High Pay, Low Workload, No Performance Reviews - The Life Of A Washington Politician

Many times we have reviewed the major, unresolved issues Americans have struggled with and against over the past few decades including a lost war on drugs, failing public schools, crumbling infrastructure, escalating health care costs, leaky borders, the lack of a national energy strategy and program, skyrocketing national debt, a mismanaged economy, government corruption and cronyism, etc. These problems go unresolved even though the Washington political class confiscates over $2 TRILLION a year in taxpayer wealth. 

Many times we have also reviewed the large amount of waste, hundreds of billions of dollars a year, that large and small Federal government programs lose every year to waste, inefficiencies, and criminal fraud. Just three of them, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security waste over $200 billion a year.

In our November 7, 2011 post we reported that, according to CBS News, as reported in the November 11, 2011 issue of The Week magazine, members of the House of Representatives earn over $170,000 a year, more than three times the average household income of the typical American household. However, those Congressional members will be in Congressional session only 109 workdays in 2012 while in recess for 151 weekdays, primarily to be able to focus more on their re-election than the business of the country. In January, August, and October of 2012, they are scheduled to work six days, three days, and five days, respectively.

This lackadaisical attitude is not just in Congress. We currently have a President and Vice President who have attended well over 100 campaign fundraising events this year alone, have taken numerous vacations, have held numerous athletic team photo ops, and have played many, many rounds of golf while the nation suffers through a horrendous economic reality.

We have a Senate majority leader in Harry Reid who has not allowed the Senate to develop a detailed national budget for over three years, one of his primary responsibilities. However, Mr. Reid recently introduced legislation that will establish Federal government over the boxing industry and actually held a news conference to protest the fact that U.S. Olympic uniforms were made in China. But he still has not developed a Federal budget for over 1,100 days.

Many times we have reviewed how the political class has hijacked our political processes for their own good. How they gerrymander Congressional districts to ensure their reelection, how they accept all kinds of campaign donations from outside entities in exchange for doing the bidding of these outside entities, how they use taxpayer money in the thinly disguised ruse of earmarks to receive more reelection campaign cash.

Thus, is it any wonder why no issue ever gets resolved in this country? Is it any wonder why taxes are never well spent and never go down? Is it any wonder why we are heading for a national fiscal disaster and national economic collapse in this country?

As the old saying goes, "its good work if you can get it." High pay,outstanding benefits, low performance, and no performance reviews since they corrupt the current performance review process (i.e. control the election processes). There is no accountability for what does or does not get done, what does get spent and how.

The point of all this was driven home by a short article in the July 23, 2012 issue of Business Week magazine. The article, "The Doing A-Lot-of-Nothing Congress," listed out all of the 54 bills that this sitting of Congress has passed. The highlights, or lowlights, of the article include the following:

• First of all, the number 54 is pretty atrocious. I do not want Congress passing bad legislation or passing legislation for the sake of just passing something, but from a pure number perspective, according to the article, the low number of 54 is one of the least productive sessions of Congress in our history, especially in light of all the problems we face.
• Of the 54 bills passed, the article considers only five of them were big, important pieces of legislation.
• Three of the other bills were only temporary, stop gap bills that led to the final passage of one of the five important bills.
• Three of the bills were nothing more than a rubber stamp approval of existing laws that needed to be renewed.
• Nine of the bills were no more than bills to approve trivial real estate transactions including transferring land beneath offices in Alta, Utah to the town itself, giving Federal property to the city of Tracy, California and the city of Pascagoula, Mississippi, giving Federal property in western Alaska to a company owned by Alaskan natives, a law to promote the development of some waterfront in D.C. and a law to protect the Maine Lobster Memorial statue.
• There were sixteen bills passed that the authors of the article classified as miscellaneous and included such trivial undertakings as directing the U.S.Mint to print coins in honor of the 225th anniversary of the U.S. Marshall Service, granting more law enforcement power to prosecute smugglers who build or finance tunnels into the U.S., and clearing the way for a new bridge crossing the St.Croix river between Minnesota and Wisconsin.
• There were sixteen bills that renamed post office buildings.
• There were three laws that renamed other Federal buildings such as a courthouse, a wildlife refuge, and a border patrol station.
• And finally, to add insult to injury, there was one bill passed that fixed the address of a renamed post office building.

That is all this Congressional session accomplished. If you add up all of the red, bold faced numbers listed above you should come up with 54, with about a third of them involving nothing more than changing the name on a building. Pathetic and dysfunctional.

