December, 2015, Part 4, Political Class Insanity: Bomb Detecting Elephants, Social Security Ineptness, TSA Insanity and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity post we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

So let’s get started with the latest insanity:

1) A primary, continuing theme in our political class insanity series is the fact that the Washington political class and the Federal government it oversees waste hundreds of billions of dollars a year from wasteful spending, inefficient operations, and outright criminal fraud. 

This point was driven home again in an article by The Hill back in May, 1015. The article featured some of the waste that was uncovered by a Senate oversight committee headed by Senator John McCain called “America’s Most Wasted.” Highlights of that analysis included the following atrocities:

• The Federal government spends almost $300 billion a year on hundreds of expired Federal government programs.
• This number was based on a Congressional Budget Office analysis that was released back in January. 
• Some of these programs included Army research done relative to bomb detecting elephants ($50,000), puppet shows in Vermont, and the creation of a dog bite prevention website ($391,000).
• $225 million was incorrectly sent by the Social Security Administration to 106,000 citizens. 
• The National Guard has spent $49 million on advertising agreements with pro sports leagues to support recruiting.
• The government spent $14 million on a program at the Department of Agriculture to develop a catfish inspection office even though the Food and Drug Administration already has one.
• The EPA spent $15,000 to study pollution from backyard barbeques.

Nowhere in the Constitution is it stated that taxpayer wealth should be used to study barbeque smoke, puppet shows, redundant catfish inspections, etc. And of this expense is being wasted while tens of millions of Americans are either homeless, hungry, or unemployed. Pathetic insanity.

2) As a result of the Great Recession, the Federal Reserve printed trillions dollars of money to try to restart economic growth. Given that we are talking about TRILLIONS of dollars, one would hope that someone, somewhere was tracking that flow of the trillions and making sure that it was being used the way it was intended to be used.

But as always when dealing with politicians and the government operations they are supposed to be overseeing, that is a false hope. Take a look at the following video where a Congressman is asking the head of the inspector general organization within the Federal Reserve if anyone, anywhere is tracking those TRILLIONS of dollars. I guarantee that you will be shocked by the non-answers and half baked answers the head inspector general gives. 

The bottom line is that the Federal government printed and distributed TRILLIONS of dollars and has no idea whether it did any good, where that money went, how it was used, etc.:

http://realitieswatch.com/9-trillion-dollars-missing-federal-reserve/

3) While the inspector general at the Fed is obviously not doing her job, as the previous video shows, the inspector general at the Social Security Administration (SSA) continues to uncover massive ineptness and fraud within that organization. Figure this one out. The latest audit from the Social Security Administration found that SSA erroneously sent out $128.3 million in so-call “low-dollar” overpayments between 2008 and 2013. The SSA recognized their mistake and tried to recover the overpayments, a good thing.

Unfortunately, they are so incompetent that it cost them $323 million in expense to try and recover the $128.3 million and ended up collecting only $109.4 million. Thus, they ended up spending almost three times the amount of money that they recovered, making a waste of taxpayer money even worse, spending over $213.6 million at the end of the day in an effort to recover $128.3 million. You cannot make up this nonsense. 

4) The following video is short but gives a concise insight of how large, unwieldy and freedom threatening government has become. Rather than repeat all of the scary stats within the video, just consider the following nuggets:

• 21.3 million people, or 16% of the voting population works for some level of government in this country. Thus, a huge voting bloc that would want to extend and enlarge their own salaries, benefits, etc., has a big say who is elected to the detriment of non-government employees who are responsible for the well being of these government employees.
• Before the last recession started, the average total compensation package (i.e. wages, benefits,etc.) for those not working in government was about $61,000 a year while the compensation package for the average government employee was $123,000. If anything, as you will see in the video, that gap has probably gotten worse since the recession started.

See the rest of the depressing news at:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/xOAgT8L_BqQ

5) Let’s finish today’s political class insanity with another visit to the buffoons over at the TSA, that government entity that is supposed to protect the traveling public. Of all the government organizations we talk about, the TSA has to be the inept, incompetent group of government employees when it comes to doing their job effectively and efficiently.

We already discussed the reality that when a field test was done to find out how often a fake weapon or bomb could be smuggled past TSA screeners, those screeners failed a whopping 95% of the time to identify and confiscate the dummy weapons and bombs. This is just one of many screw ups we have covered relative to the TSA over the years.

And to that history of ineptness, we add the following failure. The Associated Press recently reported that a convicted male sex offender used a stolen female boarding pass assigned to a female to pass through TSA security screening and almost made it onto a plane in Utah. The guy allegedly took a boarding pass that a woman passenger had accidently left behind at a check-in kiosk and used it to get past TSA.

