Wastebook 2019 - The Washington Wasteful and Stupid Spending Machine Marches on

For years, various Republican Senators have published an annual report on wasteful spending by the Federal government. That’s the good news. The bad news is that these annual disgraces have done nothing to deter Washington politicians and bureaucrats from continuing to waste our hard earned tax dollars on nonsensical programs and projects.

The 2019 “Wastebook” has recently been published. As you read just a very, very small sample of the wasteful spending outlined below, keep in mind the following realities:

• The country is rapidly heading towards a whopping $23 TRILLION national debt, a lot of which was driven by stupid projects like the ones listed below.
• These program examples below serve very few Americans and in some cases serve no Americans at all.
• Social Security and Medicare are hurtling towards fiscal collapse, wouldn’t the money wasted below be better spent to help fix these programs that affect tens of millions of Americans?
• Millions of Americans are homeless, hungry, drug addicted and facing other crises, wouldn’t the money wasted below be better spent to help these Americans in need?

Keep these points in mind as we review seven incredible wastes of taxpayer money which help no American in need and fix none of the Federal government’s financial crises:

1) Washington sent $708,466 to England to study how zebrafish react once they are addicted to nicotine. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded a five year project “that involves actively addicting its subjects, zebrafish, to nicotine.” The objective of the study was supposed to “identify genes affecting vulnerability to addiction by screening lines of mutagenized zebrafish for core behaviors associated with addiction: sensitivity to drug reward and impulsivity.”

How matter how fancy you write the objective it is still a waste of tax dollars. Plus, even if you were going to waste over $700,000 on stupid research at least the NIH could have done was waste it on American scientists doing stupid research and not pay foreign scientists doing stupid research.

2) The State Department bought a statue created by Bob Dylan for $84,375 that was displayed at the U.S. embassy in Mozambique. Seriously? An $84,000 statue to be displayed thousands and thousands of miles away in a third world country? Who came up with this stupid idea and worse, who approved it? Bob Dylan is an American rock and roll star. He is not a famous sculptor who could justify such a purchase and I would bet that just about every citizen of Mozambique has no idea who Bob Dylan is.

3) But the NIH was not done wasting our money. It wasted a whopping $4,658,865 to study the connection between drinking alcohol and ending up in the local hospital emergency room. Heck, I you could have answered this “research” question for far less money: the more alcohol you drink, the higher the probability you will be ending up in an emergency room.

Back in college, myself and others conducted this experiment many times using our own beer money. And yes, drinking a lot of alcohol leads to stupid decisions which sometimes gets you hurt. But according to the NIH report: “Most recently, the researchers have pursued three goals. The first includes looking at alcohol use in the six hours before an injury, as well as the type of injury that brought patients to the ER, such as “traffic [accidents], falls … near drowning,” etc., in consideration of several factors in different countries, including legal restrictions on alcohol. Second, they are “estimat[ing] relative risk (RR) of injury related to alcohol consumption volume (dose-response relationship) by cause of injury,”. Lastly, they are “estimat[ing] alcohol attributable fraction (AAF) by cause of injury…” 

In layman’s terms: are you more likely to hurt yourself if you drink alcohol? Of course you are. And even more disgusting is that some of that $4 million was spent in foreign lands (“several factors in different countries”) getting foreigners drunk. The least they could have done is keep the drinking domestic.

4) The State Department spent $300,000 on something called the “Debates and Model U.N. Competitions in Afghanistan.” I have no idea what these debates are but come on, who thinks that these debates are necessary? Plus, the grant stated that the debates had to be conducted in English in Afghanistan where far less than 10% of the population speaks English. 

5) Even though some would claim that the D.C. metro subway system is the best in the country, those who ride it everyday, including my relatives, would strongly disagree with that statement. Flooding, service outages, fires, and often massive delays are a regular part of the Metro experience.

And to reward those operating such an inept system the Washington politicians gave the Metro $153 million this past year. If the system is so great, let the riders of the system pay to cover its operating costs. No need to burden taxpayers form Montana, Kansas, or anywhere else to pay for the operations of the local D.C. Metro.

6) The American taxpayer spent $33,921,175 to provide textbooks for Afghanistan students. Education is a great thing but should the American taxpayer be putting out over $33 million in a single year to educate students halfway around the world?

To add insult to injury, many of the textbooks never got out of the warehouse where they sat useless to any kid. Additionally, reports showed that the textbooks, used or sitting idle, were of the poorest quality from an education and physical quality perspective.

