If You Are Not Part Of The Solution, You Must Be Part of The Problem - The Gigantic Mess That Is The Federal Bureaucracy

Two articles came together for this post, both of which illustrate how large, unwieldy and ineffective the federal government has become. The first article was written by David Gergen and appeared in the August 15, 2010 issue of Parade magazine. Mr. Gergen talked about how unprepared the Federal government is when it comes to man made or natural disasters. After spending a substantial amount of time in the Gulf after the BP oil disaster, he came to the conclusion that while there were a lot of government employees working real hard to address the disaster, they were overwhelmed for a number of reasons:

• Those employees are "ensnared in a government system that is hopelessly entangled and desperately needs fixing."
• This results in well intentioned and hard working government employees working far below effectiveness.
• Despite large amounts of taxpayer funded resources (Homeland Security, FEMA, the Coast Guard, Centers For Disease Control, state and local governments, etc.), laws and regulations have sprouted up over time that have confused the roles and responsibilities of each of these government entities.
• This mish mash of laws and regulations has resulted in a muddled and clogged chain of command which feeds into uncertainly and delays in addressing the disaster.

Sounds like every other government function from Hurricane Katrina to the financial and economic meltdown of the current recession, everybody is in charge but nobody is responsible. Gergen's remedy is very much in line with Step 1 of "Love My Country, Loathe My Government." We must start downsizing and streamlining all government sources, using a ground up approach to decide what are vital government functions and then properly staffing and training those functions to be more efficient and effective. Without a functional review down to the lowest job responsibility, the muddled chain of command and the substandard performance, relative the taxpayer dollars spent will continue, endangering property, lives, and the reputation of the Federal government.

Speaking of substandard performance, the second article of interest appeared in the August 20, 2010 issue of The Week Magazine. It addressed the continued disaster that is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:

• According to the article, Fannie Mae recently announced that it had lost $3.1 billion in the last quarter.
• The good news was that the $3.1 billion loss was its best quarter in three years.
• Freddie Mac followed that announcement by announcing it had a $6 million loss.
• They have asked Congress for a combined $3.3 billion cash infusion in order to not go bankrupt.

Remember, these two organizations have already sucked down untold billions of taxpayer dollars to stay solvent and are expected to need hundreds of billions more in the next few years to remain afloat.

The good news is that the political class is finally talking about making changes to get the situation under control. The Treasury Department will host a conference later this month to generate ideas for a new mortgage financing approach int he country. How successful they will be is in doubt, given that both Fannie and Freddie successfully lobbied to stay out of the clutches of the recently passed financial regulatory reform law. Who says they cannot get out from under Congressional scrutiny again? During the run up to the financial regulatory reform bill, we saw numerous cases of Federal department heads lobbying Congressional people to save their own fiefdoms from change.

Both examples illustrate how big and unwieldy the Federal government has become. We waste tons of taxpayer dollars on very poor service and performance. What is needed are strong, intelligent leaders that know how to analyze a problem, who can identify the root causes of the problem, and are courageous enough to take the correct steps to fix the problem, regardless of whose campaign funding sources gets disrupted, whose Congressional district takes a hit, whose Federal department is downsized, what Federal employees are downsized out of a job, etc. Unfortunately, I see very few people currently sitting in powerful political positions that fill that bill (smart, courageous, problem solvers). Otherwise, I would have hoped that they would have made the necessary changes to fix the bureaucracy. In fact, I would have hoped that they would not have let the situation get so bad to begin with.

That is why Step 34 is so important. This step would remove politicians from Congressional committee posts who did not clean up these bureaucratic messes and the poor, and sometimes fatal, performance that result from these messes. The first step in this long arduous journey to downsize while at the same time improving the effectiveness of the government begins in November with the dumping of all incumbents. As the old saying goes, if you are not part of the solution, you must be part of the problem. Given all of the problems and the inefficiencies we currently have, those that are in charge must be part of the problem.




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/

Earmarks To The Right Of Them, Earmarks To The Left Of Them Into The Valley Of Waste Rode Every Politician Imaginable.

Today we do a take off on the famous Alfred Lord Tennyson work, "The Charge Of The Light Brigade" which contained the memorable lines "Cannon to the left of them, cannon to the right of them... into the valley of death rode the 600." Unfortunately, we have more than 600 politicians that constantly charge through the Valley of Waste.