Fortunately, the woman who lost her boarding pass got a replacement boarding pass which likely led to the discovery that the guy was not the name on the woman's original boarding pass. So not only did the TSA screeners fail to see that the id presented to get past security was not the same name on the boarding pass, they did not even question the reality that a guy was trying to get through security with a boarding pass with a distinctive female name on it. Insanity and dangerous at the same time.

That will do it for this today’s political class insanity from the worst set of politicians ever to serve the country. More 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.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

September, 2015, Political Class Insanity, Part 7: Clintons Get Rich Mafia Style and Social Security Still Giving Out Free Money

It is the start of another month which means it is time for our monthly review of the latest political class insanity that continually spews forth from America’s politicians. Their actions, words, quotes, incompetency, and general ineptness continue to reinforce our theory that we are currently being served by the worst set of politicians in the history of the nation.

As you read about the latest shenanigans and ineptness of the political class, keep in mind what should be their priorities in these difficult times and compare this list to what they are actually working on:

• NBC recently reported that ISIS forces are getting larger and stronger despite the Obama administration spending billions of dollars on a failed air campaign and military strategy.
• The stock market is in free fall.
• Job creation is barely keeping up with population growth.
• Wage growth is anemic, growing just .2% in the second quarter, the lowest quarterly growth since 1982.
• The labor participation rate is at the lowest level in decades because the Obama economy cannot generate enough jobs.
• Thousands of veterans are still not getting the medical care they were promised by the Federal government.
• 46 million Americans are still receiving monthly Federal food assistance.
• Our borders still leak and thousands of illegal immigrant criminals continue to walk our streets
• A record number of police officers have been assassinated in the past week.
• Major programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are hurtling towards insolvency and lose hundreds of billions of dollars every year to fraud and mismanagement.
• Our kids are still getting lousy public educations at most public schools.
• The IRS and other government functions seem to be getting their computer systems hacked on a regular basis, exposing tens of millions of Americans to identity theft potential.
• Obama Care is a failure along so many dimensions as health care costs continue to soar despite the Obama promise that they would decrease.
• Annual Federal deficits, while down, are still about half a TRILLION a year meaning that even though the Federal government is collecting more in taxes than ever before, it still cannot run a balanced budget.

Again, keep these real crises in mind as you read what our politicians are actually doing.

1) Back in the 2012 Presidential elections, Democrats made a big deal out of the reality that Mitt Romney was quite wealthy. Romney had earned his money the hard way via smarts, hard work, and business skill. Despite his honest accrual of millions and millions of dollars, the Democrats and liberals branded him as out of touch and unworthy of being President, simply because he was wealthy.

Which is interesting since the leading candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination, at least for today, given how much she is slipping in the polls, is Hillary Clinton. According to Vox.com, since 2007, Hillary and Bill Clinton have earned $141 million, mostly by running a racketeering operation that involved Hillary dispensing State Department favors at the expense of the American taxpayer and the recipients of those favors paying Bill hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single speech. These earnings had nothing to do with creating value for society and creating jobs for Americans in the process, something Romney did in the course of getting wealthy.

In fact, according to Vox, the Clintons have paid more in taxes since 2007, a period of eight short years, than Republican candidate Jeb Bush made in total income from 1981 to 2013, a period of 32 years. Wonder if the liberals and Democrats will be consistent with Hillary and do what they did to Romney in 2012, assuming that Hillary is still around by election time.

2) We could talk about political class insanity related to the illegal and often unethical dealings of Hillary Clinton but that would probably take weeks and weeks to cover, given that it seems everyday we find that she broke laws and government rules and guidelines in many important ways and areas. But today, let’s just cover a tiny example of the shenanigans and self enrichment that went on while she was in her position as Secretary of State for all it is worth.

The following shenanigans were documented in a Briefing Article in the July 3, 2015 article of The Week magazine:

• In 2005, Bill Clinton and mining powerhouse Frank Giustra took a trip together to the country of Kazakhstan.
• There, the two dined with that country’s dictator President, Nursultan Nazarbayev.
• Within days of that dinner, Giustra acquired uranium mining rights in that country that resulted in a financial windfall for himself.
• In 2006, he donated $31 million to the Clinton Foundation.
• Eventually, he sold off his interests in the uranium mines to Russia’s nuclear agency.
• Since the interests included some U.S. uranium mines, Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State had to sign off and approve the sale, after Giustra had donated $31 million to her foundation, a serious conflict of interest. 
• Although not mentioned in the article, I would bet that somewhere along the line of these transactions Bill Clinton gave a speech for a few hundred thousand dollars.
• In another case of shady dealings, the government of Algeria gave the foundation $500,000. Two serious problems arose as a result of this dealing. First, the donation was never reported which was a condition of Hillary being Obama's Secretary of State. Second, surprise, surprise, shortly after the donation, Algeria was cleared by Hillary’s State Department to receive a 70% boost in U.S. military export authorizations which now included chemical and biological agents.
• And finally, while Secretary of State, Clinton oversaw the approval of $376 BILLION in weapons sales to 20 countries who had donated to her foundation (again, no article mentions of how many speeches Bill gave and was paid for by those twenty donors but odds are it was a lot of them). 
• This level of weapons approvals was 100% higher than what happened during the entire Bush administration.