7) Not content to waste American taxpayer dollars in a failure to educate Afghani kids, the Washington bureaucracy spent $22 million trying to improve the education system in Egypt. Again, the basic question is WHY? Given the sad state of public education in this country, why didn’t those dollars stay in this country and fix our education system?

There you have it, just seven examples among the billions and billions of taxpayer dollars wasted every year by Washington. Consider a few alternative examples where this money could have actually benefited Americans:

• The above wasted dollars of just these seen examples add up to about $214 million.
• We have previously cited sources that estimated, on average, it costs about $2.80 to feed an American homeless person.
• Thus, the money wasted on the above seven projects could have provided over 73 million meals to American homeless and hungry citizens.
• If we assume that the average salary for an American teacher is $60,000 then the $55 million wasted on failed education efforts in Afghanistan and Egypt could have hired over 900 teachers for a year to help with our failing public schools.
• Since the average annual treatment for an opioid drug addict is about $6,500 a year, that $214 million could have treated about 33,000 Americans struggling with a drug addiction for a year.

You get the idea. So much could have been done for so many needy Americans instead of wasting $214 million on stupid science experiments, failed education programs around the world and other worthless efforts. This happens every year and still the American political class does nothing to stop the waste. They are too concerned with their own careers, their own greed, and their next election to really do the right thing for America and hard working American taxpayers.

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:

https://www.amazon.com/Walter-Bruno-Korschek/e/B002KYU08Q/ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

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

May, 2016, Part 8, Political Class Insanity: Still Wasting Taxpayer Money On Stupid Projects, Food Stamp Fraud In Florida, 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. In fact, last month we set a record, needing ten full posts to cover it all.

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 posts 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.

It looks like our politicians have been especially insane over the past month or so let’s get started with the latest insanity from today’s American politicians:

1) A recent online article by the Heritage Foundation reviewed a Congressional oversight report from Arizona Senator Jeff Flake entitled, “Twenty Questions: Government Studies That Will Leave You Scratching Your Head.” As you read these insanely wasteful uses of your tax dollars, keep in mind that 45 million Americans still need government food assistance every month, almost 50,000 Americans die from a drug overdose every year, millions of Americans go homeless in their lifetimes, our veterans are not getting the medical care they need and were promised, cancers and dementia kill thousands of Americans every month, and the country is about to go bankrupt with almost $20 TRILLION in national debt. Then decide if these examples are more important and better uses of your tax money:

• The National Institutes of Health spent millions of its $32 billion budget to study the appearance of Jesus Christ’s face on toast, the musical preferences of monkeys, and the contagious nature of yawning.
• But then cried that they did not have enough money in its budget to fight Ebola.
• The Oregon Health And Science University spent $5 million of taxpayer wealth to study whether zebra finches altered their singing habits when intoxicated, finding that alcohol did have an effect, something that anyone at closing time in their local bar could have concluded for far less than $5 million.
• Researchers at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana spend almost a quarter million to observe and measure the impact of cocaine on honey bees, finding that cocaine usage caused the bees to tend to dance twice as much. Not only is this a stupid study but taxpayer dollars were spent to purchase cocaine, an illegal substance.
• Bowdoin College in Maine spent a whopping $3.6 million to find out that when male goldfish are given sex steroids, they exhibited more social behavior and swam closer to their female counterparts.

These are just a handful of wasteful government spending examples that go on everyday in Washington while Americans are hungry, homeless, drug addicted, and dying from uncured diseases. And to add insult to injury, the NIH, one of the biggest culprits in wasting taxpayer wealth, has the nerve to ask Congress for an additional $2 billion to fight the Zika virus despite having already wasted a ton of money on toast, yawning, and who knows what else.

And these examples are nickel/dime compared to the $100 billion in wasteful, useless spending that Flake recently published in his annual compilation of wasteful spending, “Wastebook 2016.” Enter the search word “wastebook” in the search box above to find out about recent and past Wastebook insults to taxpayers.

In light of the mega-wasting of taxpayer wealth every year, it is almost comical to review Obama’s massive whopper of lie when he was first elected when he promised to go “through the Federal budget line by line” to weed out wasteful spending. Seven plus years later we can see what a joke and deception that false promise was. But at least we finally know that sex steroids in goldfish make them more aggressive. 

