Retro 1: U.S. Navy Shops For Sale! Cheap, Never Used, Act Now

Note: Given the Thanksgiving holiday this week and the resultant preparations, family visitors, and other commitments, we will be rerunning the top rated and most popular blog posts from the past five years. These posts cover a wide variety of political class insanity, wasteful spending, inane quotes, and other idiocy and are the discussions that most resonated with our readers. We will be back next week with fresh material, starting with our monthly update on "Political Class Insanity."

Just when you think that you have identified the latest government waste of taxpayer money, some big new wastes jump into your face. Consider some recent news reports that reported on how the U.S. government was scrapping two of its Navy ships even though they had never seen one day of service. Details of the waste include:

• Two large Navy ships, that have never been used, are headed for the scrap yard even though they are almost completely finished and ready for duty.
• Work began on the USNS Benjamin Isherwood and the USNS Henry Eckford in 1985 at the Pennsylvania Shipbuilding Company and were intended to carry fuel to the Navy's ships around the world.
• When the company defaulted on their Navy contract in 1989, the 600 foot ships were sent to Florida for completion. At the length of two football fields, these were not insignificant ships.
• The ships were eventually moved to the James River Navy yard and have sat there at 95% and 84% complete the past 18 years.
• A British company considered buying the ships and completing their build out for sale to a NATO country.
• However, since the ships are single hulled and double hulls are required for today's fuel carriers, the British company decided not to complete the construction and instead, settled on a $10 million contract and taxpayer expense to scrap the ships altogether.
• This week the ships are being towed to Texas to be cut up for scrap iron and scrap steel for recycling.Thus, after spending $300 million to begin building the ships, almost finishing their construction, getting absolutely no use out of them, and paying to tow the ships from port to port, the taxpayers will get hit with one last insult and be charged $10 million to destroy the never used ships.

Where to start on this insanity:

• Who is responsible for ordering the construction of these ships but never getting any use out of them? In the private market, if a business person was to incur that big of a screw up they would be out of a job.
• Was there nowhere in the world that these ships could have been sold in order for taxpayers to get some money back rather than incurring another $10 million cost to have them destroyed? Even though the could not be used to haul fuel, was there no company in the world who would not want a sturdy Navy ship to ship other goods in its hold that was not fuel related? There must be a Chinese shipping company who could use a new ship or two, especially since China's exports in the first half of 2011 was a record level of $874 billion, 20% higher than in 2010 (The Week, July 22, 2011). Thus, not only should the people responsible for building $300 million worth of ships be fired, the people who could not get anything in return by selling the ships should also be fired.

This is a classic example of Step 34 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government." Step 34 would remove politicians from any Congressional committee that does not do its committee job to at least to minimum standards. Whatever Congressional committee or subcommittee members were responsible for flushing $310 million of taxpayer wealth down the drain need to be removed from their committee or subcommittee posts.The article contains a quote from Joseph Keefe from www.maritimeprofessinal.com who stated that the scrapping the ships will "close one of the saddest chapters in American shipbuilding history and for that matter, Federal fiduciary folly." In other words, what a waste of taxpayer money. Very well said, Mr. Keefe.

Another scary aspect of this story is the thought that this may not be an isolated incident. What other $300 million wastes are hanging around the Pentagon closets? With Pentagon resources deployed in three war zones, dozens of foreign countries, and probably most of the fifty states, I find it hard to believe that this is the only wasted money in the Pentagon budget. Eliminating this type of despicable behavior would reduce the Pentagon budget without further endangering the defense of the United States.

While we are on the topic of waste, let's move out of the Defense Department domain and move to another area of gross government waste. According to USA Today article, that was highlighted in the July 7, 2011 issue of The Week, the Federal government wastes about $17 billion of taxpayer wealth every year in the operation of its unemployment benefits program. Almost 12% of the program's budget is paid out fraudulently to Americans who are either collecting benefits they are not entitled to or are those people that have gotten a job but are still accepting unemployment benefits.

Compare these figures to the politically motivated ramblings of President Obama over the past few weeks. He has made a big deal about closing tax loopholes for oil companies and corporate jet users. Now, while I agree these loopholes should be closed, they are a pittance compared to the unemployment fraud. 

Over ten years, the oil company loopholes would amount to about $20 billion and the corporate jets loophole would amount to about $3 billion, a total of $23 billion or so over 10 years. Ten years worth of this type of unemployment benefits waste comes out to $170 billion, which is almost eight times more than the political gamesmanship loopholes of Obama.

It never ends. The government cannot plan its Navy needs, resulting in wasting over $300 million on just two of its ships. The government cannot efficiently run a simple unemployment benefits program, wasting 12% of its budget and $17 billion a year. The politicians worry about the smaller, trivial wastes of taxpayer money while the bigger wastes go on and on every year. 

The worst part of all, there is no apparent accountability. No one ever seems to be held responsible for all of the waste. Politicians continually get re-elected in the face of the waste. Government bureaucrats never seem to lose their jobs despite inefficiency and waste. 

You wonder what kind of world those in DC live in where how well or bad you perform your job has no ramifications on your monetary reward and career paths. Its the kind of world I would like to live in where performance is unrelated to reality. But first, I need to see if any of those ships are still available, they are too good a deal to pass up.

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 5, Political Class Insanity: Scrapping Unused Military Equipment, Obama's Credit Card Bounces, John Kerry's Plane Falters, and More

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 governments 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.