Shady dealings with shady characters, spreading hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons and likely violence around the world, massive conflicts of interest, faulty bookkeeping, and in general, running a racketeering operation that the Mafia would admire. And she wants to be the next President of the United States. Insane.

3) Ali Meyer, writing for the Free Beacon on August 4, 2015, reported that one of our most inept Federal agencies, the Social Security Administration (SSA), had overpaid some Americans a total of $371.5 million in disability benefits from 2009 through 213, as reported by a Government Accounting Office (GAO) report. Besides being wasteful and unfair to taxpayers, it is especially bad news given the reality that the disability fund is expected to go broke sometime in 2016.

The GAO found that: “During a time of growing concern about the solvency of the DI trust fund, it is important for SSA to take every opportunity to help improve the financial status of the program.”  To do their analysis, the GAO randomly selected 20 disability beneficiaries for review and found that:

• In all 20 cases, SSA’s internal accounting controls and processes failed to detect and prevent over payments. 
• In seven of those 20 cases, SSA did not detect over payments for more than a decade, and each of these individuals received $100,000 in overpaid benefits.
• And for the final insult to taxpayers, one of these seven individuals received benefits in the 1980s and was approved for disability benefits 14 years later in 1994. The GAO found that this individual received $200,000 in over payments for more than 20 years.
• And finally from the “you cannot make this stuff up category," the SSA’s “internal controls” rely on beneficiaries themselves to self-report over payments. In other words, the SSA relies on those bilking they system to tell the SSA that they are bilking the system since the SSA has no clue when it is wrong.

Since the disability insurance program is the nation’s largest cash assistance program for workers with disabilities, the $142 billion it paid out in 2014 makes you wonder how many of those billions and billions of dollars were incorrectly paid out if the small sample of 20 in the GAO study showed EVERY beneficiary was overpaid. 

That will do it for today: billions and billions of dollars lost every year due to the ineptness of the SSA, the Clinton racketeering project, and Hillary making Romney like money with no societal benefit in return. More insanity 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.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

August, 2015, Part 5, Political Class Insanity: Presidential Hypocrisy On Slavery, Ineptness at the SocialSecurity Administration, and More

At the beginning of each month we take a week or so to review the latest insanity from the American political class. Insanity from them includes a wide range of very depressing actions which can include wasteful spending, idiotic quotes, an inefficient and ineffective government bureaucracy, failed economic policies, etc. Every month we continue to prove that we are being served by the worst set of politicians ever.

And as you will see, this month’s review and discussions do nothing to prove that this thesis is wrong in any way:

1) As we have shown and proven many times, the current set of Washington politicians have a very low grasp of economics and economic theory, saddling us with economic policies and idiocy that inhibit economic growth and job creation. This was easily proven when after the Great Recession we have suffered through the worst economic recovery in ages despite spending over $800 billion on a failed economic stimulus program, living through an energy revolution, and having the Fed print TRILLIONS of dollars in fake money.

Despite those economic tailwinds and being many years removed from the recession, the latest economic statistics are still not good, according to a recent Reuters report:

• In June, nonfarm payrolls rose by only 223,000.
• At the same time these June results were announced by the Labor Department, the Department revised downward its May and April estimates of job creation by 60,000 jobs.
• While the outmoded U3 unemployment rate dropped to 5.3%, it was not because of economic growth but because a whopping 432,000 people left the labor force last month, wiping out any significance of the 223,000 increase in nonfarm jobs.
• The more accurate U6 unemployment measure, while down, is still a depressing 10.5%.
• This job weakness situation means that the Fed is still unlikely to raise interest rates soon: "While we've been seeing positive signs of the economy picking up moving into the second half, this report certainly isn't pushing the Fed to accelerate the liftoff timeline," said Ted Wieseman, an economist at Morgan Stanley in New York.
• The labor force participation rate fell again, this time to an anemic 62.6%, the lowest level since October, 1977.
• Overall wage growth was zero for the month.
• The only good economic news is that construction is getting stronger with construction spending hitting a six and a half year high.