2) There is an old baseball saying that goes: “You cannot tell the players without a scorecard.” And now apparently in New York state, you cannot tell the criminal state politicians without the Buffalo News acting as your scorecard. A recent online article by the Buffalo News reporter Robert J. McCarthy provided “A Guide To Political Corruption Probes In New York State:”

- Former Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon was recently sentenced to 12 years in prison.

- Former Republican majority leader Dean Skelos of the State Senate, and his son, were recently sentenced for their crimes.

- G. Steen Pigeon, a statewide political operative and previous Erie County, New York Democratic chairman, had his home raided by state authorities last May. Recently, a New York State Supreme Court Justice was questioned by state and Federal government authorities based on information obtained by that raid. A grand jury is expected to be convened to follow up on both the Justice and others.

- NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio found out that the state Board of Elections found reasonable cause to go after a de Blasio political operation for possible coordination to hanky panky when it comes to donation limits in various New York state Senate races. Federal, city, and state district attorneys are investigating.

- New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo is seeing some of his political associates being investigated by state authorities relative to a state financed and sponsored manufacturing complex relative to how state government contracts are awarded. Additionally, a former Cuomo staff aide is being investigated to see if he and his wife improperly got tens of thousands of dollars from an engineering firm involved in the complex. Others are also being investigated, both individuals and companies. The Federal government is also investigating.

- State Democratic Senator Marc C. Panepinto is under investigation by a state ethics agency for undisclosed reasons after four Senate staffers resigned late last year. Panepinto suddenly decided not to seek re-election even though he was busy raising election campaign funds.

Just another day of political corruption, this time in the state government halls of New York.

3) The WSVN television station in Palm Beach County, Florida recently reported on the supposedly largest food stamp bust in U.S. history. The bust occurred at a flea market in Hialeah, Florida. The raid followed a complaint by an individual citizen who was a victim of identity theft. 

Details of the scam included the following facts:

• 500 Palm Beach County, Florida residents had their identities stolen which were then turned around and used to get fake Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) “food stamp” cards.
• The cards were then exchanged for cash at the flea market.
• Federal criminal charges involving 22 retail stores or operators who were involved in the scam were arrested.
• The scam resulted in at least $13 million of taxpayer wealth being illegally obtained by those charged.

More waste and more government ineptness. At least these people got caught. How many other similar taxpayer ripoffs are going on in every other county across the country that has not been busted by law enforcement? You can bet the Palm Beach County is not the only site of massive EBT corruption and criminal activity.

4) Earlier this week we reported on a recent opinion poll that showed only 6% of Americans believe that the media and today’s journalists are telling the truth when they report. We stated that we believe that most media and news outlets and sources have picked which political “side” they are in favor of and then report and slant any news coverage to make their side look good and the other political side look bad. 

This hypothesis and the opinion poll results get a little more credible when you consider the inane statement two, not one, MSNBC newscasters recently said on TV. According to MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts and Tamron Hall, Bill Clinton’s many, many instances of extra marital affairs are just “alleged affairs” and “alleged misconduct.” “Alleged?” Come on, Monica Lewinsky, Jennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, and many, many others were only “alleged?” 

If you are going to tell a lie or stretch the truth, at least work with material that has a potential for truth. Bill Clinton was a serial philanderer and adulter, no American with any sense of politics from the Clinton administration on forward knows that. Do not insult our intelligence and try to put forth a false narrative, that only makes you a modern day Pravda. 

That will do it for today’s insanity: still wasting taxpayer wealth on stupid projects, New York state politicians look to be more involved in getting indicted than governing, criminal fraud in government welfare programs proven again in Palm Beach county in Florida, and delusional MSNBC political commentators who somehow cannot face the reality that Bill Clinton has had a few extramarital affairs. 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

December, 2015, Bonus Post, Political Class Insanity: Wastebook 2015

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 stalling.
• 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.
• 45 million Americans are still receiving monthly Federal food assistance.
• Our borders still leak and thousands of illegal immigrant criminals continue to walk our streets.
• 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, saying and wasting. Today we are focusing solely on the latest publication in the government Wastebook series. For years, former Senator Tom Coburn combed through Federal government spending to annually find the 100 most outrageous ways that the Washington political class waste taxpayer wealth. 