This is our fifth post in this month’s series so the insanity continues to flow out of the political class and into our lives, our wallets, and our freedoms. The first post in this month’s series can be seen at:

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

1) Our post popular post in this blog concerned the disgraceful and wasteful spending on two brand new Navy ships that were built almost to completion at a cost of $300 million. However, before they were used they were scrapped at an additional cost of $10 million because someone in the U.S. Navy decided those brand new, taxpayer funded ships were no longer needed. That post can be found at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2011/07/us-navy-ships-for-sale-cheap-never-used.html

Well, it seems the Pentagon still cannot figure out a way to spend our money efficiently and effectively. According to the Afghanistan Inspector General, sixteen transport planes were purchased for use by the Afghan Air Force at a cost of almost $500 million. However, if barely being used they were than scrapped to return a scrap metal value of on $32,000.

The Inspector General, John Sopko, uncovered the disgrace involving these military transport planes which had been sitting at the Kabul airport for a number of years. Apparently there are another four such planes sitting in German that he also wants to know the status of. He asked the following, totally logical question of those in charge at the Pentagon relative to the planes: “I am concerned that the officials responsible for planning and executing the scrapping of the planes may not have considered other possible alternatives in order to salvage taxpayer dollars.” 

Great question. Is the Pentagon telling us that nowhere in the world someone would not be willing to pay more than $32,000 for sixteen non-fighting, nonproprietary transport planes? Just like the Navy ships, there must have been someone, somewhere that would have paid more than $2,000 for each plane, the average value they created by being scrapped.

According to information provided by the website, www.threepercentnation.com, the following math shows how wasteful this program was:

$500,000,000 - Original value of the planes
– $512,000 - Total cost received from scrapping = $32,000 x 16
——————-
$499,488,000 - Total in lost taxpayer dollars

As we keep mentioning, how many Americans with drug addiction problems could have been treated with that wealth? How many homeless and hungry Americans could have been taken care of with that wealth? Bad, bad priorities.

More details of the waste can be found at:

http://threepercenternation.com/2014/10/govt-waste-us-planes-worth-500mn-sold-for-scrap-in-afghanistan-for-only-32000/

2) By just about any measurement possible, this administration has added more debt to the country’s national debt load than any previous administrations. The Obama administration ran TRILLION dollar annual deficits for the first four years of its existence and subsequent deficits have not been much better.

At some point in time, investors are going to stop buying U.S. government bonds and financing these deficits because the Federal government has over extended itself with so much debt. At that point the Federal government will either have to dramatically raise taxes on U.S. citizens, dramatically cut government spending, or default on its current debt. Much like a household, at some point in time, credit dries up and default happens.

In fact, this has already symbolically happened to the one person most responsible for the massive build up of debt in the past six years, Barack Obama. According to news reports, Obama had his credit card denied in September when he took time out from U.N. General Assembly meetings to grab a bite to eat at a NYC restaurant. 

The irony of the President most responsible for the possible bankruptcy of the country has already had his credit card denied, how long before the rest of the country follows?

3) We pay the Federal government a whopping $3 TRILLION a year in taxes. This comes out to about $25,000 for each U.S. household on average. Is it too much to make sure that the Secretary of State, John Kerry, has a working airplane to carry out U.S. diplomacy around the world?

According to a recent news report from Reuters, Kerry’s plane has now broken down four times just this year during his worldwide jaunts. Most recently Kerry ended up taking a commercial flight out of Vienna where he was in negotiations relative to the Iranian nuclear program.

Look, I do not want to pay any more in taxes than I do, the Federal government wastes so much of our tax money now. But how bad does it look when the most powerful country in the world cannot even get its top diplomat a decent plane to do his job? Maybe he should have hooked up with the Afghanistan Inspector General, maybe one of those junked transport planes could have done the job better than what he flies in now.

Just another symbolic view of how broken and dysfunctional the Federal government has become. They cannot even get a working plane together much like they cannot get a working government agency or entity to work efficiently or effectively.

4) The Associated Press recently ran article where it highlighted how the United States promised $212 million in immediate assistance to Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. As most informed people know, the Gaza Strip was the focal point of the recent warfare between Israel and the ruling terrorist organization in Gaza, Hamas. 

According to our Secretary of State, John Kerry, people in Gaza “need our help desperately — not tomorrow, not next week, but they need it now.” He claimed that more than 20,000 homes need to be rebuilt and 100,000 people remain displaced with winter fast approaching. He went on to say in the article that this new money would take American aid to the Palestinians to more than $400 million in 2014 and would go to security, economic development, food and medicine, shelter and water and sanitation projects.

I like to think that I am a caring and compassionate person but why is the American taxpayer always the one that has to take care of people in foreign lands? Hamas brought a lot of this destruction on themselves with their terror tunnels and other terrorist behavior. Who can promise this $400 million will not go to their terror programs and to their people? That certainly has been their behavior in the past.

Why hasn’t China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, and other wealthy countries stepped up to help Hamas and the people of Gaza? Again, we have homeless and hungry in the U.S. Why not take care of them first and the terror organizations later? 

That will do it for today. Wasting taxpayer wealth all over the world, from Afghanistan to the Gaza Strip to failing Presidential credit cards to failing Secretary of States planes. The political class insanity knows no bounds and will continue unabated tomorrow.

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