Discouraged workers, low wage growth, poor job creation, just horrendous stewardship of the economy by the worst set of Washington politicians ever. 

2) Desperation in any walk of life is usually pretty evident. And desperation seems to be the way of life for the city of Chicago these days. In what smacks of a desperate grab for tax revenue from any source imaginable, Fortune magazine reports that: "Chicago officials are taking an aggressive new tax approach. Consumers will now have to pay 9% on Netflix, Amazon Web Services and more.

Chicago is marking Independence Day this year with fireworks, hot dogs – and sweeping new tax rules that require companies to collect a 9% levy every time consumers use streaming and cloud services such as Netflix or Amazon Web Services.

The rules, which went into effect today, came about after city officials expanded the interpretation of existing amusement and property lease taxes to encompass cloud-based technologies."

So if you are a Netflix fan in Chicago, the cost of enjoying a desired movie just got 9% more expensive because the local political class 1) “expanded the interpretation” of existing laws, 2) decided to target just a small sample of Internet access, and 3) desperately needs the money since the city of Chicago’s bonds are now rated at junk bond level.

But we have known that Chicago and the entire state of Illinois is heading quickly down a bankruptcy path, given the corrupt and irresponsible historical management of taxpayer wealth. I think that the bigger issue that Chicago citizens should worry about is since it is highly unlikely that desperate, local politicians will suddenly develop political will and economic sense, might they decide that taxing Internet activity is a good thing? Might we see taxing every Facebook post, a fee for every Tweet, etc.? I would not put it below the political class to do so.

3) It is always a close call each month to decide which is the most incompetent Federal entity. The finalists usually include the IRS, the TSA, or the Social Security Administration (SSA). This month it looks like the SSA has taken the early lead in ineptness. 

According to a recent report from the SSA inspector general, the SSA actually spends more money than it collects when trying to recover mistaken, illegal or fraudulent payments to people who received benefits they were not entitled to. Somehow, between 2008 and 2013, the SSA gave out $128.3 million in so-called “low dollar” overpayments, spent $323 million trying to recover the $128.3 million, and ended up collecting only $109.4 million. Thus, they spent $213.6 more money than what they collected. Insane.

4) A lot has been made about slavery in the past few weeks after the horrendous and terrible attack on a South Carolina church that left nine people dead. The President has weighed in many times with statements identifying the Confederate flag as a “symbol of slavery.” Such a statement does carry some moral weight given the ethnic background of the President.

But he then turns around and his actions are the exact opposite of what he says. The TPP is a treaty under consideration that would theoretically lower trade barriers across the Pacific basin including the U.S. Originally, the treaty had an anti-slavery provision in it that was written by U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, as reported by the Huffington Post: “The provision, which bars countries that engage in slavery from being part of major trade deals with the U.S., was written by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.). At the insistence of the White House, Menendez agreed to modify his language to say that as long as a country is taking ‘concrete’ steps toward reducing human trafficking and forced labor, it can be part of a trade deal.”

“Under the original language, the country that would be excluded from the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership pact is Malaysia.”

“Why, in the year 2015, is the White House teaming up with Republican leaders essentially to defend the practice of slavery?” 

Again, greed wins out over principle in Washington. Obama often talks a good show, most transparent administration ever, we will reduce your annual healthcare costs up to $2,500, we will reduce the annual spending deficit by 50%, etc. but his actions almost always belittle and contradict his words. 

Slavery symbols from 150 years ago tick him off but slavery TODAY, with living breathing human beings, is okay as long as some nebulous meaningless steps, steps to be defined, are being taken sometime in the future to get rid of it. And he sacrifices his words and integrity for the country of Malaysia, a nit in the world economy. As always with this President, love his words, ignore his hypocrisy.

That will do it for today’s insanity. Hypocrisy on slavery from the first African American President, an inept Social Security Administration, Netflix desperation in Chicago, and continued tepid economic results. All in a day’s work for the American political class.

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

July, 2015, Part 2, Political Class Insanity: Presidential Hypocrisy On Slavery, Ineptness at the SocialSecurity Administration, and More

At the beginning of each month we take a week or so to review the latest insanity from the American political class. Insanity from them includes a wide range of very depressing actions which can include wasteful spending, idiotic quotes, an inefficient and ineffective government bureaucracy, failed economic policies, etc. Every month we continue to prove that we are being served by the worst set of politicians ever.

