The Bipartisan National Commission On Fiscal Responsibility and Reform - The Good and The Bad

I came across an article in Parade magazine this weekend on the National Commission On Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, a commission appointed by President Obama, over the wishes of the Congress. The Commission is supposed to take upwards of a year exploring potential ways to get our obscene government spending under control. While I applaud the theory of the Commission, I have a few serious problems with its implementation:

- First, as I just stated, the Commission will take up to a year to finalize its findings and report. That is another year spent with skyrocketing Federal government deficit spending, adding another $1.4 TRILLION to our national debt. I would have much preferred that recommendations come out of the Commissions sequentially, as they were finalized, rather than waiting until all of the work was done and tied up in a nice bow. Many relatively easy cuts in government spending, some of which are listed below, could begin now.
- Second, while Obama put the Commission into place, he also has decided not to do anything immediate with Federal spending, using the Commission as air cover and an excuse not to get spending and the size of government under control sooner rather than later. In the meantime, another $1.4 TRILLION will be added to the national debt.
- If Obama really believed in and trusted the Commission, he would have given it much more support, with the most obvious support being to promise to incorporate all of the Commission's bipartisan findings in his next annual budget recommendation to Congress. This would have forced the political class in Congress to react to a bipartisan set of recommendations for cutting government spending. Now, without that support, there is no teeth in the Commissions findings, unlike previous commissions like the military base closing commission or the Grace Commission, where the output from these commissions forced politicians to make a public stand. By going this route, however, Obama can again take the coward's way out saying that he did his best to cut spending but Congress stopped him.
- This cowardly approach extends to Congress also. Both Pelosi and Reid have stated that they will take up a Commission recommendation if at least 14 out of 18 members of the Commission support a recommendation. Thus, the bar is set very high for anything to be considered by Congress, since 14 out of 18 means that about 78% of the Commission's members must support a recommendation for it to even be considered by Congress. Nowhere else in government, or real life, is the bar set this high to pass a law, enact an ordinance, etc. Why have Reid and Pelosi set it this high for cutting government spending? It is pretty obvious that they do not want to cut spending and reduce their personal power. Thus, without Obama giving the commission any teeth and the head politicians in Congress setting high bars even for consideration, it becomes pretty obvious that this Commission is set up for failure by the political class.
- And it is not as if they have set the bar too high. According to the article, their objective is to reduce the deficit by $240 billion a year by 2015. If you assume they reach this goal, they would have cut almost a TRILLION out of government spending by 2015. Certainly a great accomplishment but it would still be about $400 billion short of Obama's 2010 budget deficit.

How would I cut the federal budget without destroying the country? There are plenty of people smarter than me (and we will look at some of them with the Cato Institute's "Downsizing Government" initiative in future posts) but even I can come up with some easy cuts:

