January, 2018, Part 2, Political Class Insanity: A Senator Votes For The Opposite Of What He Believes, Another Politician Gets Indicted and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Let's get started:

1) We have often pointed out how confused, dazed, and lost most politicians are. We once reported that a Georgia Congressman thought the island of Guam could tip over in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We reported on a Texas Congresswoman who thought that there were still two Vietnams with North Vietnam ruling over South Vietnam. That same Congresswoman once declared that her own Congressional district was 50 feet below sea level which, of course, it was not. We once had a Speaker of the House proclaim that a piece legislation (Obama Care) had to be passed BEFORE we could see what was in it.

Which brings us to the latest piece of politician confusion. As most of you know, Washington recently enacted some far reaching tax reform legislation that will reduce and simplify the Federal tax process. It is estimated that over 140 America tax filers will see a reduction in their taxes going forward as a result. The tax legislation will also make filing one’s taxes easier and quicker. And the legislation has already resulted in companies taking important steps to reward themselves, their employees, their stockholders, and the charities they support with their tax savings.

Which brings us to our latest confused politician. Joe Manchin is a Democratic Senator from the state of West Virginia. He voted against the tax reform legislation as did every other Democrat in Congress. In a recent radio interview, Manchin acknowledged there was a lot of good in the legislation that he voted against: “There’s some good in this bill. I acknowledge that. The things that you mention are correct. Initially people will benefit and see some changes in their taxes.” He went on to say that, “I think there is going to be benefit from the get-go, which is called the sugar high.”

Now, he did try, vainly, to justify his no vote on the legislation. He said that taxes could go up in ten years if Congress does not renew the tax cuts. Well, that gives Americans ten years of tax reductions, Joe, and in ten years all Congress has to do is renew the tax cuts, that simple. Another way to say the same thing is a line I found describing Manchin’s idiotic position: “Which is like saying you’re going to pass on this delicious chocolate cake right now because there might not be any left in 2027.” 

Obviously, Manchin voted against his conscience and voted along party lines because his handlers in the upper end of the Democratic Party dictated his vote. Which is just another example of what is wrong with our political class in America today: doing the right thing always takes a back seat to doing the things that benefit only politicians and the two major political parties.

2) It is not only politicians that are confused, dazed, and lost. Often celebrities are the same way. For some reason they think that because they are good at show business stuff that they have deep insights into life and politics that they need to share, and impose, on the rest of us who do not have their brains or knowledge.

Third tier comedian Rosie O’Donnell is one of those show business types. She has been a vocal, often hysterical critic, of Trump ever since he decided to run for the Presidency, somehow thinking that her ranting and raving will make some kind of positive difference in the state of the union.

Unfortunately, her out of control ranting and raving may have exposed her to some serious felony possibilities:

• Tim Brown, writing for the Freedom Outpost website recently, reported that O’Donnell could face a $12 million fine and 15 years in prison for attempted bribery.
• In the run up to the vote to reduce taxes, O’Donnell went on Twitter and publicly offered to pay two Republican Senators $2 million if they voted against the tax reduction legislation.
• Unfortunately, selling your vote to the highest bidder is not the way our republic and government processes are supposed to work which makes offering a sitting member of Congress money to vote a certain way a crime.
• According to the article: “18 U.S. Code § 201 criminalizes the attempted bribery of federal officials by whoever “directly or indirectly, corruptly gives, offers or promises anything of value to any public official … with intent to influence any official act.””...”The fine to be imposed would be “not more than three times the monetary equivalent of the thing of value, whichever is greater, or imprisoned for not more than fifteen years, or both, and may be disqualified from holding any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.””
• While some people initially thought her bribery tweet was in jest or to make a symbolic point, she followed up with another tweet, insisting she was serious, making her even more susceptible to prosecution.

Still no cure for stupid...or show business people who think they are smarter than the rest of us when it comes to politics, government, and the world.

3) Probably the second most mentioned topic in this blog behind stupidity of politicians is the crookedness of politicians. Which brings us to the latest instance of a crooked politician:

• Virginia Democratic Congressional candidate Shaun Brown was recently indicted by a Federal grand jury.
• The indictment includes two counts of wire fraud and one count of theft of government property.
• Specifically, the indictment claims that Brown and others filed bogus claims with the Federal government’s Summer Food Service Program in excess of $439,000 via a non-profit group that Brown founded in 1995.
• Her non-profit was supposed to provide meals to children of low income households during the months when those kids could not get meals via school lunches.
• The indictment claims that Brown defrauded the Federal government, and American taxpayers, by submitting for compensation for more meals than she actually served.

If true, and a Federal grand jury indictment is serious stuff, then how low is this potential member of Congress, using hungry kids as a front to defraud the American taxpayer. And she wanted to be a member of Congress. So sad and pathetic.