That tradition continued this year, operated by Senator Jeff Flake since Coburn is no longer in the Senate. The insanity and idiocy of the spending, however, is just as outrageous and insulting to hard working, tax paying Americans as ever. As we have asserted in previous years when we reviewed past Wastebook examples, no American, rich or poor, should ever pay another penny in taxes until this type of rampant nonsensical spending is eliminated by the Federal government and those that operate it.

In light of the release of the upcoming Star Wars movie, this year’s issue is entitled, Wastebook 2015, The Farce Awakens. And what a farce it is, especially in light of the problems facing Americans that we listed above.

1) One study by the National Institutes of Health paid university researchers $1 million to study the effects of monkeys running on treadmills. Some of the findings included documenting how some of the monkeys vomited and defecating while exercising on the treadmills. I can think of no reason in the world why we need to study monkey treadmill behavior. If the justification of the $1 million is to study how treadmill use affects humans, than do the study on humans directly, why on monkeys?

2) The National Science Foundation (NSF) is always a main source of idiotic projects and wasteful spending that have nothing to do with real science and real world issues. Previous wastes of taxpayer money from the NSF can be seen at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2011/06/national-science-foundation-wasting.html

This year the NSF stepped up with studies to see if a koozie does in fact keep beer cold (it does, rejoice!), conducted wine classes to teach minors how to make wine to the tune of $853,000, and gave the Department of Agriculture $68,129 to spend on a craft beer, wine, and spirits training program…..in Vietnam.

3) The Department of Transportation spent $77,000 on anti-drunk driving public service announcements where fake drunk men criticize women’s looks. One of the announcements filmed a fake drunk guy telling a woman that “plastic surgery would do wonders for your jaw structure and definitely your nose” and another one had a fake drunk man telling a woman she would “be cuter with the lights off.” Huh, how does this type of sexist, insulting behavior fix a drunk driving issue?

4) A California professor landed an amazing $5 million to throw “commune” dance parties for young “hipsters” to try and get them to stop smoking. Party attendees were actually paid $5 a week to attend these taxpayer sponsored parties. Getting people to stop smoking is a noble effort but spending $5 million in a single location in California is not the way to do it because 1) it is a stupid idea and 2) even by some miracle it was successful, it is not transferable to the larger population, not at $5 million per location.

5) Fat seemed to be a theme in this year’s wasteful spending since in one study, $17,500 was spent to pay college students to wear fat suits for “weight sensitivity training” and $200,113 was spent to develop a “fat detector” that guesses a person’s body mass index by looking at their face. Really, weight sensitivity training and a fat detector, are you kidding me?

6) The EPA spent $15,000 to create a device that monitors how long hotel guests spend in the shower. Again, to what purpose? If hotels want to know how long people shower, then let the hotel industry pay for the device’s development.

7) Some government financed researchers spent a disgusting $2.6 million to try and craft the perfect tweet. They concluded that the best way to get retweets is to include phrase, “pls retweet.” Over $2 million for this nonsensical common sense finding.

8) $707,000 was spent on a study to start a “shrimp fight club” that resulted in 34 bouts with mantis shrimp.

9) $853,000 was spent on a “sing along brunch party” involving 80 people who sang tunes from Annie to promote a farmers’ market. No farmers’ market anywhere is worth $853,000 in taxpayer wealth.

10) Within a $5 million Department of Agriculture grant, tailgating kits were made that included a koozie, apron, and a food thermometer for University of Nebraska football fans.

11) Back to NSF waste, it also spent $1,200,000 which resulted in a life size Pac-Man game on a basketball court and another $899,000 was spent studying “the social interactions of guppies.”

12) NASA spent $1.2 million testing “microgravity” on sheep which they even admitted was a “niche” project and even though they already know that bone density decreases while in space and the likelihood they will be sending sheep to Mars is minimal.

13) The Department of Housing and Urban Development gave away $210,000 to a dog clothing company that makes a dog vest with an ”exclusive double Velcro closure.”

14) Back to the NSF (are we seeing a trend here?), $276,194 was spent trying to figure out how unattractive people find attractive mates. Their conclusions? Be friends for a while first, information that is critical to the well being of the country.

15) $50,000 was spent by the State Department for a Do-It-Yourself festival in Moscow, Russia.

16) $780,000 was spent to study pizza addiction, a malady that I would think is far less destructive than meth or heroin addictions, two problems that actually deserve studying.

17) $2.1 million was spent promoting tourism in Lebanon even though the State Department strongly advises against visiting due to ongoing terrorist and security issues.