1. The Obama administration admitted earlier in the year in an Associated press article that the Federal government wastes almost $100 billion a year in fraudulent or just plain wasteful spending and bill payments. If put a much stricter auditing process in place to get that waste and fraud under control, assume that you could cut that amount in half and save $5o billion a year.
2. The Citizens Against Government Waste estimate that about $20 billion a year is wasted on politicians' earmarks embedded in the Federal budget, earmarks that are nothing more than thinly disguised bribes to get campaign donations for their re-election campaigns from individuals, businesses, unions, and lobbyists. If Step 44 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" was in place, we as a nation would save all of this $20 billion since none of it would fulfill the criteria of Step 44, i.e. each earmark does not significantly impact the citizens of five states. Another $20 billion saved, or $70 billion total.
3. According to a February, 2010 article in the Washington Times, from 1981 to 2008, the civilian/non-military workforce of the Federal government stayed consistently between 1.1 million and 1.2 million. However, since the onset of the Obama administration, the workforce has already jumped to 1,43 million civilian workers. Given that we have previously discussed the findings from numerous Federal audits and inspector generals that proved that dozens of SEC employees spent their workday surfing the Net for pornography, many in the Interior department responsible for oil rig safety were doing the same, employees in the Energy Department's EnergyStar program gave all submissions a high EnergyStar rating regardless of how poor the design was, etc., it is pretty obvious that there is a lot of headcount cutting that could go on in this workforce. If we assume we could just get the number of employees down to the long term average, say 1.15 million, and that the average Federal employee makes $100,000 when you load in all of the related benefits, we should be able to cut 280,000 Federal employees and save $28 billion in the process. We are now up to $98 billion in savings. The article goes on to point out that 46% of the Federal workforce is over 50 years of age so it is quite possible to reduce the majority of these positions through retirement and attrition without the current workforce suffering significant cuts.
4. Many times we have discussed the obscene number of U.S. troops deployed around the world, ready to fight a Cold War battle that will never occur. The most obvious deployments are Germany (over 50,000 U.S. troops), Japan, (over 30,000 troops), South Korea (almost 30,000) troops, England and Italy (about 10,000 troops in each country) and Kuwait (over 20,000 troops). These are troop deployments, over 150,000, that are left over from another era that needs to end. If it costs a million a year to deploy one U.S. troop into a combat zone (as the Obama adminstration has estimated), if we assume it costs half of that to deploy one U.S. troop in a non-combat zone, bringing home 80% of these deployed troops, 120,000, should save about $60 billion a year, or about $158 billion in total when combined with the previous steps.
5. Now if President Obama ever lived up to the promise of Candidate Obama and brought home our 100,000 troops from Iraq, we could conservatively save another $50 billion a year, bringing our grand total from just these five ideas to $208 billion a tear.

Just these five steps, from somebody who is not steeped in Federal budgeting processes, has just saved $208 billion a year without even trying and without damaging our national security or resulting in massive layoffs of Federal employees. The politicians would not be happy since we would have deprived them of a prime source of funding for their perpetual re-election campaigns but who cares. Those who intentionally defraud the government or accept payments they should not receive due to government billing incompetencies, would also not be happy but again, who cares.

Our approach would easily get the Commission to almost 80% of the first year's $240 billion target. By following some of the steps laid out in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," they could also realize the following significant savings (see the details for justifying each step in the book):

• Step 9 - eliminate the traditional pension benefit for all future Federal government hires. Most people in the private sector no longer can get into a traditional pension program, the same should hold true for government employees.
• Step 11 - prohibit anyone with assets worth over $3 million form drawing a Social Security check in order to help preserve the fiscal integrity of the system. Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, etc. do not need to be drawing checks from a teetering budget process.
• Step 12 - raise the retirement age to 70, with an exception if a financial hardship can be proven. We are living longer than ever and the retirement age has not taken that into account.
• Step 13 - stop funding the Democratic and Republican national conventions, make their national committees pay for everything including security.
• Step 41 - make all Congressional members whose net worth is over $3 million serve without drawing a salary. Makes no sense for very rich members of Congress, e.g. John Kerry, to draw a salary when the national debt is soaring. He and others will not miss the $170,000 or so they would have been getting.
• Step 42 - make ex-President's pay for some of their security in their retirement if their earnings or assets exceed certain thresholds.
• Step 47 - remove the Federal government from having any thing to do with subsidizing the farm industry and subsidizing any component the national transportation system, returning those responsibilities to the states or letting them fade away into oblivion. The Federal government wastes hundreds of billions a year in both areas without a discernible benefit to the vast majority of Americans

I could go on and on but you get the idea. It is not hard to reduce the size of government as long as we have the politicians in place that have the guts to do it. That is why it is so important to make the right decisions in November. Dump the incumbents should be your first choice if we ever want to get our national debt under control. It is unlikely the Commission has the power to do that, only we do.