And as you will see, this month’s review and discussions do nothing to prove that this thesis is wrong in any way:

1) As we have shown and proven many times, the current set of Washington politicians have a very low grasp of economics and economic theory, saddling us with economic policies and idiocy that inhibit economic growth and job creation. This was easily proven when after the Great Recession we have suffered through the worst economic recovery in ages despite spending over $800 billion on a failed economic stimulus program, living through an energy revolution, and having the Fed print TRILLIONS of dollars in fake money.

Despite those economic tailwinds and being many years removed from the recession, the latest economic statistics are still not good, according to a recent Reuters report:

• Last month, nonfarm payrolls rose by only 223,000.
• At the same time these June results were announced by the Labor Department, the Department revised downward its May and April estimates of job creation by 60,000 jobs.
• While the outmoded U3 unemployment rate dropped to 5.3%, it was not because of economic growth but because a whopping 432,000 people left the labor force last month, wiping out any significance of the 223,000 increase in nonfarm jobs.
• The more accurate U6 unemployment measure, while down, is still a depressing 10.5%.
• This job weakness situation means that the Fed is still unlikely to raise interest rates soon: "While we've been seeing positive signs of the economy picking up moving into the second half, this report certainly isn't pushing the Fed to accelerate the liftoff timeline," said Ted Wieseman, an economist at Morgan Stanley in New York.
• The labor force participation rate fell again, this time to anemic 62.6%, the lowest level since October, 1977.
• Overall wage growth was zero for the month.
• The only good economic news is that construction is getting stronger with construction spending hitting a six and a half year high.

Discouraged workers, low wage growth, poor job creation, just horrendous stewardship of the economy by the worst set of Washington politicians ever. 

2) Desperation in any walk of life is usually pretty evident. And desperation seems to be the way of life for the city of Chicago these days. In what smacks of a desperate grab for tax revenue from any source imaginable, Fortune magazine reports that: "Chicago officials are taking an aggressive new tax approach. Consumers will now have to pay 9% on Netflix, Amazon Web Services and more.

Chicago is marking Independence Day this year with fireworks, hot dogs – and sweeping new tax rules that require companies to collect a 9% levy every time consumers use streaming and cloud services such as Netflix or Amazon Web Services.

The rules, which went into effect today, came about after city officials expanded the interpretation of existing amusement and property lease taxes to encompass cloud-based technologies."

So if you are Netflix fan in Chicago, the cost of enjoying a desired movie just got 9% more expensive because the local political class 1) “expanded the interpretation” of existing laws, 2) decided to target just a small sample of Internet access, and 3) desperately needs the money since the city of Chicago’s bonds are now rated at junk bond level.

But we have known that Chicago and the entire state of Illinois is heading quickly down a bankruptcy path, given the corrupt and irresponsible historical management of taxpayer wealth. I think that the bigger issue that Chicago citizens should worry about is since it is highly unlikely that desperate, local politicians will suddenly develop political will and economic sense, might they decide that taxing Internet activity is a good thing? Might we see taxing every Facebook post, a fee for every Tweet, etc.? I would not put it below the political class to do so.

3) It is always a close call each month to decide which is the most incompetent Federal entity. The finalists usually include the IRS, the TSA, or the Social Security Administration (SSA). This month it looks like the SSA has taken the early lead in ineptness. 

According to a recent report from the SSA inspector general, the SSA actually spends more money than it collects when trying to recover mistaken, illegal or fraudulent payments from people who received benefits they were not entitled to. Somehow, between 2008 and 2013, the SSA gave out $128.3 million in so-called “low dollar” overpayments, spent $323 million trying to recover the $128.3 million, and ended up collecting only $109.4 million. Thus, they spent $213.6 more money than what they collected.

4) A lot has been made about slavery in the past few weeks after the horrendous and terrible attack on a South Carolina church that left nine people dead. The President has weighed in many times with statements identifying the Confederate flag as a “symbol of slavery.” Such a statement does carry some moral weight given the ethnic background of the President.

But he then turns around and his actions are the exact opposite of what he says. The TPP is a treaty under consideration that would theoretically lower trade barriers across the Pacific basin including the U.S. Originally, the treaty had an anti-slavery provision in it that was written by U.S.Senator Bob Menendez, as reported by the Huffington Post: “The provision, which bars countries that engage in slavery from being part of major trade deals with the U.S., was written by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.). At the insistence of the White House, Menendez agreed to modify his language to say that as long as a country is taking ‘concrete’ steps toward reducing human trafficking and forced labor, it can be part of a trade deal.”

“Under the original language, the country that would be excluded from the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership pact is Malaysia.”

“Why, in the year 2015, is the White House teaming up with Republican leaders essentially to defend the practice of slavery?” 

Again, greed wins out over principle in Washington. Obama often talks a good show, most transparent administration ever, we will reduce your annual healthcare costs up to $2,500, we will reduce the annual spending deficit by 50%, etc. but his actions almost always belittle and contradict his words. 