18) $3 million in “bus security grants” was given to companies operating luxury charter buses and limousines, including a self-hyped “nightclub on wheels.”

19) $104.4 million was paid to subsidize low income public housing for high income people. 

20) $175,000 was spent to develop a smartphone app that lets you know who caught the fish you are currently eating.

Rather than spending $175,000 on that fish smartphone app, maybe that money would have been better spent on the millions of Americans that go hungry every day. 

Rather than spend a million dollars to see how monkeys behave on a treadmill, maybe that money could have been spent to give our veterans the medical care they were promised but not receiving. 

Rather than spend $780,000 to study pizza addiction of college kids, that money could have been spent to save the lives of addicts who die to the tune of over 40,000 a year due to their addiction.

Rather than spend $104 million to help high earning Americans live in low income taxpayer subsidized housing, maybe that money would have been better spent to find shelter for the millions of homeless Americans.

I think you get the idea. So many Americans are suffering today and every day yet the Washington political class spends and wastes money on efforts that will have no immediate impact on the millions of suffering Americans and in most cases will have no impact EVER for any American…. except the college professors or universities that got the taxpayer money for such stupid and vanity projects.

There should be two strict criteria that need to be met before any taxpayer money is doled out, as we listed them in our book, “Love My Country, Loathe My Government:”

1. Unless the proposed project significantly affects the lives of a significant amount of citizens in at least five states, the Federal government and taxpayer has no right or duty to fund it.
2. Unless the funding is directly going to address the major issues of our times , i.e. homelessness, poverty, high healthcare costs, major illnesses, leaky borders, failing public education, and drug addiction, then no money should be forthcoming for any other proposal. By “directly” I mean that the connection to these major issues can be simply explained in twenty words or less.If it takes 21 words or more to explain how a proposal affects these issues than it is to be considered BS and discarded. 

Studying and funding how ugly people end up marrying attractive people and other such nonsense is a big reason why our national debt is over $18 TRILLION and why real issues never get resolved. President Obama promised he would go through the Federal budget “line by line” to wring out wasteful spending. Wastebook 2015 proves that he has lied, again, since the Federal budget still can supply a Wastebook author enough material to write a book.

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, 2014, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: Lying To Americans Again, $2 Million For Fossils, Voodoo Spousal Anger, And More

It’s the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from America’s politicians. Whether it is wasteful spending, inane quotes, faulty government operations, or insulting the American public, there is always new material spewing forth from these people, usually enough to fill up half a dozen or so posts every month. Given what we know today, this month should be no different as the insanity seems to be expanding exponentially from those in office today.

1) Senator Tom Coburn issues what he calls the Wastebook every year where he and his staff document the 100 most idiotic uses of taxpayer money. We have already reviewed some of his latest wasteful spending boondoggles in last month’s insanity series but since then we have come across another set of stupid spending from Washington:

1. $331,000 was spent by the Federal government to study “angry” spouses stabbing voodoo dolls. Might help curb divorce lawyer costs but should not be financed by the American taxpayer.

2. $16 Million to revitalize a “ghost mall” in Fresno, CA. I am assuming a ghost mall is a mall that has been abandoned because it could not compete with other shopping options in the Fresno area. So why should the taxpayer sink that much money into a proven losing proposition?

3. $70,000 for a Bruce Lee play. For what purpose?

4. $5.2 million for Columbia University to develop an interactive game designed to combat climate change, and that includes voicemails from the future warning of a post- apocalyptic world. Seriously?

5. $15,000 for NASA to hunt for the lost tomb of Genghis Khan. Because that is the kind of work NASA was established to do.

6. $3 million for the State Department to tweet at terrorists. These are the same people that think nothing of beheading other humans, do we really think that State Department tweets are going to intimidate them? 

Ridiculous wastes of taxpayer wealth especially when you consider that millions of Americans need drug addiction treatment help, millions of Americans are homeless and hungry, veterans cannot get the medical care they were promised and need, etc.

2) The fabulous website, Crony Capitalism, recently ran an earth shattering article relative to the city of Detroit. You remember Detroit. Once one of the largest and richest cities in the country. 

But in the course of fifty years, through horrendously corrupt local politicians whose corruption was exceeded only by their greed and incompetence, Detroit was turned into a hell hole on earth and became the largest American city to ever declare bankruptcy. Substandard or non-existent government services, population flight, thousands of abandoned houses, and a whole host of every other type of urban problem.

