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It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again for the our monthly review of political class insanity. We believe that the nation is living through the worst set of politicians to ever hold office in this country, from the President down to the local mayors. Our current politicians never resolve any problems facing Americans, waste untold billions of dollars every year, and operate government programs that never deliver what they promise, always miss their deadlines, always go over budget, and often make the original problem even worse. And these shortcomings do not include outright criminal activity, a topic that will be an integral part of this month’s insanity review.
Over the past week, we did an in-depth, multi-day analysis of how the Obama administration has failed in an epic way across five dimensions. As you will see over the next week or so, it is not only the President that is an epic fail in the American political sphere today. So, let’s get started, it is going to be a long trek as the political class came out of the holiday season with more incompetence than ever before.
This is the third post in this month’s insanity series:
1) The Bankrupting America website always does a great job of finding financial, political, operational and other problems with our current set of politicians and the government functions they operate. On January 28, 2015, they published the following set of financial figures that are sure to scare any American, based on the latest Congressional Budget Office analysis, “The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2015 to 2025”:
- The annual Federal budget deficits will stay steady, at the still unacceptable level of an amazing half a TRILLION dollars every year, through 2018, at which time they will start to grow steadily again, resulting in an annual deficit number of over $1 TRILLION.
- This is an incremental debt burden of over $8,500 for every American household in just one year.
- If the 2025 annual deficit, or any deficit, actually gets to $1 TRILLION in a year, that will likely put it about 4% or so of the nation’s GDP level, or about 50% higher than the historical average.
- The cumulative deficits over the next ten years will about $7.6 TRILLION or about $65,000 for every U.S.household.
- For comparison purposes, every American Presidency prior to Obama ran up a cumulative $10 TRILLION national debt burden. Thus, the Obama Presidency and the budget trajectory it put the country on will add far more debt to the national debt than EVERY previous Presidential administration combined.
- If these numbers are attained,the CBO predicts: “Such large and growing federal debt would have serious negative consequences, including increasing federal spending for interest payments, restraining economic growth in the long term, giving policymakers less flexibility to respond to unexpected challenges, and eventually heightening the risk of a fiscal crisis.”
- And while Obama promised that Obama Care would reduce everyone’s annual health insurance bill by $2,500 on average and would “not add one dime to the Federal debt,” the CBO predicts that just under $2 TRILLION will be spent to insure, in a best case scenario, about 25 million Americans, or a cost of an amazing $80,000 or so for each Obama Care customer and the law will add over $640 billion to the national debt, indicating that another two Obama promises/deceptions will go down in epic flames.
More Obama promises broken and broken very badly, epically bad. At what point do we all start assuming that everything and anything this President says is a lie, a deception, or likely to be wildly inaccurate?
2) Obama has been making a big push for raising the minimum wage even though there are far more pressing economic problems and crises to be focusing on (for a detailed look at his economic policy failures, please go to XXXX). The reality of his insanity of focusing on raising the minimum wage was pointed out numerically by a recent analysis on the Townhall website which quotes George Will:
- Less than 3% of the American workforce earns the Federal minimum wage.
- More than 60% of those earning the minimum wage now will get a raise above it within a year.
- More than half of the minimum wage earners are either students or part time workers from households with average incomes of about $53,000.
- There are more than 10 million Americans who are unemployed or under employed. The rollout of subsequent Obama Care requirements will likely increase that number, especially the number of part time workers. Millions of recent college graduates cannot get work in their fields of study and millions of them are having to return home to live with family in order to financially survive. A very high percentage of American households, as we have previously reported, would not be able to afford a car repair bill of medical emergency bill of $1,000.
All of these millions and millions of Americans are facing these financial traumas and this administration is worried about a manufactured minimum wage argument that affects far fewer people than the much bigger crises that should be addressed. More bad priorities and avoidance of the real problems that need to be resolved in this country.
3) As we have proven many times, political class insanity and wasteful spending are not contained just to the Washington D.C. political class and Federal government bureaucracies. A recent government audit found that the Virginia Department of Transportation wasted at least $3 million by failing to fine a nonperforming contractor, as reported by www.watchdog.com.
The state government inspector general found that the Department wasted at least $3 million by not holding a contracted company, Serco Inc. accountable for incomplete or undone work. Serco currently has a contract with the state to provide roadside assistance and other logistical service to the Department.
As we always ask, how many homeless people in Virginia could have been sheltered for the wasted $3 million? How many Virginia homeless could have been fed for the wasted $3 million? How many drug addicted Virginians could have been treated for the $3 million? The answer: a lot. The could have been but they were not because of the wasting of millions in taxpayer wealth just in this one instance.
4) When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, the growing of opium poppy was outlawed and almost wiped out because drug use and abuse was not compatible with their tenets. Opium poppies are the base component of heroin.