Slavery symbols from 150 years ago tick him off but slavery TODAY, with living breathing human beings, is okay as long as some nebulous meaningless steps, steps to be defined, are being taken sometime in the future to get rid of it. And he sacrifices his words and integrity for the country of Malaysia, a nit in the world economy. As always with this president, love his words, ignore his hypocrisy.

That will do it for today’s insanity. Hypocrisy on slavery from the first African American President, an inept Social Security Administration, Netflix desperation in Chicago, and continued tepid economic results. All in a day’s work for the American political class.

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

June, 2015, Part 7, Political Class Insanity: Government Dysfunction from the IRS to The Veterans Administration and Beyond

It is the start of another month which means it is time to review the latest political class insanity that the American political class has dropped on our heads in the past month or so. We do this review every month in order to continually prove our view that we are currently being served by the worst set of politicians in the history of our country. Their inane quotes, their failed programs and laws, their wasteful spending, their ineptness, and continued focus on their own careers and self enrichment at the expense of taxpayers is constant and disgraceful.

This month could be one of the worst ever, given the backlog that needs to be discussed. The insanity will cover a full range of areas where today’s politicians continue to disappoint and fail us. As always, the new ways they find to screw up is never ending and always creative.

Today is the seventh update to the insanity for this month:

1) In late April, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that the Department of Energy’s Loan Guarantee Program will likely cost American taxpayers $2.2 billion over the life of the loans that the Department has given to usually inept alternative energy companies. The GAO also reported that already $807 million of those loans have gone into default.

Much of the money lost on defaulted loans have been associated with five companies: two solar panel manufacturers, Solyndra Inc. and Abound Manufacturing Solar LLC; two green vehicle programs, Fisker Automotive Inc. and the Vehicle Production Group LLC; and one energy storage project, Beacon Power. GAO investigators said "those technology projects were risky from the start, and each had a shaky credit rating.” 

However, to add insult to injury of this terrible program, an alternative energy company accused of filing fraudulent loan applications will receive additional taxpayer funds. According to The Washington Free Beacon, “A green energy company accused by two former employees of filing fraudulent applications for federal grant money will receive additional subsidies to research geothermal energy, the Department of Energy announced on Tuesday. The company, Ormat Geothermal, will help lead a team of researchers in Nevada that will receive a chunk of the $2 million DOE has set aside for geothermal research in five states. DOE will distribute another $29 million for the second phase of the project, according to the Associated Press.”

Unreal. Billions of dollars spent with no societal benefit in return. And still the Washington political class insists on giving away more taxpayer money including giving it to a company that may have committed fraud in a previous round of loan agreements.

2) But it is not just the Department of Energy that can waste a lot of taxpayer money. According to a recent report by the inspector general at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), CMS ignored earlier recommendations from a previous inspector general audit that could have reduced Medicare costs by $251 million. According to the latest report:

• “In updating our analysis, we found that Medicare expenditures for DME infusion drugs could have been reduced by $251 million in an 18-month period if the ASP-based payment methodology recommended by OIG had been implemented in April 2013 (i.e., the quarter after our earlier report was issued).” 
• According to the inspector general report: “If payment amounts for DME infusion drugs had been based on ASPs rather than decade-old AWPs between the second quarter of 2013 and the third quarter of 2014, total Medicare Part B spending would have decreased by 35 percent (from $712 million to $461 million), a reduction of $251 million.”
• The report concluded: “Under this methodology, providers are being reimbursed for many drugs at double their costs, while recouping only half of their costs for other drugs.”

As always, the government bureaucracy cannot even save money when shown how to save money.

3) From the previous story we see that even when the Federal government is shown how to save money they blow it. The following story is along the same lines, even when the Federal government focuses on a high profile problem and tries to fix it they still some how blow it. 

A year or so ago it came to light that the Veterans Administration (VA) was doing a horrible job getting medical care, as promised, to the nation's veterans. Vets were dying as a result of the incompetence while high ranking VA officials were getting big, fat raises for their inferior performance. Congress got involved, the President swore that corrective action would be taken, and additional funds were allocated to address the high profile issue.

A year later, the Associated Press (AP) reports that despite the high visibility and the sense of urgency on the issue, nothing has really changed or improved over time. According to the AP’s David B. Caruso:

• “VA statistics show that the number of patients facing long waits has not declined, even after Congress gave the department an extra $16.3 billion last summer to shorten waits for care.”
• Almost 900,000 completed medical appointments at various VA medical locations from August, 2014 through February, 2015, failed to meet the VA’s timeliness goal, a goal that requires patients be seen within 30 days.
• More than 25% of those appointments were not met within 60 days.
• Despite the urgency of the President and Congress, since last summer, the number of veterans waiting more than 30 or 60 days for non-emergency care has largely stayed flat, i.e. no improvement, but the number of medical appointments that take longer than 90 days to complete has nearly doubled.