For this they earn more in salary than probably 95% of the rest of America's citizens. They get health care and other benefits that are probably better than every other Americans'. They get these full time benefits and full time pay for working part time hours. They get to indulge in insider IPOs to enhance their earnings and probably use their government positions to forge post political office jobs that pay even more. And when you really come down to it, they get all this for approving the names of post office buildings.

A couple of suggestions on how to remedy the situation:

1. Most Americans have to work about 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year to earn their annual salary. This comes out to about 2080 hours a year. I propose that the annual salary of these Washington politicians be reduced on a percentage basis for every hour below 2080 hours that they do not work. For example, if Congress is only going to be in session for five days this October and October has 23 work days for most other Americans, than Congressional member pay would only be 5/23rds in October. Thus, rather than receiving about $14,200 in their October pay check ($170,000 annual pay evenly spread across 12 months), each member of Congress would only get paid about $3,100 for their only five days of work.
2. Step 39 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would impose term limits on all Federal political offices. Maybe if a sitting politician knew that they only had a predefined, limited time to make a worthwhile contribution to the country and their legacy, they would take more initiative beyond renaming post office buildings.
3. Step 37 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" proposes a process where American citizens would get to grade all Washington politicians, President, Vice President, Cabinet Secretaries and members of Congress, on their performance and withhold payment of salary and benefits if those grades to not meet minimal thresholds. This might encourage members of the political class to cooperate more, to respect each other more, to compromise for the good of the country more since their paychecks would hang in the balance if they did not.

I am reminded of the words from the movie, "The American President," as presented by actor Michael Douglas: "America is not easy. You gotta want it badly because it's going to put up a fight." Based on the lazy behavior, extensive vacation time, golfing time, and campaigning time, and the bad priorities of the current Washington political class along with the many unresolved issues of our times, I am quite sure that our current set of politicians do not want it bad enough.


We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

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

The Federal Government's Fraudulent Accounting and The Debt Pit It Has Thrown Us Into

Interesting analysis from USA Today, as reported in the May 24, 2012 issue of Newsmax. The newspaper makes the assertion that the Federal government severely underreports the amount of deficit spending that the political class reports on every year, masking the fact that the Federal government is running up future liabilities that are not being financed with today's taxes and spending.

These liabilities will result in future retirees probably never receiving the future financial and medical support that the current members of the political class are promising, i.e. today's political class is writing checks that the Federal government will not be able to cover in the future.


But first let's look at what the Federal government reports as our annual spending deficits (double click on the graph for a bigger picture):

Ever since Obama became President, our annual Federal government spending deficit has been easily over $1 TRILLION a year. 2012 is not on the graph but credible current estimates put this year's deficit well over a TRILLION dollars again. This traditional definition of deficit is quite simple: it is the difference between what the government collected in taxes and fees and what it spent in a single fiscal year. The difference is the annual deficit which is financed by selling Treasury bonds, future IOUs, to cover the difference between what is collected as wealth and what is spent.

Just looking at these annual results is not a good news story. If we assume that the average annual deficit of the Federal government over the past few years is about $1.2 TRILLION a year, then on average, if the Treasury did not sell bonds and IOUs, every American household would be on the hook for an additional $10,500 per household to cover the deficit shortfall EVERY YEAR of the Obama administration. Since the average income for an American household is about $50,000 a year, this means that we would all have to pay a whopping additional 20% of our gross annual household income just to cover the Federal government's annual deficit.

Of course, every American household really is on the hook for the deficit shortfall, they just do not pay that additional number NOW since the Treasury Department continues to mortgage our future by Treasury selling bonds. Those bonds will eventually have to be paid off by every American taxpayer.

A horrific financial situation. Outlandish and wasteful spending by the Washington political class, which wastes hundreds of billions of dollars every year in order to attain these TRILLION dollar plus deficits.

But these numbers and spending deficits are just for current government operating expenses and costs. The USA Today article presents a more realistic, and more horrific view, of the country's dire financials:

• The official government deficit for the 2011 was $1.3 TRILLION.
• However, according to the USA Today analysis, the more accurate estimate is an astronomical $5 trillion.
• The reason for this large discrepancy is that Congress exempts itself from reporting the cost of promised retirement benefits incurred in any one year when computing the annual deficit.
• This exemption, of course, does not apply to private sector companies which must include these future liabilities and commitments in their business financial statements in order to give a truer picture of their actual financial situation and to not break the law.
• The USA Today analysis found that the liabilities for Social Security, Medicare and other government retirement programs rose by $3.7 trillion in 2011, but the amount was not included on the government’s financial ledgers and reports even though they are committed future expenses.
• If these retirement and liabilities and commitments were included in the outlook for 2011, the actual, more definitive, deficit total would be equal to about $43,000 for every American household, about four times higher the horrific estimate we went through above.
• Since the median income of U.S. households is $49,445, according to the latest Census findings, the average American household would have shell nearly all of its annual income in taxes to balance the real government liabilities incurred in 2011 if standard accounting rules were used to compute the Federal government deficit.
• If these better and more accurate accounting rules were taken into account by the Federal government, and the Washington political class, the annual spending deficits from 2004 to 2011 would be six times larger the official total of $5.6 TRILLION.
• The USA Today  report also determined that all future Federal debt and retiree commitments equal $561,254 per household.
• Since the average American household also owes $116,057 for its own mortgages, car loans and other debts, the total debt burden as of today for every household is about $676,311.
• Thus, on average, every American household would have to work 14 straight years, without paying any other taxes, paying any medical bills, eating, taking vacations, fixing up their homes, going to the movies, or incur any other expense in order to dig the nation out of the debt pit the political class has thrown us into.

Mind boggling. Obviously, something is going to have to give, the above trajectory of disaster will eventually manifest itself somehow. The Federal government may choose to continually raise taxes to pay off the debt which eventually will collapse the economy from lack of disposable spending. Or those Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid promises will have to be broken since their exponential rise in cost, without the concurrent collection of wealth to pay for these future liabilities, cannot not be met.

The USA Today article and analysis have provided a great service to the country, a service that most Americans are not aware of and most politicians, given their short term, myopic thinking, do not want you to be aware of. We are in far worst financial condition than most of us are aware of. To stave off the collapse of our financial affairs and save our democracy, the following steps from "Love my Country, Loath My Government" need to be taken immediately:

1. Step 1 - a coherent plan of reducing government spending 10% a year for five years must be undertaken to get Federal government spending under control. Unnecessary and redundant programs and organizations need to be terminated. The wasting of hundreds of billions of dollars every year due to inefficiencies and criminal fraud need to be stopped. Obama's deficit reduction commission, which he completely torpedoed and ignored, would be a good first step to putting this Step 1 into operation.
2. Steps 10, 11, and 12 - These steps would reform Social Security by reducing the Social Security tax rate but applying it to all forms of income without any cap, raising the retirement age to 70 years old with a hardship exemption, and excluding anyone worth more than $3 million from ever receiving a Social Security check.
3. Step 28 provides a process to finally attack the root causes of our escalating health care costs and put a plan into effect to attack those root causes, something that Obama Care will never do.
4. Step 39  would implement term limits so that we can finally remove those sitting politicians that have been around forever but who have gotten us into this financial debt pit. Since they were not part of the solution, they must be part of the problem and need to be removed forever from office.

I do not know if even these five steps are enough to get us out of our debt pit. I do know that the longer we wait for someone, anyone, in Washington to show a little guts, courage, leadership, and vision in this area, the tougher it will be to climb out of this debt pit. We can only hope that the hole does not collapse upon on us before we get out, taking our economy and our liberty with it.


We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

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 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.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

Abra Kadabra, Part 2 - The Right Hand Of The Federal Government Still Does Not Know What The Left Hand Is Doing

We combine two concepts today. First, regular readers of this blog know that we have a real hard time giving the Washington political class any more in taxes, given how out of control Federal government spending is today. Waste, inefficiencies, and outright and widespread criminal fraud wastes hundreds of billions of dollars a year, resulting in what is about to be a $16 TRILLION national debt.

The sad thing is that it does  not have to be this way. We have already shown, based on some excellent analyses by credible nonpartisan sources that we could reduce government spending $9 TRILLION over the next decade with little negative impact on most American citizens. Details of how to compassionately cut spending can be found at :

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/02/united-states-of-purple-presidency-plan.html

Second, last week we did the first edition of our "The Right Hand Of The Federal Government Does Not Know What The Left Hand Is Doing." Specifically, we discussed the fact that the Federal government annually gives the tobacco industry about $190 million of taxpayer wealth every year to grow tobacco and is also about to execute a $54 million advertising campaign to encourage people not to smoke tobacco. Insanity, right hand of government doing something that is direct conflict with what the left hand is doing.

Today, let's combine both of these concepts, reducing unnecessary government spending by letting the right hand of government cooperate with the left hand. The basis of our thoughts are from a recent 400+ page detailed report from the General Accounting Office (GAO).