It has gotten so bad that the Detroit police department recently declared that Detroit was too dangerous of a city to enter. That is how bad it has gotten, even the police say do not come. This is the American political class at its finest, running a rich vibrant city literally into the ground. Pitiful and sad.

But the Crony Capitalism website had an interesting and radical approach to resurrecting the city. They proposed turning Detroit into an economic “free-zone.” No taxes, private everything (e.g. schools, police, garbage, everything), and see how it does. If excessive government and politicians' actions killed the city, maybe minimal or no government and politicians' control and create a new city. Because really, just like term limits, how much worse could it be than what is going on now, now that even the local police are saying to stay away? 

3) The U.S. Export-Import Bank gives out taxpayer back loans to foreign entities to encourage them to buy American made goods. Over the years, it has turned into a corporate boondoggle with American taxpayers funding private corporations’ costs that should be paid by the shareholders of those companies.

The fact that Boeing uses well over 50% of the Export-Import Bank’s budget over the years, with other such large companies also getting free taxpayer support, stands in contrast to politicians who support the Bank who claim that the majority of the Bank’s resources are to help smaller and medium size U.S. businesses.

Well, that claim may have just turned into another lie from the political class. According to a recent Reuters report: “The U.S. Export-Import Bank has mischaracterized potentially hundreds of large companies and units of multinational conglomerates as small businesses, a flaw in its record keeping that could undermine the export lender's survival strategy. A Reuters analysis showed companies owned by billionaires such as Warren Buffet and Mexico's Carlos Slim, as well by Japanese and European conglomerates, were listed as small businesses and Ex-Im acknowledged errors in its data in response to those findings.”

Another government screw up or were we just being “grubered” by our politicians to keep the taxpayer spigot open for these large companies, who are likely contributors to politicians’ election campaigns in a quid pro quo? Warren Buffet has not been involved in a ‘Small Business’ in decades so I go with the quid pro quo option. This is just another way for Washington politicians to keep their campaign finance money flowing at the expense of the American taxpayer.

4) As Nixon found out and most other humans find out sometime in their life, sometimes the crime, the error, or the screw up is not as bad as the lies and botched cover ups that happen afterwards. Recently, the Federal Weather Service had what it caused “technical glitches” in its data systems and Internet operations. Fine, could happen to any data systems operation.

However, that turned out to be a lie since we now know from Scott Smullen, a spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration it was not common technical glitches that caused the problem but computer hackers based in China that caused the mischief: “The intrusion occurred in late September but officials gave no indication that they had a problem until Oct. 20, according to three people familiar with the hack and the subsequent reaction by the NOAA, which includes the National Weather Service.”

Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA) was quoted by the Washington Post: “NOAA told me it was a hack and it was China.” He believes the agency was “deliberately misleading the American public in its replies. They had an obligation to tell the truth. They covered it up.”

The cover up is worse than the crime since now Commerce Department Inspector General Todd Zinser is investigating the matter, specifically demanding why law enforcement was not informed of the incident. Fortunately, no one was injured as a result of the Chinese hacking but it could have been worse if had it occurred during a high-impact weather event and the weather satellites were fouled up. 

Lying and incompetence, potential national security breaches and cover ups, this is the distressing level of incompetence our $3 TRILLION in taxes pays for every year.

5) One more piece of insanity for today, plenty more to come in the upcoming days. Before we go into this wasteful spending experience, again keep in mind there are millions of Americans who need help treating their drug addictions, there are millions of Americans who are homeless and hungry every day, there are probably millions of veterans who may not be getting the medical care they need and deserve, and there are millions of Americans who are unemployed or under employed.

Now, how much suffering do you think could be relieved in any or all of these categories of need we just discussed? Well, a certain $2 million pocket of taxpayer wealth will not go to alleviating any of this suffering. As reported by Watchdog.com and the Heritage Foundation, the Federal government and Washington political class allocated that amount to…wait for it… have the University of Florida build a new online telecommunications network that would allow amateur fossil enthusiasts to more easily communicate with each other online. 

I swear, you cannot make this garbage up. The project’s name is: Fostering Opportunities for Synergistic STEM in Informal Learners, or FOSSIL, (STEM is an acronym for Science Technology Engineering and Math). The project consists of a user-friendly website, social media outreach and event get-togethers. 

It is no surprise that the National Science Foundation is behind this idiotic program. This is the same federal entity that spent hundreds of thousands of dollars building a video game program that simulated prom week and which funded an effort to estimate when dog became man’s best friend.