We start today with reports out of California. Recall that the state government of California is about $20 billion short in its next fiscal budget. The LA Times has run a series of articles this week that tell how some state welfare recipients have been using their welfare debit cash cards not to buy food and clothing but to visit strip clubs and casinos where they then received cash from the ATM machines at those locations. The obvious conclusion is that the welfare money from those debit cards was then used as entertainment at either the strip club or casino where that ATM machine was located. The Times estimates that at least $4.4 million was cashed out using welfare debit cards at casinos and over $12,000 was used at strip club ATMs.

Now, it could be that somebody on welfare just happened to come across a needed ATM machine inside a casino or inside a Strip club and nothing nefarious went on. However, it is doubtful that nothing nefarious went on for over $4 million worth of cash outs. Second, this is the amount of fraud that state investigators have identified, how much more fraud of this type and other types are also going on in a state about to go bankrupt? The state is now blocking those ATMs at strip clubs and casinos from accepting welfare debit cards but obviously, a welfare recipient could almost as easily take cash out of their debit card in a local supermarket before going over to the strip club or casino, which would still constitute fraud. Another government program that sounds great on paper but as usual, gets fouled up in implementation, much like every other government program.

There is some good news on the fraud and waste front. Three people in the New Jersey state government have set up a website, "Report New Jersey Government Waste" (www.stopgovernmentwastenj.com) which allows state workers to identify waste, fraud and abuse within their own departments via an online form process. A person may remain anonymous if preferred. However, if their suggestion is implemented, they could be eligible for extra paid vacation days. An enhanced form of recognition in the form of cash is being considered but has not been funded yet.

The originators' strategy was based on a simple problem analysis (how quaint, politicians doing a root cause problem analysis!) and their conclusion that the front line government workers are the best source of information on wasteful government spending. Given that New Jersey is about $10 billion short relative to its next fiscal budget, these three New Jersey politicians (Caroline Casagrande, Declan O'Scanlon and Jennifer Beck) should be applauded for thinking out of the box relative to taming wasteful government spending. Or maybe, they read Page 5/Step 1 in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" which proposed the exact same process for the Federal government.

No blog on government waste would be complete without a quick visit to my favorite website, www.cagw.org, the website for Citizens Against Government Waste. Every year they publish their annual "Pig Book" which categorizes and documents the thousands of wasteful spending items in the Federal government budget and who sponsored the waste. If Step 44 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" was implemented, almost all of these wasteful spending issues would go away since Step 44 would prohibit any Federal spending for any program or project unless it significantly impacted the lives of citizens form at least five states. If a program did not meet that criteria, the Federal government would leave the funding up to those states involved and the saved Federal tax dollars would be used to reduce taxes and the national debt.

Thus, in closing, just a smattering of wasteful spending form the "Valley Of Waste" known as the 2009 Federal budget, as documented in the 2009 Pig Book:

• $2.2 million for the state of New York's Center For Grape Genetics. Given that the New York wine and grape industry is worth about $6 billion, the Federal government should make New York state or the industry pay for the Center.
• $1.8 million for swine odor and manure management research in Iowa. I told you that Federal wasteful spending stinks. Let the people in Iowa cope with the smell or fund their own research.
• $866,000 for stable fly control in Nebraska.
• $1.8 million for a honey bee lab in Texas.
• $243,000 (and $12 million since 1995) for floriculture support in Hawaii even though the floriculture industry in that state is worth over $105 million. Obviously, the in state industry has enough pollen to cover the $243,000.
• $200,000 for the tattoo removal violence prevention program in California. Let's see, remove tattoos, violence goes down. I don't think so. Anyway, let California pay for it. Oops, they cannot because their money is being spent by welfare recipients in casinos and strip clubs.
• $800,000 for a New Jersey program to prevent malaria and dengue fever. Trust me, having lived in New Jersey most of my life, there is not an $800,000 malaria and dengue fever problem in that state.
• $5 million for lighthouse improvements at the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. Hey, if the Statue Of Liberty did not get any federal tax dollars for its improvement and restoration, the lighthouse at Apostle Islands should not get any either.
• $270,000 for the Hood Canal Dissolved Oxygen Study in Washington state. You cannot make this stuff up.
• $400,000 to save the Salisbury House in Iowa, home of cosmetics pioneer Carl Weeks. Same argument here relative to the Statue Of Liberty.