This is why we have always asserted that the Federal government has to get much smaller and focus on far fewer activities. This would accomplish two goals. First, it would return hard earned taxpayer wealth back to taxpayers where it would not be wasted. And second, if the Federal govenrment and the Washingotn political class that operates it focused on far fewer activities it might actually succeed in resolving a problem. As it is today, the Federal government does a whole lot of things very poorly, very expensively, and never effectively.

4) Throughout this month’s review of the latest political class insanity, we have been posing the question of which is the most inept government entity. The IRS and TSA seem to be the leading candidates, at least in our recent discussions on political class insanity. The IRS recently admitted that it had sent over 600 tax refund checks to the same address in….Ireland. The TSA has admitted it has lost at least hundreds of TSA security badges, endangering the flying public since those badges could conceivably be used to give terrorists access to secure areas of airports.

But now the Social Security Administration (SSA) has jumped into the fray for being the most inept government organization for at least the past month. In a recent audit by the SSA’s inspector general, the SSA likely and mistakenly paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars in SSA benefits to sexual predators who were involuntarily confined to Special Commitment Centers.

The audit found that 18 different sexual predators in four different Centers had been improperly paid $524,000 in either Social Security benefits or Supplemental Security INcome payments. More disgustingly, the same type of scandal was uncovered three years ago when 14 sexual predators were able to receive more than $500,000 in SSA benefits. In other words, despite being told they were being scammed and how they were being scammed, three years later SSA executives had not fixed the problem.

This is not only a failure of management it is also against the law. Under Federal law, the SSA is supposed to stop payments to “sexually dangerous persons” confined in institutions. According to the audit however, the SSA has no security protocols or processes in place to prevent this type of scam from actually happening.

That will do it for today’s insanity. From the Department of Energy to Medicare to the IRS to the Social Security Administration, we are obviously in the midst of a government wide breakdown in fiscal accountability, management control, and wasteful spending on a scale never seen before. All paid for by the American taxpayer who usually gets not positive return at all for their taxpayer dollars.

And the sad thing is that seven days into this month’s political class insanity, we are not even close to be done with our coverage of it all. More insanity and heartache 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:

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

April, 2015, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: Our Golfing Addicted President, Sex Partying DEA Agents, and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time to review the latest political class insanity that has cropped up over the past 30 days or so. As regular readers of this blog know, political class insanity comes in many different forms including, but not limited to, the following craziness:

• Spending taxpayer wealth on idiotic programs and projects.
• Wasting taxpayer wealth on their own selfish financial and political needs.
• Implementing legislation to resolve problems that make the original problems worse or which created unintended bad consequences as a result of their legislation.
• Implementing legislation that supports their political donors and financial backers rather than the typical American citizen.
• Issuing idiotic and stupid comments.
• Overseeing government organizations that are incompetent, inefficient, ineffective, and wasteful of taxpayer wealth.

As always, it is highly likely we will identify new forms of insanity over the next few days as we review the past ineptness coming out of Washington and other bastions of American politicians.

1) The current state of the world is not good:

• Yemen has become a lawless country infested with at least three different terrorist groups.
• Egypt and Saudi Arabia are bombing Yemen.
• ISIS is still running wild and growing in northern Iraq and Syria.
• The Obama administration is about to sign off on an agreement that will make Iran able to develop nuclear weapons capability in a relatively short time frame.
• Our relations at the highest levels of government between our traditional ally and only democracy in the Middle East, Israel, and the U.S.Federal government is at an all time low.
• The economic growth situation in the this country and the related employment situation is still stagnant.
• Our borders still leak, our public schools still continue to under educate, we are still losing our war on drugs, and we still do not have a long term energy strategy for the country.

Given this context, according to a recent Washington Examiner report and other news reports:

• President Obama recently jetted down to Florida for a round of golf on the taxpayer tab at an exclusive Florida country club.
• This was the 222nd round of golf he has played since becoming President, by far the most rounds of Presidential golf played since the Eisenhower Presidency six decades ago.
• According to Air Force documents obtained by the Judicial Watch, it costs $210,877 an hour to fly Air Force One, putting the round trip price tag at $843,508 for this one round of Presidential golf.
• According to press reports from members of the media flying with the President, the beer started flowing shortly after takeoff at 9:30 am, leading to the following press pool report: "You can tell this is a non work trip because someone forward of the press cabin ordered 3 beers at 9:26 a.m."
• In order to not photograph or report on the President during his round of golf, all members of the media were shuttered into a shack on the golf course until the round was done.