So many problems with this effort:

• Why fossil collectors? Why not spend another $2 million on stamp collectors, $2 million on coin collectors, etc.? Don’t they have the same needs and desires as fossil collectors?
• Who is going to program this effort, the same hacks who programmed Obama Care’s online exchanges? I may not be a technical person but I am pretty sure you do not need $2 million to create a relatively simple website that allows for “a user-friendly website, social media outreach and event get-togethers.” A high school kid could probably put this together in his bedroom in a few weeks.
• And even if you think this is a good use of taxpayer money, is it a better use than helping the homeless, addicted, veterans, and hungry in this country? I think not, that is how screwed up the priorities of the Washington political class has become. Fossils that have been dead for thousands of years are more important than suffering, very alive Americans today.

That will do it for today’s insanity. More wasteful spending on such nonsense as fossil collectors, a Bruce Lee movie, and voodoo dolls, more lies and cover ups from Washington, the death of a great American city, and more. And we have just barely scratched the surface on this month’s political class insanity. More to come in the following 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

November, 2014, Bonus Post, Political Class Insanity: NASA's Wasteful Spending, White Staffer And The Prostitute, and Subsidizing Cotton Farmers In Brazil

Please note: yesterday was supposed to be our last post on political class insanity for this month. However, before we could publish all of the posts that we had written to cover the last 30 days or so of insanity, more insanity popped up, resulting in this bonus post of political class insanity for the month of November, 2014. I promise this will be the last insanity post this month, not necessarily because we covered it all but because by covering it all we got too depressed to go on until early next month.

It is the start of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity that has been dumped on us by the worst set of politicians to ever hold office in the history of this country. From wasteful spending to bad priorities to general ineffectiveness, the insanity rolling out of Washington and other political centers and governments around the country seems to be accelerating as the idiocy of our political times increases.

1) A recent Heritage Foundation article by Daren Bakst revealed that the U.S. taxpayer recently paid out $300 million to help the Brazilian cotton industry. Apparently, back in 2002, Brazil brought a case against the U.S. in front of the World Trade Organization (WTO) that claimed American Federal government cotton subsidies paid out to American cotton farmers violated WTO rules.

We lost the case in front of the WTO, paid some fines, and finally reached an agreement with Brazil to pay them a final $300 million payment to make the whole affair go away. Well, go away at least temporarily, until 2018 or so. If the subsidies are not removed by 2018, Brazil and others could reinstate their complaint with the WTO and the fines could continue again beyond this final $300 million payment.

What do the subsidies do? According to the Heritage Foundation report: Stacked Income Protection Plan (STAX) which is a special supplemental crop insurance program just for cotton. Taxpayers are forced to subsidize an astonishing 80 percent of the premiums for participating farmers, and the program guarantees anywhere from 70 to 90 percent of anticipated revenue (it covers shallow losses, i.e. minor losses). Brazil had argued that this new program would increase U.S. trade-distorting subsidies.

So, Americans lose three ways:

1. Our tax money is used to subsidize cotton farmers in this country.
2. As with any government subsidy, this probably keeps the cost of cotton and cotton products higher than they normally would have been.
3. Our tax money is also used to subsidize Brazilian cotton farmers because Congress insists on always renewing the farm subsidies legislation whenever it comes up.

A triple play of losses for American taxpayers.

2) Many of you probably remember a Secret Service scandal a few years ago when the Secret Service’s advance security team went down to Columbia to secure the travel arrangements for a President Obama visit. But, in addition, the team members ended up cavorting with Columbian prostitutes while on the job. A lot of these folks lost their jobs and careers as a result of their bad judgment.

But the Washington Post recently reported that it was not just the Secret Service personnel who were cavorting. While the White House continues to claim that no White House officials were involved with prostitutes down in Columbia, newly reviewed government documents and interviews show that senior White House aides were indeed in possession of information at the time suggesting that a prostitute was an actual overnight guest in the hotel room of a Presidential advance-team member. I am shocked, this administration lied! Who would have thought. Yet that information was never thoroughly investigated or publicly acknowledged.

While the White House denied any of their people were involved, a separate set of investigators in the inspector general’s office of the Department of Homeland found additional evidence from records and eyewitnesses that this was not the case. The lead investigator in this inspector general office told Senate staffers that he felt pressure from his superiors in the office of Charles K. Edwards, who was then the acting inspector general, to withhold evidence that White House staff had been involved.

