reality today is that nearly half of those who don't save for retirement say it's because they simply don't have the money.

Even worse, around 20% of people near 65 have not saved anything for retirement at all, and the majority of people, 59%, think that they don't have enough money saved for retirement.

- Medical care - Needless to day, many middle class Americans can no longer afford medical care either: 

• A Forbes article published data indicating that middle class workers in large companies "face nearly $5,000 in premiums, co-payments, deductibles and other forms of co-insurance."
• A study by Feeding America found that a 66% of households say they have had to choose between paying for food and paying for medical care and that a depressing 31% say they have to make that choice each and every month.
• The Federal Department of Health and Human Services report that about 108 million people in the U.S. have no dental coverage and even those who are covered may have trouble getting the dental care they need because dental health insurance is too expensive or does not fully cover more expensive needs.
• According to the Centers For Disease Control, nearly one in four American adults between the ages of 20 and 64 have untreated dental caries.

The American middle class used to be the American dream. Now that dream is more of a nightmare with vacations, cars, medical case, debt management, etc. being more of a luxury than the end product of the American dream. That is what happens when we trust our economic fates to ill suited and economically ignorant politicians and the insane and ineffective economic policies they implement.

3) One last piece of insanity for today. There has been much debate and discussion on whether to build the so-called Keystone Pipeline that would bring crude oil out of western Canada down into U.S. Gulf refineries. Today is not a discussion on the merits and downsides of building such a pipeline but how screwed up the decision making process is in Washington today.

Six years have gone by as the Federal government has done study after study to determine whether or not to build the pipeline. This has not included any construction time or progress, this is just the time to examine and study the permitting process. 

To show you how screwed up Washington is from a functionality perspective, the Heritage Foundation recently compared six major projects that were COMPLETED in less time than it has taken the Keystone Pipeline to be studied:

• It took four years and 600,000 rivets to build the Golden state bridge. Since its construction, over 2 billion cars have crossed the span.
• It took five years to build the Hoover Dam that at its base the dam is as thick as two footballs fields measured end-to-end.
• It took one year to build Boeing’s Everett factory which the Guinness Book of World records claims is largest building in the world by volume. 
• It took two years to build the Pentagon which housed 30,000 people during World War II and which has 17 miles of corridors.
• It took two years to build Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta airport which covers 4,700 acres and is the largest air passenger terminal complex in the world.
• It took two years to build Beaver stadium in Oregon which is now the second largest stadium in college football.

Six major and important structures built in far less time it has taken he Federal government to study a simple pipeline project. 

Is it any surprise that nothing ever gets accomplished by the political class and the government bureaucracy it operates when a simple environmental study takes so long to complete? No wonder we are still losing the war on drugs, our public schools are still failing, our borders still leak, we still do not have a national energy policy and strategy and why yesterday we found out it took 17 years for the Federal government to develop a DRAFT set of regulations concerning Tic Tac mints. Insane and pathetic.

Bingo enforcement overkill, just the plain killing of the middle class American dream, and overkill analysis of a simple pipeline. Such insanity that does not end today.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

August, 2014 Political Class Insanity, Part 2; Social Security Wastes $300 Million, NASA Wastes $350 MIllion, and More

It is that time of the month where every month we review the latest insanity, ineptness, wasteful spending, stupid quotes, and other frivolity of the American political class. Unfortunately, we have a pretty full plate this month, a plate that is going to take a long list of posts to get through as our politicians continue to prove that we are living through the worst set of politicians today that this nation has ever had to endure.

Our first insanity update was yesterday, making this the second in what promises to be a long series of continuing ineptness by the American political class.

1) We start off today with a typical Federal government data systems project. Typical in that after spending big bucks to build the system, the system does not work, much like the Obama Care online heath insurance exchange data system processes. This example was within the Social Security administration and involved the following fiascos, according to a recent Associated Press report:

• The Federal Social Security Administration (SSA) spent nearly $300 million on a new computer system to handle disability claims.
• Despite spending so much money, the Administration cannot get it to work. 
• They have been working on the project and problem for six years and still have no idea when it might be available to help with the high volumes of disability claims.
• The SSA claims the project is still only in the testing phase, six years and $300 million later, but claims it cannot estimate when it will be operational or how much it will cost.
• "The program has invested $288 million over six years, delivered limited functionality and faced schedule delays as well as increasing stakeholder concerns," said a report by McKinsey & Co., a management consulting firm.
• According to the article, SSA executives have decided to "reset" the program in an effort to save it and needed bring in the outside consultants from McKinsey to figure out what went wrong.
• On top of the operational problems and disasters, now the House Oversight Committee is also looking into the computer project, and whether Social Security officials tried to bury the McKinsey report, with committee members officially calling the project "an IT boondoggle."