That's enough for today, the Valley Of Waste is wide and deep, we will ride into the Valley in the future whenever we want to get depressed.


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/

Up, Up And Away

Let's not talk about health care reform today and get back to one of my favorite topics, government waste of taxpayer money. Today I will review two government projects which literally let our tax dollars float away for no purpose. This post should be viewed in the same genre of a previous post where we discussed how Congressman John Murtha of Pennsylvania had channeled and wasted close to $200 million in building up the John Murtha county airport in his district. This is an airport that serves only three flights a day, most of which are less than half full, has an $8 million radar facility that has never been used and according to a recent news account, sometimes serves less people a day than there are TSA security workers in the airport.

Not to be outdone is the airport in Ely, Nevada. According to a Business Week article on August 17, 2009, Ely has a population of just over four thousand people and last year their airport received $1.8 million in Federal subsidies. Since only 414 people used the airport last year, the American taxpayer basically subsided each Ely flier to the tune of about $4,500. According to the article, it would have been cheaper to rent a private airplane for EACH of the people that used the Ely airport.

On Earthlink News today, Seth Borenstein of the AP had an article about NASA's plan to return to the moon. Unfortunately, it was not good news. A White House panel has released its review analysis of NASA plans and has determined that NASA cannot get back to the moon without a 16% ($3.0 billion) annual increase in its budget. So just five years after NASA and the Bush administration decided to return to the moon, its budget and plan are already obsolete. Thus, Obama has to decide whether to increase funding, something tough to to in a bad economy with the Federal deficit soaring, or shut down the moon operation. If he shuts it down, NASA would have wasted $7.7 billion it has already spent on a plan that comes up short. Either option will cost us more money.

These are just three examples of government leadership and management failure. These types of failures go on all over the Federal bureaucracy. That is why some of the most important steps (Steps 1,2,3,4,5 just for starters) in "Love My Country, Loathe my Government" involved curtailing government initiatives. No where in the past forty years has the political class been able to deliver anything on time or on budget. By restricting their activities and returning wasted tax dollars to us, they can get focused on a much smaller set of objectives and finally get something right.

The savings could go a long way to paying down the deficits and Obama's health care reform. Damn, that topic shows up everywhere!

Tax Freedom Day

The Tax Foundation (www.taxfoundation.org) produces an annual analysis which takes a detailed look at how many days the average American works to pay off the average household tax burden from all government sources. The day where the household stops working to fund the government and starts working for themselves is called Tax Freedom Day.

In March, 2009 the Tax Foundation announced the latest results: the average American household will work until April 13 this year supporting the government's expenses and on April 14 will start working for themselves. This is a little earlier than average for two reasons: 1) the recession has reduced tax collections faster than family income and 2) the stimulus package included some temporary tax cuts that will expire after next year. Thus, an earlier Tax Freedom Day does not mark the beginning of a favorable trend for taxpayers, it may just be an anomaly. Furthermore, according to the Tax Foundation, Americans will pay more in taxes THAN THEY WILL SPEND ON FOOD, CLOTHING AND HOUSING COMBINED. From a freedom perspective, this is just an atrocious statement that we spend more for government than we do for basic living needs.

More bad news. If the Federal deficit effect is taken into account, not just taxes collected which is the basis of Tax Freedom Day, than the April 13 date is actually May 29! According to the Tax Foundation, this is the latest day in the year this deficit-inclusive measure has ever fallen. Try to imagine that date: beginning with January 1st college football games until about the Memorial Day weekend picnic, you are working for the political class and the government. Frightening. And now with the political class wanting to spend trillions of more dollars on health care reform, no end in sight for wasteful pork barrel projects, an escalating Pentagon budget, the need to improve the country's infrastructure, etc., we may get to the point where our pay checks are sent directly to the government and they in turn provide a small stipend back to us each month.

That is why the first three steps in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" are so important. We must immediately start to reduce the size of government, reduce the deficit and return our wealth back to us, we earned we should keep it.

A final note: according to the Tax Foundation, special condolences should go out to residents of Connecticut (April 30), New Jersey (April 29), New York (April 25) and California (April 20) since these folks have to work the longest to get to their state's Tax Freedom Day. Conversely, Alaska (March 23), Louisiana (March 28) and Mississippi (March 28) get to their Tax Freedom Day the earliest. Still obscene that they have to work almost three months to get there but certainly better than the top four.

More bad news.