In this case the cover up is worse than the crime. For security reasons, a White house staffer should not be involved with a prostitute in a foreign land ahead of a Presidential visit. That is just stupid. Unfortunately, lying and cover ups after the fact from this administration is routine.

3) We keep coming up with additional stupid Federal spending uncovered by Senator Tom Coburn’s latest casebook publication. The latest ones include the following idiocy strictly centered within NASA:

• NASA's A3 Rocket-Testing Tower, also known as the "Tower of Pork," which is still being built even though the rocket launch program that would use this new tower was cancelled four years ago.- $44.5 million
• NASA Study on How Humans React to Space Aliens. An official NASA document justified the study, saying that "communicating with intelligent terrestrial beings removed from us in time can be deeply problematic." I do not know what that statement means, seems like nonsense, but really, communicating with alien life forms needs to be studied and financed? Americans have enough trouble communicating with the political class in Washington, that might be a better place to spend these communication dollars.- $392,000
• NASA at Comic-Con. To idiotic to even discuss.- $10,000
• NASA Study Predicting the Collapse of Human Civilization. Seems like a very small sum to study the collapse of the entire human civilization, I mean we are talking the collapse involving over 7 billion humans. - $30,000
• NASA's Loss of Electronic Devices. A report from NASA's inspector general said that NASA did not have a "complete and accurate inventory of agency-issued smartphones, tablets, cellphones, and Aircards." Apparently 14% of NASA’s electronic devices went unused for seven months from 2013-2014. Estimated cost of unused and lost devices: $97,000 per month. - $1.1 million

As we have said many times this past week, millions of Americans are hungry and homeless, millions are unemployed, millions are saddled with various addictions, and the Federal government spend millions of dollars on launch pads that will never be used, aliens that will never be met, and attending Comic-Con. Insane.

4) The wonderful website, Bankrupting America, had some great Halloween political class insanity this past week:

• The Washington Times recently reported that every year, Federal, state and local governments spend millions of dollars of taxpayer wealth on pumpkin patches and fall festivals; “Most of the festivals and events financed by state and local tax dollars this time of year focus on pumpkins, and many of those pumpkins are grown with the assistance of pricey farm subsidies courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.”
• From 1995-2012, More Than $2 Million Was Spent Subsidizing Pumpkin Farmers: “From 1995 to 2012, farm subsidies to American pumpkin growers came to more than $2 million, according to USDA figures compiled by the Environmental Working Group. Up until 2010, Federal pumpkin subsidies averaged about $75,000 a year. In 2011 and 2012, the two most recent years for which numbers were available, taxpayer handouts spiked to an average of $420,000 a year.”
• West Virginia Lawmakers Spent $75,000 To Support 21 Pumpkin Parties And Fall Festivals. According to The Washington Times: “In total, Mountain State lawmakers devoted nearly $75,000 to support 21 pumpkin parties and fall festivals. Much of that money came from state lottery funds intended to help the beleaguered state send more of its students to college and draw more businesses and jobs to West Virginia.”
• West Virginia Spent $13,000 Subsidizing Just One Of Those Festivals: “West Virginians may be one of happiest states to hear that some pumpkins were salvaged from the storms. The state’s legislators earmarked $13,000 in West Virginia’s budget for this year’s edition of the West Virginia Pumpkin Festival, including a $5,000 payout for advertising from the state tourism commission and another $8,200 subsidy to help cover general expenses.”
• Vermont Residents Subsidized Their Fall Fest Using State Lotto Money. The Washington Times reported: “The Burlington Pumpkin Harvest Festival received $4,100 in state lottery money. The state budget awarded $4,125 to the Frankford Autumnfest and $2,200 to Princeton’s Autumnfest. Not to be outdone, the Wetzel County Autumnfest snagged $4,500 in public funds.”

While these are relatively small amounts of taxpayer dollars wasted on pumpkins, just because you can waste a smaller amount of taxpayer wealth on stupid programs does not mean that you should.

That will definitely do it for the political class insanity this month. Sending money to cotton farmers in Brazil, sending White House staff to prostitutes in Columbia, sending taxpayer wealth up in smoke at NASA, and funding pumpkins, there is no limts to the ways Washington, and other American politicians, can waste our wealth and embarrass themselves and the rest of the country in the eyes of the world.

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