Certainly another “bad optics” experience for this Presidency, another bad set of priorities, another piece of insanity, given the multitude of crises facing the country that have erupted during his time in office.

2) We are less than three weeks away from filing our Federal income taxes, an act that if not done properly and on time could result in fines and jail time for most Americans. I say for most Americans, since again in 2014, the IRS has found that for many Federal employees, paying only some of none of their Federal income taxes appears to be acceptable:

• More than 100,00 Federal employees did not pay or part of their Federal income taxes employees.
• It represents almost 4% of the Federal workforce who are in violation of IRS rules and laws.
• They are depriving the Federal government and the American taxpayer $1.14 billion in unpaid Federal income taxes.
• Among categories of Americans who receive direct compensation from the Federal government, only retired military veterans have a higher tax evasion rate, 4.04%, likely because many of them are homeless or unemployed as compared to Federal government employees that are employed and making really good money and salaries.
• 500 House of Representative staffers owe a combined $6.7 million to the IRS for unpaid Federal income taxes.last year.
• This 100,000 level establishes a new record high for tax evasion by Federal employees.

Another example of total dysfunction on the part of the Federal government and the politicians who are supposed to be overseeing their operations. The IRS obviously knows who these tax evaders are, they know how much they are evading, so why is it so hard to confiscate their government wages until their tax debt is wiped out? 

Sounds simple but as we have often shown with our insanity posts, even simple is often beyond the reach and capability of today’s politicians. But you can be sure that if you or I did not pay all of our taxes, our fate would be far worse than those who are tax evading Federal employees.

3) Another example of dysfunction of the Federal government and those that oversee its operations cropped up in a Special Security Administration (SSA) Inspector General report and audit. That audit found that the SSA had live, valid Social Security numbers on record for 6.5 million Americans that are over 112 years old.

This is interesting since:

• According to Census records, there are only about 6.0 million living Americans who are over the age of 85, making it impossible to have 6.5 million over the age of 112.
• According to Wikipedia, there are about 16 Americans living in the country today who are over the age of 110.

Which obviously raises some simple questions relative to 6.5 million lived SSA accounts:

• How many of those 6.5 million accounts are being used by relatives of deceased Americans who have kept the account alive and are illegally receiving Social Security benefit payments?
• How many of those 6.5 million accounts are being used by organized crime to skim and scam taxpayer wealth out of the SSA?
• How many of those 6.5 million accounts are being used by illegal immigrants to illegally stay in this country, find work in this country, and get illegal benefits in this country from the SSA?

There is a really simple solution to this problem. Identify the 16 Americans who are actually still alive, put their SSA numbers aside, and then cancel the remaining 6.5 million SSA numbers and see what happens. 

Odds are the criminals will move onto to other endeavors once they realize the jig is up and using deceased Americans’ Social Security numbers, saving billions in taxpayer wealth. Anyone who shows up and complains about losing a valid number is likely a criminal and should be arrested for SSA fraud.

Simple, right? But again, much too hard for the political class to comprehend and to force the Federal government to do. Another pathetic example of wasting taxpayer wealth as a result of government incompetence.

4) More government operations incompetence. According to recent news reports:

• Federal Drug Enforcement (DEA) agents operating in Columbia over the years apparently were treated to sex parties, courtesy of the local drug cartels, the same people and organizations that the agents were supposed to be shutting down.
• Many of the sex parties and prostitutes were hosted at rented DEA facilities and offices where sensitive electronic equipment such as computers and smartphones were available to be compromised.
• The cartels provided security for DEA agents’ weapons during the sex parties.

News reports on the sex parties can be viewed at:

http://www.mrctv.org/videos/nbc-continues-ignore-report-dea-sex-parties-funded-drug-cartels

These sex parties occurred over a number of years but recently came to light. One has to wonder if there are others that have not yet been uncovered. Another example of a dysfunctional government operation and poor or no oversight by the politicians that are supposed to keep these operations efficient, focused, and effective. Touch to be any of those things when the sex is free.

A President that would rather golf and fund raise than lead, 100,000 Federal government employees who seem to think that filing and paying incomes taxes is optional, a Social Security Administration which seems to think the fountain of youth exists at least within their records, and a DEA set of agents who party at drug cartel expense.

That’s enough for today, which turned out to be a focus on the overall incompetence of the Federal government and the political oversight that has failed to make these operations and entities a worthwhile investment for the taxpayer. More and varied insanity to follow in the upcoming days.

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