It appears that the GAO went through just about every Federal organization and put together an analysis which "identifies government duplication, overlap, and fragmentation as well as other cost savings and revenue enhancement opportunities. Its findings involve a wide range of government missions and touch virtually all major Federal departments and agencies." The complete report, "2012 Annual Report: "Opportunities to Reduce Duplication, Overlap and Fragmentation, Achieve Savings, and Enhance Revenue" can be viewed at:

http://www.gao.gov/assets/590/588818.pdf

Recommendation highlights of this year's report, as summarized by the Bankrupting America website, and a random perusing of the actual report include the following information:

• The 2012 GAO report details 51 different areas where the government can reduce waste and increase efficiency.
• Specifically, let a tax credit for ethanol expire because it duplicates other identical tax credits in place which would save of $5.7 billion annually.
• Reduce top-heavy management and overlapping positions in the State Department.
• Consolidate some of the 209 different science, technology, engineering and math(STEM) education programs,173 of which overlap.
• Eliminate or consolidate some of the 15 major financial literacy programs, including 3 new programs created by the Dodd-Frank Reform legislation.
• There are at least ten different Federal entities that have some roles and responsibilities for food and agricultural defense.
• There are 29 different military programs underway relative to unmanned military drones across all branches of our military (Army, Navy, Air Force).
• Regarding  government support of entrepreneurs, there are 36 programs distributed across four government agencies provide technical assistance, including business training and counseling and research and development support, there are 33 programs distributed across four government agencies which support entrepreneurs through financial assistance in the form of grants and loans, and there are 7 programs that support entrepreneurs by helping them qualify for Federal procurement opportunities.
• Only four of the 81 agencies identified for expense and cost savings in the GAO's 2011 report have fully addressed the GAO's waste reduction recommendations.
• A new, separate, but related GAO report showed that in 2010 there were 45 Federal government programs across 9 different agencies that supported employment for Americans with disabilities, with the most programs run by the Department of Labor (14), the Department of Defense (10), and the Department of Education (9).
• These support programs for Americans with disabilities reported expenditures of approximately $4.1 billion for providing employment services and support to 1.5 million individuals with very few measurement programs in effect to track the effectiveness of these scattered programs.

Many of the savings that would occur by terminating and consolidating this replication was not captured in the $9 TRILLION analysis identified above.

But these results should not surprise us. The Federal government has gotten so big and unwieldy that duplicate efforts and spending is to be expected. The GAO report cited instances where they found Federal employees did not know that others elsewhere in the Federal bureaucracy were doing very similar work to themselves. Taxpayer wealth that is wasted in this maze of duplication has to be worth tens of billions of dollars a year.

Two steps are needed to bring the left and right hands of government together. The first step is Step 1 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" which would reduce Federal government spending by 10% a year for five years. By forcing the government bureaucracy to operate on a leaner and leaner budget, duplication should be squeezed out of the bureaucracy without sacrificing service levels.

The second step is to finally elect people who are willing to do the nitty gritty work of making government more efficient. We no longer need people in Washington who are more worried about their reelection or how many cable news appearances they can create for themselves. We need people that will actually read the GAO report and put forth some guts, courage, and leadership to compassionately reduce spending before our national debt gets beyond our ability to manage. That would be the best abra kadabra for the nation.

Please visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

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 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.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

Why California Is Failing While Wisconsin Is Succeeding

Last week we compared the relative economic situations of three states: Florida, New Jersey, and California (http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/07/state-level-economic-musings-california.html). Florida fared the best in our analysis, with unnecessary government costs being cut, funding for education being increased, no taxes being raised, but essential government functions still operating. This has resulted in Florida making some of the best improvements in its economy and unemployment rate in the country.

We concluded that New jersey Governor Chris Christie was making all of the right moves to get that state economy moving again but was facing a long tradition of the state overspending its tax stream and raising taxes to cover the shortfall. Its economy has been slow to recover but at least the governor is doing the right things.

The basket case of the three was California. Tax shortfalls, underperfoming schools, budget overruns, good sized cities declaring bankruptcy (San Bernadino and Stockton), an out migration of better off citizens and business, a general malaise throughout the state and its population. However, we did present a rather radical plan from famed economist Arthur Laffer to help pull the state's economy and state government out of the ditch. However, it is doubtful the state's political class is willing or able to accomplish such a feat.