Our new book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Also visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/

Hillary Clinton And Freedom - Still Not Getting It

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Hillary Clinton recently gave a speech on freedom during her current tour through Europe. She was lamenting the fact that in many countries, the opportunity to live in a free society was being shut down by oppressive governments such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, Ethiopia, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, China, and Russia. According to a July 3, 2010 Associated Press article, her speech included the following concepts and quotes:

• In some countries, "the walls are closing in" on unions, religious groups, and other non government organizations that press for social changes and shine a light on governments' shortcomings.
• She states that "democracies don't fear their own people. They recognize that citizens must be free to come together, to advocate, and agitate."
• She felt that some governments are "slowly crushing civil society and the human spirit."
• In a related statement, President Obama declared that he is concerned about "the spread of restrictions on civil society, the growing use of laws to curb rather than enhance freedom and widespread corruption that is undermining the faith of citizens in their governments."

However, before we start criticizing how other countries deal with the concepts of freedom and liberty, maybe Obama, Clinton, and the rest of the American political class should consider how these very concepts are in conflict with what is happening to freedom in America today. Consider their statements above with the reality of what is currently going on in America:

- Obama is worried that corruption will undermine the faith of citizens in their government. Consider corruption in America today:

• Every year, most members of Congress give away billions of dollars of taxpayer money to special interests who agree to turn around and funnel campaign donations into these same politicians'' re-election campaigns, corrupting our election process.
• The ex-governor of Illinois is currently on trial, accused of trying to sell Obama's vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. If convicted, he will join a long list of Illinois politicians who are currently in jail or who have already served their sentences for corruption.
• Who can forget the numerous ex-Congress members who have recently been convicted for taking bribes and other crimes including the one who hid his bribe money in his freezer?
• Let's not forget Congressman Charles Rangel of New York who is under various investigations for a number of potential financial related violations.
• If not paying taxes is a form of corruption, and I think it is, how many high ranking people in the Obama administration, and those that never made it into the administrations (e.g. Tom Daschle), did not pay the proper amount of taxes over the years, corrupting the concept of our voluntary tax payment process?
• When it came to light that the ACORN organization may have been involved in widespread voter fraud and funneled tax payer money into potential child prostitution rings, why was there no in-depth investigation by the Obama administration into the corruption of our voting process?
• Although not monetary or voting corruption related, consider the following moral corruption examples: Senator John Edwards has a child out of wedlock during an adulteress affair while his wife battles cancer, Senator Ensign of Nevada has an affair with the wife of a friend, Governor Spitzer of New York gets caught cavorting with prostitutes, Governor Sanford of South Carolina gets caught in an affair with a South American woman, President Bill Clinton's adultery (enough said), and many other moral corruption examples from our political class.

I think we have gone far down that road of corruption undermining our faith in the United States government, as witnessed by all credible polls showing that only about 20% of Americans approve of how Congressional members are doing their jobs.

-Through the use of gerrymandering to configure Congressional districts, we see the American political class is guilty of "the growing use of law to curb rather than enhance freedom," as observed by President Obama. Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana estimates that only about 20 out of 435 Congressional districts are ever competitive, with gerrymandering almost always ensuring that the incumbent will be re-elected, corrupting our election process.

- Charles Rangel and a Texas Congresswoman likened those opposed to Obama's health care reform plan to those racists that opposed the civil rights movement in the 1960s. This ludicrous position and statement is certainly not in keeping with Clinton's freedom that citizens "must be free to come together, free to advocate, and agitate.

- Speaker Of The House Nancy Pelosi accused those opposed to Obama's health care reform plan as being un-American. Another ludicrous statement and also in conflict with Clinton's freedom to advocate and agitate position.

- While Obama is supposedly concerned about "the spread of restrictions on civil society", he did not hesitate to renew the oppressive Patriot Act, a major encroachment on freedom. If what Clinton claims is true and democracies should not fear their own people, then why does the Patriot Act still exist?