That will do it for today’s insanity: Another potential greedy and pathetic politician, this one feasting off of low income kids, an idiotic show business celebrity whose big mouth might land her in prison, and a Senator who voted how others in his political sphere dictated how he was to vote rather than voting for the best interests of his constituents. More insanity to follow.

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

December, 2017, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: A Congresswoman Goes to Prison, Baltimore Homicides Soars, and a Senator Howls With Ignorance

It is the beginning of another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

1) We have previously discussed the reality that a former Congresswoman, Corrine Brown, had first been arrested and then prosecuted for defrauding a charity that she and others had set up. Now we know what punishment she faces, according to the Liberty Headlines website:

• She was recently sentenced to a five year federal prison for various fraud and tax crimes.
• This included raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for a sham charity she had established.
• Her long time former chief of staff when she was in Congress, Ronnie Simmons, got 48 months in prison for her actions and the former head of the sham charity, Carla Wiley got a 21 month sentence.The judge chastised the three of them for stealing money from a charity that was set up to supposedly help kids and spent on themselves and their lavish lifestyles: “This was a crime born out of entitlement and greed committed to ensure a lifestyle that was beyond their means. Just think of the good that could have been done with that money if it would have been used for its intended purpose.”
• The former Congresswoman will start serving her five years beginning on January 8, 2018. 

Another example of the types of people that now populate our political class, classless, greedy, and totally out of integrity.

2) We have often talked how politicians in Chicago, Chicago’s county, and Chicago’s state have put forth some of the toughest gun control laws in the country and every year seem to set records for gun violence and murder by guns, most of which were illegally obtained and used despite the tough gun control laws in place. These politicians at the city county, and state level keep tighten gun laws, denying law abiding citizens the right to defend themselves, while never addressing the underlying root causes of gun violence and use.

But according to another recent article on the Liberty Headlines website, Baltimore, another city and state with ever restrictive gun control laws, is suffering the same fate of Chicago, the continual shredding of the Second Amendment without any discernible decrease in the city’s violent culture and underlying problems:

• As of early December, 319 people had been violently killed in the city of Baltimore. 
• With a month to go in 2017, the city has now had more homicides this year, 318, vs. the 317 that occurred in all of 2016.
• The annual Baltimore record for homicides occurred in 2015 when 344 homicides were reported which means that the all time record could be broken if 27 more homicides occur in December.
• The city has become so dangerous that it is now reported that school trips to the city have been cancelled since it is now deemed to dangerous to enter the city.

Another case where politicians have no idea how to resolve the underlying root causes of violence and crime in the city and continue to enact and enforce useless gun control laws as the Baltimore record for annual homicides continues to be threatened in 2017.

3) One of the most inane and most stupid politician statement ever issued was done by Nancy Pelosi when she was Speaker of The House back during the early days of the Obama administration. That was the time when Obama and Congressional Democrats were trying to pass Obama Care, a piece of legislation that has turned out to be a complete failure as we have reported every month in this blog.

Pelosi made the public statement that the Obama Care legislation had to be enacted so that we, the country, could see what is in it. In other words, as Speaker of the House, she had no idea what was involved with the proposed legislation and would not know what was in it until it had been passed. You cannot make up this idiocy. What else do Washington politicians have to do but write, debate, READ, and enact laws? Pathetic.

But this statement of idiocy may have been recently challenged by Senator Elizabeth Warren. Ms. Warren recently harshly criticized the tax reform legislation that Congressional Republicans are close to passing:

• According to Mike MIller, writing for the Independent Journal Review on December 2, 2017, the Senator stated that the legislation was,“Tax cuts for the rich, tax hikes for the middle class.”
• She also called the legislation a “GOP tax scam.”
• Seems like she has some strong objections and opinions on what is in the legislation.
• But here is the idiocy, she admitted on Twitter that she had not read the legislation: “No, I haven’t had time to read the 500-page #GOPTaxScam bill that we’re voting on tonight. I couldn’t read it if I tried – and I did.”

Fabulous, here we have an important Senator spouting off about an important issue for all Americans and she has not even read the document she is bellowing about. Hell of a why to operate a government.

And even worse than this insanity, according to the Heritage Foundation there is a real good chance she is completely wrong about this begin a scam, hurting middle class and helping the rich. Rachel Greszler, writing for the Heritage Foundation on December 6, 2017, obviously had better data and more common sense than Warren since she wrote about a detailed financial analysis on how five different prototypical senior families would be treated by the GOP tax reform.

These five scenarios looked at five different family and income configurations and computed what the tax burden change would be under the GOP tax reform legislation that Warren never read. In two of those scenarios, the family would see no change in their tax burden, in two scenarios the family would see a good decrease in their tax burden and in one scenario, there would be a substantial rise in the family’s tax burden.