If we had waited a few days, we could have included some other worthwhile advice on how to fix this broken state, courtesy of an article and analysis in the L.A. Times:

 (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-malanga-wisconsin-california-bankruptcies-20120717,0,5879241.story).

It has been my experience that the L.A. Times is a left leaning, Democratic Party preferring publication. So when it sings high praise for the economic progress and approach of a REPUBLICAN governor from another state, I sit up and take notice since complimenting a Republican anything is rather rare in a main stream media publication like the Times.

The Republican being complimented is Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin. As you may know, Walker just prevailed in a bitter recall election that was headed by state government unions in the state. The unions were against many of the changes that Walker had pushed through the state legislature that would have reduced the power of state government workers in the state.

The Times article, "California, Look To Wisconsin," made the following points:

• Walker argued that the biggest beneficiaries of his budget reform plans would be cities, towns and school districts, which would gain the ability to cut costs without having to negotiate every change in compensation or work rules with local unions.
• This legislation specifically eliminated collective bargaining by government workers for benefits and required greater contributions from them towards their pensions.
• Once his plan was enacted into law, Wisconsin citizens quickly found out that state employee unions had used its power to force local school districts to provide health care insurance coverage only through a nonprofit insurer affiliated with the union.
• Once the state allowed bargaining on health care contracts, school boards began competitively bidding out their health insurance, which hopefully would reduce costs.
• According to the Times' article, just two months after Walker's reforms took effect, 23 Wisconsin school districts had redone their insurance contracts, saving $16 million, or an average of $211 per student.
• The MacIver Institute in Wisconsin estimated that if all the state's districts were able to negotiate similar deals once their contracts with the union-affiliated insurer expired, schools, and Wisconsin taxpayers, could save $186 million.
• The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the city of Milwaukee would save as much as $36 million in its next budget by using the new bargaining leverage the Walker reforms provided.
• This flexibility allowed the city to avoid having to implement layoffs of city workers.
• However, the Milwaukee school system was not so lucky since it had agreed to a contract with its teachers' union just before the reforms took effect and thus, were locked into an existing contract. The school board asked for concessions from the union, the union refused, and the school board was forced to layoff 519 people which included 334 teachers. The Times article estimates that if the union had made the concessions, 200 teacher jobs could have been saved.

Great success story. Government employees still get a robust set of benefits, state and local governments and school districts get financial relief, teachers stay on the job, and the strain of ever increasing taxes on residents is eased. Walker has successfully bent the so-called "cost curve" downward with minimal pain and maximum benefits to a wide range of constituencies.

California, not so much. According to the Times' article:

• Average annual pay for a California local government employee rose 60% between 1999 and 2008, far higher than the inflation rate over that time.
• For a perspective, that rise is about 70% more than the increase in private sector pay levels in California over the same frame.
• The annual cost of funding pensions in California's 20 largest cities has gone from $1.3 billion in 1999 to $5.1 billion 2011, according to a study by Stanford University professor Joe Nathan, an annual growth rate of more than 11%.
• No city government's revenue stream is increasing anywhere near that much, meaning that at some point something in the current process has to snap.
• The article points out that cities like San Jose, California do not have the flexibility that Wisconsin local governments have. In San Jose, the average annual cost of employing a city worker, including benefits, has risen to an unbelievable cost of $142,000, resulting in San Jose laying off 2,000 employees and cutting back on parks, libraries and other services over the past three years.
• The city of Stockton, California has already declared bankruptcy, driven by the fact that for every wage dollar it spends, it now has to spend another dollar to cover city employee benefits. This has required the city to layoff 25% of its fire and police force over the past few years but even that was not enough to avoid going bankrupt.

The Times article concludes with this appraisal of California's budget problem: "Without pension reform in Sacramento, and with local contracts that make it impossible to cut costs without concessions from unions, cities and school districts in the Golden State are left with few good choices to balance their budgets." Not a good situation to be in because at some point, California local and city governments end up being little more than collection agencies for bad union contracts while schools, teachers, parks, and other important government functions get emasculated.


Florida figured it out, Wisconsin figured it out. Any human organization, whether it is a nonprofit, a small business, an international conglomerate, a family household, or a government entity, has to live within its budget and available resources. If it does not, the ever escalating cost curve and ever present economic reality and limits will eventually lead to the collapse of that human organization.


How soon will it take California, and more importantly Washington D.C., to understand that "economies cannot tax themselves to prosperity." At some point, and hopefully before it is too late, both California and Washington need to wake up to the fact that spending has to match up with revenue, that is simply a fact of life.




We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:


http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/


The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.


The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.


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 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.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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