- In late 2009, the Obama administration "went after" the Fox News organization, trying to position it as a political organization and not a news organization. The reason for their attack is pretty obvious since Fox has been highly critical of the Obama administration. No democratic government organization should ever try to suppress opinions, even if they are in conflict with the government's position. Fox has a right to "shine a light on government's shortcomings." Obama's reaction should have been to produce a high performing quality, non-corrupt administration, that would have given Fox nowhere to go with its criticisms. Instead, the adminstration took the low road that was certainly anti-liberty. The fact that a poll by the Public Policy organization in early 2010 showed that Americans view Fox News as the most trusted source of news in America by a large margin shows how disconnected Obama and the political class is from the rest of America and from the concept of freedom.

- Despite the grass roots development and growth of the Tea Party movement, Obama and other Democratic politicians have taken turns at either deriding the movement or viciously attacking it. Rather than celebrating the actions of these concerned citizens and celebrating their right to come together, to advocate, and to agitate (Hillary's words), these politicians would rather crush their ideas and movement in order to maintain their control over the country.

- If anyone is crushing "civil society", it is the politicians in this country. The venomous words they use to constantly attack their opponents and energize their supporters is counterproductive to both freedom and the fixing any of the nation's major problems.

- Those same politicians are "crushing the human spirit" in America with high taxes and onerous national debt that every American feels, significantly reducing the drive to better oneself.

The bottom line is that the American government and those that currently run it have no right to criticize the freedom situation in other countries. From corrupt politicians who use government for their own personal benefit, to those that manipulate the voting process from a campaign funding and gerrymandering perspective, to those politicians that attack those with ideas that differ from their own, freedom in American is under siege by its own politicians. Americans are not as free as they think they are, are not as free as they once were, and are not as free as they should be, all as a result of the power grab by our own politicians.

Many other examples of how we are losing our freedom are listed in "Love my Country, Loathe My Government." While Obama and Clinton get the words right when talking about liberty, as you can see above, their very own words come nowhere close to their actions and the actions of other politicians. "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" lays out fifty straightforward steps we need to take to make us a free country again. The political class needs to understand these steps, regardless of where and how they get the message or they should be replaced in November. Until then, we cannot lecture others on freedom and Hillary's observation that "the walls are closing in" when it comes to freedom in THIS country, will continue to be a reality.



Our new book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Also visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/

The Obama Care Health Care Reform Legislation - Continuing To Become A Disaster

We have stayed away from the recently passed national health care reform legislation that Obama and the Democrats passed through a back door in the Senate rules called reconciliation for a few weeks. Never mind that the majority of Americans were and are against the legislation and that it would have never passed if presented with any guts through the normal Senate law making processes. It has been passed and, at least for now, is the law of the land.

We have been extremely critical of the legislation in the past so let's review why it is a disaster that keeps on unfolding from past posts:

• The political class never figured out what the root cause or causes of high health care costs were in this country. As a result, they produced a law that did not solve any underlying causes, all it did was raise taxes, redistribute existing medical expenses and revenues, and criminalize millions of Americans who may choose not to partake in the requirement in the law that makes it a crime for anyone not to purchase health insurance.


• Probable underlying causes of escalating health care costs, as cited many times by people more expert in the field than any politicians include the facts that 1) Americans smoke too much, 2) Americans are too overweight, 3) Americans do not exercise enough, and 4) while states have seen reduced health care costs when they passed medical tort reform, the Federal health care legislation had no tort reform provision. Thus, the four main reasons for high health care costs still exist and any legislation, like Obama care, will fail if it does not solve those problems.


• Obama care was supposed to reduce the national debt by $135 billion over the first ten years, or about $13.5 billion a year. However, a May 11, 2010 Associated Press article reported that the law, as passed, "neglected" to include some expenses that will be required to fulfill the requirements of the law. The article reported that additional funding bills of at least $115 billion will need to be passed in order to fulfill the law's needs, wiping out all or most of the contemplated $135 billion savings. In any case, even if the savings were $13.5 billion, this amount would be less than 1% of the deficit that the Obama administration will run up in 2010, hardly earth shattering.