Let’s review: we invade the country looking for Bin Laden, overthrow the Taliban, install an incredibly corrupt government and about a dozen years later the country has set a one year record for growing opium poppies. This claim was recently put forth by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. As you can see from the graph below, not only was a record set, but the probability for more and more poppies to be cultivated in the future is trending strongly upwards:
Thus, after more than a dozen years of having a military presence in the country, over 2,200 American servicemen have been killed, many more thousands have been wounded, hundreds of billions of dollars have been expended, and despite the Federal government’s best efforts, the flow of illegal Afghanistan-sourced drugs is probably at an all time high, probably ending up in American streets and addicts' bodies also at a record pace. Just another Federal government/Washington political class initiative that has gone horribly wrong for a horribly long time.5) The Federal government, via NASA, is working on the next generation of space rockets that are named Orion. Despite giving NASA billions of budget dollars over the years, according to a recent article on the Gizmodo.com website, as reported in the December 19, 2014 issue of The Week magazine, the computer processors being used TODAY on the Orion vehicles were built in 2002. Yes, the next generation NASA rockets will be operated by thirteen year old technology. Apparently, these processors are less powerful than the processors in current smartphones on the market today. The article quoted NASA's spokesperson Matt Lemke: “It’s state of the art compared to previous technology but it’s not state of the art compared to what you can get at Best Buy.” Typical government procurement: overpriced, out of date technology. Insane.That will do it for today’s insanity. We learned that our national debt burden is about to explode to unheard of and dangerous heights as a result of the Obama administration’s lack of budget skills, the administration is worried about a minimum wage issue that is minute compared to the much larger economic crises in the country, the state of Virginia can waste taxpayer wealth with the best of them, the unintended consequences of Washington’s efforts in Afghanistan is to create a record high production of heroin, and we are likely paying top dollars for antiquated parts for our country’s latest space rockets.Wasteful spending, excessive spending, stupid spending. Sounds about right for today’s political class. More insanity tomorrow and beyond.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:
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This is the final post in this month’s series of posts that cover the insanity from the American political class. This month’s series set a record for the most insanity in that it required six posts to get it all covered. At some point soon, if the current set of politicians continues on their road of lunacy we may need to rename this blog the “Political Class Insanity” blog.
Today we will look at some final acts of insanity but also set forth some changes to our political processes that are needed to get this insanity and waste out of the country. This lunacy not only wastes valuable taxpayer wealth but also strips out our liberty and freedom from our lives.
1) The Hill reported on April 29, 2013 that about a dozen Democratic Congress people are pushing an interesting, if inane, resolution. They are calling on Congress to recognize that climate change is hurting women more than men, and could even drive poor women to "transactional sex" for survival. In other words, global warming, if it exists, will result in more women turning to prostitution:
"[F]ood insecure women with limited socioeconomic resources may be vulnerable to situations such as sex work, transactional sex, and early marriage that put them at risk for HIV, STIs, unplanned pregnancy, and poor reproductive health."
Okay, even if we buy the global warming theory, where is the proof, rather than opinion, that prostitution will increase? Plus, don’t we have enough on our plates in the immediate future such as the unraveling of Obama Care, an anemic economy, high unemployment, etc. that should have the current attention of Washington?
This resolution is just that, only a statement, it does not call for funding, it does not call for concrete action, it does not call for resolution of the alleged problem , etc. it just asks for a statement of opinion. Pathetic priorities. The Titantic is sinking and these politicians are worried and spending time and resources on something that may or may not happen decades from now.
2) The Associated Press reported on April 5, 2013 that NASA is planning for a robot controlled spaceship to lasso a small asteroid and park it near the moon for astronauts to explore. Yes, the Obama administration, according to the article, is planning on asking for $100 million in its 2014 budget to explore this possibility, capturing a small asteroid. Dang, you cannot make this stuff up.
The robotic ship would capture the 500-ton 25-foot asteroid in 2019. Then, using a yet-to-be-developed Orion space capsule, a crew of four astronauts would park themselves next to the asteroid in 2021 and conduct spacewalking explorations.
The $100 million would be used to find the right asteroid. Lord knows how many more tens of billions of dollars will be needed to actually put together the program, training, logistics, equipment, etc. to execute the catch, capture, and explore aspects.
How would this capture work? According to the article, it would work like the space equivalent of "a baggie with a drawstring.” NASA’s ship would then attach a yet-to-be-developed solar propulsion module to the asteroid to de-spin it and then bring the asteroid to where they wanted to park it. The Senator supporting such an endeavor in the Senator, Bill Nelson of Florida, makes the rather sizeable jump in logic that doing this project, besides protecting votes in his state, would help us understand how to guide an asteroid away from a collision with earth.
Okay, let’s talk about real priorities:
- Probability that today well over 20 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed: 100%
- Probability that today we are fast approaching a incomprehensible national debt of $17 TRILLION: 100%
- Probability that today tens of millions of Americans are going hungry every day because of an anemic economy: 100%
- Probability that today our public schools are failing miserably to educate our kids today: 100%
- Probability that today we have a leaky border that is resulting in an immense illegal alien and drug control problem: 100%
- Probability that today Americans and Americans businesses are taxed at such a high level that taxation in this country has really morphed into repression: 100%
- Probability that the world will be destroyed in the near future by an asteroid: Barely measurable.