Unfortunately, this is so typical of large Federal government data systems projects. We have previously reported on such ineptness where we discussed a study that found over 90% of large government data systems projects never get finished at all or fall far short of their intended goals.

Thus, while members of Congress worry about trivial things like the name of the Washington Redskins or names of Post Office locations, we are pretty sure that the Federal government is basically broken at the operations level in executing its basic functions. But that that situation never seems to be part of what politicians are worried about, issue PR releases about, or set up photo ops about.

2) Depressing article recently published by the AgainstCronyCapitalism.org website, "The Real Problem with the Economy," further illustrated the economic ignorance and stupidity of the current political class. Their inability to understand basic economic theory and policy has resulted in probably the most serious deterioration in the standard of living in this country in our entire history.

According to the website’s review of a recent New York Times article, the inflation-adjusted net worth for the typical American household was $87,992 in 2003. Just ten years later, it was only $56,335, representing a whopping 36% decline when adjusted for inflation and reality. This analysis and depressing finding was included in a study financed by the Russell Sage Foundation. 

I would bet that most long term members of Congress have been immune to this trend, given that they currently enjoy annual salaries that are three times the size of the $56,335 median. Their immunity and economic ignorance probably means that their personal trend will not turn around soon.

That is why we suggested Step 36 from “Love My Country, Loathe My Government” be implemented for all members of Congress. Step 36 reads as follows: Require all members of the political class upon their election to Congress of the White House to take and pass a course on economic concepts and principles. 

This might at least give them a fighting chance to put forth sound economic policies. Lord knows that without such training we are stuck with an ever declining standard of living.

3) A recent article in Business Week looked at how much the Defense Department (DOD) paid for standard helicopter parts from Bell Helicopter. The article was based on work done by a DOD watchdog group. Their top line findings found that the Department of Defense in 2012 paid $13.4 million for 35 standard helicopter parts but should have only paid $4.4 million.

Their detailed findings included the following examples of overpayment:

• A sleeve spacer: paid $29.95 for each, should have paid $7.49, a 300% markup.
• An inner swash plate cap: paid $2,355.85 each, should have paid $412.12, a 472% markup.
• A shim: paid $237.51 each, should have paid $25.86, an 818% markup.
• Bevel gear: paid $8,123.50, should have paid $445.06, an amazing 1,725% markup.

The article contains other parts examples which are just as insane. It is these types of examples that prove:

1. Government is severely broken at the operational level.
2. It should be no surprise how the country got to almost $18 TILLION in debt given how out of control and wasteful government and political class spending is across all facets of government.
3. When Nancy Pelosi pathetically states there is nowhere to cut government spending, just give her these examples.

4) Speaking of wasting money, consider another recent article from Business Week. NASA will complete work on a $350 million tower to test rocket engines at the John C. Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The 350 foot steel frame facility was built to test rockets that were going to send America back into space, to the moon, and possibly beyond under NASA’s Constellation program.

The sad news is that the tower will probably never be used since the program was terminated years ago. President Obama proposed ending the Constellation program back in 2010 but taxpayer money continued to be spent on the tower. $292 million had already been spent by that time but incredibly, another additional $57 million was spent on this relic since then.

Not surprisingly, Mississippi's two U.S. Senators have helped keep taxpayer money flowing to create jobs on a home state project that will never be used. Another reason why we have an $18 TRILLION national debt with nothing to show in return for our wasted investment. Think about it. For $350 million we have useless cement tower in Mississippi. If we had used that money logically, sanely, and unselfishly:

• How many homeless kids could have been fed in America?
• How many sick and ailing vets could have gotten the medical treatment they need and deserve?
• How many drug addicts could have gotten the treatment they need to kick the habit?
• How many unemployed Americans could have gotten job training aid to help them reenter the workforce?

Wasting hundreds of millions of dollars is bad enough. The lost opportunity to take care of those in need in this country is even a sadder commentary on the horrendous priorities of Washington’s political class.

That’s enough insanity for today. More to follow over the next few days as we continue to prove that we are being served by the worst set of politicians in the history of this country, hands down.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

The Obscenity of Power And Wealth In Washington And How To Defuse It

Two recent news articles recently came to my attention that, on the surface, were unrelated but with a little imagination you could see were tightly compatible. The first article appeared on the website, www.mainstreet.com, and it categorized the ten richest and the ten poorest counties in the United States. The ten poorest counties, as measured by household income, were located no where close to our nation's capital. Four counties from South Dakota, three counties from Mississippi, one from Colorado, one from Kentucky and one from Louisiana rounded out the ten poorest counties in the country. As you can see, far, far away from the nation's capital.