• The May 11 article did not include another $200 billion that Congress has promised to doctors that honor the Medicare and Medicaid programs to offset the cuts in Obama care. Thus, the legislation promised to cut payments to doctors in those programs but the Democrats and Obama will offset those cuts with other spending programs, definitely making the law deficit inflating.


• An article in the June issue of Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine reported that the long term care component in the health care reform legislation will be a failure since the benefits from the program won't come close to covering the cost of a nursing home stay. According to the article's research, the Federal program under Obama care will cost about the same as a private plan but deliver only about one third of the benefit. Such a deal.

But we knew all this from previous posts. Let's look at some updated information and reporting:

• According to an Associated Press article from July 2, 2010, hospital emergency rooms will likely grow more crowded int he future, not less crowded, as promised by Obama care. Unknown to the political class, the uninsured are not the ones filling up emergency rooms, they are just as likely to use an emergency room as those that have insurance. The most prevalent users of emergency rooms are those people covered under Medicaid and that program is expected to grow by 16 million under the new law. Thus, a primary objective of Obama care, reducing the use of emergency rooms, is likely to be a failure.


• The article reported that already is a shortage of emergency room doctors and with growing volumes of patients coming into emergency rooms, waiting times and medical care are likely to suffer even more.


• Furthermore, fewer and fewer doctors of all types are more likely to refuse Medicaid patients in the future, given the perceived low level of payments from the government, forcing more people into emergency rooms.


• The most discouraging news in the article is that when similar legislation was passed several years ago in Massachusetts with the same objective of decreasing emergency room traffic, the exact opposite happened. Emergency room traffic continued to increase and increase faster than the national average. Thus, the political class had a perfect market test of their concept to learn from and opted to ignore it. In other words, they did not understand a root cause of a problem. Sound familiar (see above)?


• An article in a recent edition of The Week magazine, reported that a large, large number of the nation's doctors are nearing retirement. As always in economics and reality, reduce the supply (more doctors retiring than entering the industry) and increase the demand through this legislation and prices (and costs) are sure to go up. Another Obama care objective that is likely to be missed.


• An article by Peter Suderman in the August issue of Reason magazine reported on a number of aspects of the legislation that we have already mentioned. First and foremost, if you do not purchase health care insurance, you could be fined up to $695. However, since health care insurance is likely to cost much, much more than that, you can assume that many people will be willing to take the risk of not getting caught and save the difference. Couple this with the fact that, according to Mr. Suderman, the IRS, which is responsible for collecting the fines does not have the authority or the resources to force people or investigate people who falsely claim to have insurance, i.e. an honor system with no teeth to enforce it is in play.


• Mr. Suderman goes on to point out what happened in Massachusetts relative to the provision that no one can be turned down for insurance for a pre-existing condition. In Massachusetts, state residents would go without insurance until they needed it. They then would sign up with an insurance carrier (remember, they cannot be denied under Massachusetts' law and Obama care), have their health problem taken care of, and then drop the insurance. Another example of Obama and the Democrats ignoring a real life test of their grandiose plans that have already failed in the real world.

Failure to understand the root causes, ignoring real world experiences that prove their plans would be a failure, shady financial estimates and dealings, and a backroom, Politburo-like passage process make this an ongoing and unfolding disaster. As we have said all along, we need to go back to square one, impanel a set of subject matter experts (as outlined in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" Step 28), let them come up with a a set of alternatives (void of lobbyists' inputs) based on a root cause analysis process and sound economic analyses , and let the American people vote on the solution that they want, cutting the political class out of the equation altogether. In the meantime, we can let Congress worry about other pressing issues like whether or not Guam is going to capsize (see the June 28 post). Hopefully, they can resolve that issue and leave the real issues such as health care reform to the experts and the rest of America.

Our new book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at http://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.

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Also visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Our new book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Also visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/