Yes, an asteroid could hit us in the near future. But could we take care of some more immediate problems that affect just about every American today before we throw limited resources and wealth at a problem that may never occur and which is decades and billions of dollars away from being possible.
Back to Senator Nelson. Even if this far fetched idea was possible, i.e. we could “lasso” a small asteroid and control it, how does that translate to a mega-sized asteroid that would destroy the earth and which we would have no chance to stop it in space, de-spin it, and nudge it? Makes no sense.
NASA also wants to go to Mars. We know from life experience that the more things government does, the more things get screwed up. Focus on fixing the short term earthly priorities and focus only on the Mars effort. Gives everything a much better chance of getting resolved without this space lasso trick.
3) In a CNBC report from April 30, 2013, a study by the St. Louis Federal Reserve found that of the $108 billion paid out in unemployment benefits in 2011, at least $3.3 billion was paid out dishonestly in benefits to people who are still working, no longer alive, or, get this, are behind bars. The largest share of the fraud payments,$2.2 billion, went to people who were still working.
The report also contained some other disgusting fraud results:
- Nearly 3,200 households making more than $1 million per year received unemployment benefits during the economic downturn.
- That fraud amounted to $80 million paid out by the government or enough to keep the White House tours going for over 80 years and keep the FAA air traffic controllers staffed for lord knows how long.
- Other people illegally collecting benefits include prisoners such as inmates in Philadelphia's prison system fraudulently who collected $7 million in unemployment benefits while behind bars in 2011.
- Benefits are also continued going out to people who have died but have not been purged from the government rolls.
This is what the St. Louis Federal Reserve was able to identify as fraud. It is unknown how much more fraud goes on that is not identified by their efforts simply because criminals may be better at hiding their fraud than government employees are in identifying the fraud.
Oh, and please do not tell me that on a percentage basis this is good government. $3.3 billion or more is a lot of money and the government has been doing this function for decades. They should know how to do it much better by now.
4) Let’s finish up this month’s political class insanity with the most disgusting affront to the American taxpayer that has come along in a long time. The Boston Herald has reported that the Tsarnaev brothers, the Islamic terrorists who are suspected of executing the horrific marathon bombings and the murder of a local policeman, have received from more than $100,000 in taxpayer welfare funding:
The Tsarnaev family, including the suspected terrorists and their parents, benefited from more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded assistance — a bonanza ranging from cash and food stamps to Section 8 housing from 2002 to 2012, the Herald has learned.
"The breadth of the benefits the family was receiving was stunning," said a person with knowledge of documents handed over to a legislative committee today.
How much more disgraceful can this political class become and how much more dysfunctional can the government it operates become? Terrorists blow us up, killing and maiming untold numbers of innocent Americans and many of those maimed and killed Americans had their taxes go to funding the terrorists’ life styles? Words escape me on this grand level of incompetence.
Okay, let’s stop talking about political class insanity and start talking about how we fix the situation. We have moved way beyond the point where can assume that these people will ever have the initiative, intelligence, and wherewithal to fix what ails our government processes, operations, and the major issues of our times.
Thus, we are going to have to do this ourselves, starting with at least the following steps from “Love My Country, Loathe My Government:”
- Step 39 would impose term limits on every Washington politicians, one and done. They have forfeited their right to be in office any longer, we need a fresh set of people, ideas, and integrity to start fixing what is wrong.
- Step 44 would not allow any Federal taxpayer money to be used on any government program or project unless it significantly affected the citizens of at least five states. This simple rule would greatly reduce wasteful spending since stupid expenses like developing a prom week simulator video game, studying the sexual behavior of New Zealand snails, and other such nonsense would ever be underwritten by the American taxpayer.
- Step 6 would not allow any business, PAC, union, or lobbyist group to contribute to any political campaign. When the founding fathers put freedom of speech into the Constitution I am quite sure they were worried about freedom of speech of individual citizens, not large organizations. Thus, this step would allow only individual citizens directly contribute to a politician’s election campaign.
- Step 7 would not allow anyone to contribute to a political campaign who was not directly affected by that campaign’s results. For example, a citizen in Kansas, no matter how rich, could not contribute to a Congressional campaign in a New Jersey district.
- Not directly included in the book but totally necessary is a full court press to get the criminal fraud and waste out of our social safety net programs. Many times we have reported on how the Federal government loses well over $200 billion a year in its Social Security, Medicare food aid, and other welfare-like programs to fraud and waste.
- We also need to overhaul the IRS so that it protects the rights and privacy of citizens but finally gets around to collecting the over $380 billion a year that it fails to collect from tax evaders every year.
We are a great country served by a horribly underperforming political class. Unless we start executing these steps as soon as possible, the insanity coming out of Washington will eventually overwhelm the great promise of this country. Einstein forecasted this would happen long ago:
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
Seems like he had our current political class in mind when this gem was spoken.
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