In contrast to the ten poorest counties, seven of the ten wealthiest counties were almost all within a stone's throw of Washington D.C. These seven included three in Virginia (Loudoun - #1, Fairfax  - #2, and Arlington - #5) and four in Maryland (Howard - #3, Montgomery - #6, Calvert - #9, and Charles - #10). Only three of the top ten were not in the greater D.C. metro area (two were in northern New Jersey and one was on Long Island). The one county that bordered Washington that was not on the list was Prince George's county in Maryland but if you do a little research you find that Prince George's county is in the top 2% of all U.S. counties from an income level and is the wealthiest county in the country with an African American majority of citizens. Thus, Prince George's is certainly not a slouch when it comes to wealth.

If you look at these seven top counties on a map and include along with them Prince George's county, you will find that they all virtually surround our nation's capital. If you equate  money with power, you can then easily conclude that we have allowed a lot of power and national wealth to become tightly focused around the Federal government and the head of that government, Washington, D.C.

You would expect any nation's capital to be relatively affluent and well off, no disagreement there. But consider just how powerful our nation's capital area has become:

• The nation's financial capital, New York City, did not make the top ten. Consider how many bankers, financial analysts, and Wall street types make their living and home in New York City and the surrounding suburbs and they do not have a presence on the top ten list.
• The nation's hot bed of innovation and technology wealth, Silicon Valley, did not have a presence on the top ten list.
• The nation's media capital and largest metro area, Los Angeles, did not have a presence on the top ten list.
• The nation's fast rising major southern cities, such as Houston and Dallas, did not have a presence on the top ten list.

By looking at what areas are not on the list, and the wealth we usually associate with those missing areas, you get a better feeling of just how much wealth and power has migrated to Washington D.C. Frightening. Government should be in the business of serving the entire country, not enriching itself and its employees in the process. If government was smaller and less taxing, some of the Washington D.C. metro wealth would find its way back to the South Dakota, Mississippi, and all of the other counties in the country who could really use it.

How should we go about defusing the power and wealth transfer that obviously migrated from the countryside to the D.C. Beltway? We have constantly talked about numerous steps that could be taken to return power and freedom to American citizens while reducing the power of the American political class in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government:"

• Step 1 - reduce the budget of the Federal government 10% a year for five years by doing a ground up review of all government functions, downsizing or eliminating the ones that serve no useful purpose.
• Step 6 - allow only individual citizens to contribute to election campaigns.
• Step 7 - do not allow election campaign contributions to cross Congressional district or state lines, e.g. a citizen in Kansas could not contribute to a political campaign in New Jersey.
• Step 14 - stop gerrymandering Congressional districts that almost always ensure that the incumbent will be re-elected.
• Step 39 - institute term limits for political offices.

These are necessary and critical steps to restoring the freedom that we have lost as Americans.

But there is another necessary step, which brings us to the second news article. This was a New York Times piece that appeared in the December 20, 2010 edition of the St. Petersburg Times. The article reviewed an effort that is underway to implement a Constitutional amendment that would allow state governments to overturn Federal mandates and laws. This "repeal amendment" would allow any act of Congress to go unheeded if  the legislatures in two thirds of the states voted to overturn the act.

This would certainly put in another check and balance feature in the Constitution. If would help mitigate the flow of power and wealth to the political class in Washington by repelling funding mandates and impositions on state rights and personal freedoms that continually come out of Washington. As an example, if states felt that the imposition of huge additional fees from Obama Care were not the right solution, they could override the legislation with two thirds majority. Similarly, if a state's citizens felt that the Federal mandate to require everyone to purchase health insurance was an affront to freedom, state citizens would have another way to voice their disapproval and get action.

According to the article, twelve state legislatures have already shown an interest in such an amendment. Some incoming Congressional members have also voiced support and the movement's leaders have a website up and running called http://www.repealamendment.org/. According to a spokesperson for the organization running the website, "What we're trying to do is to draw a line in the sand saying that the Federal government has gone too far."

Sounds like a good and reasonable plan. The Constitution allows citizens to make amendments possible through a defined Constitutional process and the two thirds majority required to over turn an act of Congress ensures that there is widespread support for such action that is not purely politically driven.

Most importantly, it helps defuse the power and wealth that has migrated to a very small handful of people in Washington that has proven over the decades that they have accomplished nothing of any consequence as it relates to the major issues of our times while wasting trillions of dollars in the process. Any measure that can keep government under control and accountable to the will of the people that pay for it is a good thing. Maybe by implementing this repeal amendment and other necessary steps, the richest counties in this country might some day be the ones the work the hardest and not the ones that govern the lousiest.



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/