And guess which family would an increase in their tax burden Senator Warren. It was the hypothetical family earning a million dollars a year. Those in the lower and middle class families would see no change in their tx burden or a decrease in their tax burden, the exact opposite of what you howled about. And the Heritage Foundation analysis actually read and analyzed the legislation, something you seemed to deem not important before erroneously going berserk.

To see the detailed analysis that came to the above conclusions, go to:

http://dailysignal.com/2017/12/06/retirees-save-money-tax-reform-key-examples/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell%22&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTldRM01XWTNZelZoTUdaaCIsInQiOiJaQ2c1RUZFcUJmS21zMDlxdCs0SEwxVlVZSEh1NjV4TWp1a2VIbHZldGZcL1l4anN4em1pQTFLRWJiZm5OQ1NPSjBsYUFSckp0RGlcL1NrU0FHUHJqTkNsazVQSHVpdXZCTEJpNHJyWEdYc2wyR3BjSllCK2VQdlFUUlFTazE0RXcrIn0%3D

To see the detailed analysis that Warren used in her analysis go to her Twitter feed.

That will do it for today’s insanity, a good start for this month: a Senator that has no idea what she is yelling about, a former Congresswoman going to prison for despicable, selfish behavior, and more policy and politician failures in Baltimore with fatal results. More insanity to follow.

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.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Tax Day Travesties and Facts, Part 2

This is our second post regarding how much we paid in taxes last year and how little we received in return from the American political class for those taxes in both the quality and quantity of government services. The first post from yesterday can be accessed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/04/tax-day-travesties-and-facts-part-1.html

We will be showing in these tax day posts that we have truly moved from a state of heavy taxation into a state of tax oppression. Many Americans’ Tax Freedom Day, that day of the new year when we stop working for all forms of American government and start working for ourselves and our families has not even occurred yet. Almost four months into the new year.

And what we do get from the political class in the form of government programs and support is usually inefficient, ineffective, criminally targeted and often make the original problem worse or create new problems for Americans via unintended consequences. The tax insanity continues today with the following random facts about taxation in America and how it is often no more than highway robbery.

1) Consider what some of your tax payments bought for you and the country last year, as documented by the Watchdog.org organization:

• An $876,752 study on snail sex - A University of Iowa study is trying to figure out if it’s better for snails to reproduce sexually or asexually. Finally, an answer to the question everyone has been asking, a question that has absolutely no bearing on the lives of 99.99999999% of Americans.
• A $16 million tropical vacation - That was the final price tag on President Obama’s most recent holiday vacations to Hawaii and Africa.
• A $750,000 study on how kid cartoons contribute to obesity - The National Science Foundation awarded two grants totaling $750,000 to find out if cartoon characters are making children overweight. No, eating too much junk food is making kids fat, not getting enough exercise is making kids fat. I could have answered the question for far less than $750,000.
• A $2.4 million program to develop “origami condoms” - It includes male and female versions and the “first of its kind anal condom.” There is a joke about screwing the taxpayer somewhere in here.
• A $30,410 “beauty salon” in a Federal prison -At least it’s a women’s federal prison.
• Millions in drugs for prisoners -Medicare sent millions in improper payments to incarcerated criminals. In other words, bilking Medicare is so easy even prisoners behind bars can do it and not get caught.
• A $98,670 outhouse -The Federal Bureau of Land Management may have just built the most expensive outhouse ever at the Swede Park Trail Head in Alaska.
• $700 million of Obama Care promotion -Despite President Obama’s claim that the government did not “make a hard sell” for Obama Care, his administration spent nearly $700 million to promote the law. Another Presidential lie.

When you wrote your income tax check to the IRS last week, some of that money you earned went to pay for idiotic programs like these.

2) The best way to grow the economy is for private business owners to expand their operations and grow their businesses. However, any distraction that keeps them from doing that, e.g. filling out tax forms and returns, hinders their ability to do that very important task. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the average small business owner spends 80 hours each year complying with U.S. tax regulations. 80 hours a year, the equivalent of two 40 hour work weeks. 4% of the entire year is spent just on filing small business tax forms on average.

This is time that the average business owner cannot use to look for new markets, develop new products, train his staff, take better care of customers, all activities that would eventually help us all by expanding the economy. Instead, he is sitting down and laboriously trying to stay legal in the face of a Federal tax code that is over 70,000 pages long. 

In light of this oppressive task, the Chamber calculated what one could do if they were given an extra 80 hours a year. Turns out, you could do quite a bit.

• You could complete 17 marathons (if you run the U.S. average pace of 10:34 mile/hour). 
• You could go around the world 1.7 times (on a commercial jet) or twice if you were on a military jet. 
• You could go to the moon 4.8 times (if you traveled on NASA’s New Horizons Pluto mission). 
• You could cook 14.5 perfect 20-pound turkeys (unstuffed, and back-to-back for 5.5 hours each, not simultaneously) 
• You could watch all eight Harry Potter movies four times.
• Or, if you are a small business owner, you could complete your 2013 taxes.

A new survey of small business owners by the National Small Business Association (NSBA) reveals that more than half of small employers say the administrative burdens and paperwork associated with tax season pose the greatest harm to their businesses. One in four business owners surveyed said they spend at least three full weeks on the annual chore. How sad is it when the American political class is the greatest source of harm for American small businesses?

If it is any consolation, a tax analysis by the American Action Forum found that even the Treasury Department and IRS are also buckling under the administrative burdens of tax season:

[T]he Department of Treasury’s paperwork burden is at its highest level in history. At more than 7.8 billion hours, Treasury’s paperwork budget has increased 1.5 billion hours since FY 2010, or 19 percent. Since 1995, the earliest year AAF could compile data, Treasury’s burden has increased 47 percent.

A 19% increase since just four years ago is a great measure of how out of control the tax system is in this country. It is a system that is robbing the economy of vibrancy and wealth and overburdening an already overburdened bureaucracy. In other words everyone, consumers, businesses, IRS are choking on the tax code with no substantial benefits.

The NSBA report also found that a the clear majority of small businesses (67%) polled by NSBA support broad tax reform that will reduce corporate and individual tax rates coupled with reduced deductions. This thought and feeling was recently captured by the Chamber’s Chief economist Marty Regalia: 

Comprehensive pro-growth tax reform is the major key to jump-starting the economy, promoting job creation, and ensuring long-run improvement in productivity, wage growth, and our standard of living. It can help us maintain our competitive edge in the global economy and address some of the problems in income and wealth distribution. Moreover, it is an absolutely necessary component to getting our fiscal house in order.

Now, all we need to do is educate the American people, elect a Congress that can work together for the common good, adopt a common goal, and convince the president that leadership sometimes requires the courage to get out and stay out in front.

Work together, common good, common goal, leadership, courage. Good luck with getting those attributes from the current set of politicians in Washington. These are the same people who gave us a tax code with over 70,000 pages in the first place.

3) We have been discussing how we get very little back in quality services from the Washington political class despite being placed under oppressive taxation. But sometimes we get absolutely nothing back for the tax check we wrote last week as shown by the fact that the State Department has allocated $1.5 million of our tax money for job development programs in distressed neighborhoods….in Belize. 

We are not going to spend money to help the over 20 million Americans who are either underemployed or unemployed. We are not going to help the hundreds and hundreds of distressed neighborhoods in the U.S. We are going to help distressed neighborhoods and unemployed people in Belize. I challenge anyone to find Belize on the map, never mind sending them $1.5 million an amount that probably will not make any difference anyway, given it is so small.

Specifically, the State Department Belize program has the following objectives:

1. “The proposal will confront the root causes of violence and crime in a creative and effective way and seek to create positive cultural and social conditions, which are the foundations of a peaceful and orderly society.” Sounds like BS and even if this was achievable, wouldn’t starting in U.S. cities like Detroit or Camden be a far better return on American taxpayer dollars? They certainly need the foundations of a peaceful and orderly society to be created in these decaying American cities.
2. “Root causes in Belize include, but are not limited to, the lack of economic development, the lack of skills and/or tradecraft, the lack of conflict resolution skills, and/or the lack of opportunity for youth.” Again, substitute Detroit, Camden or a hundred other American towns and cities for the word Belize and the statement would hold true except that it would intend to help Americans who are suffering.
3. “Marginalized youth are empowered when given a voice and opportunities. Equipping marginalized youth and their communities with economic opportunities and/or business training can help them reach their true potential as entrepreneurs and improve citizen security.” The current unemployment rate for American youth is almost 21%. Shouldn’t they get first crack at reaching their true potential?

Thus, you can rest assured that your tax money and belated Tax Freedom Day are helping out needy people in Belize, where ever that is.

So let’s review. Your hard earned money and ever growing Tax Freedom Day pays for such vital services as origami condoms and the intimate sex knowledge and lives of snails, it hinders small businesses from growing their businesses and economy as result of an onerous task of just completing the marathon tax forms and understanding a voluminous tax code, and it sends the money collected during tax seasons to far away places like Belize, not even trying to deliver quality government services and support to the very people who paid for it in the first place.

You cannot make this idiocy up and the sad part, we still need another day to complete the tax season shuffle of 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.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w