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One of the campaign slogans coming out of the Obama camp is that "Bin Laden Is Dead and GM is Alive" which tries to show the Obama administration's success both domestically and overseas. Bin Laden is indeed dead, the work of thousands of American citizens and military personnel that spanned the time from before to during the Obama administration. In other words, America finally killed Bin Laden, Obama was present and able to give the order that culminated the work of many, but America finished him off, not Obama.
As far as General Motors being alive, that is debatable, especially relative to the money owed to the American taxpayer, courtesy of Obama's bailout of the company. Let's recap the history of this ill fated bailout. When a company gets into financial trouble, it usually goes through the tried and true bankruptcy proceedings that exist in this country in order to do some or all of the following:
- Void distribution contracts with existing dealers and resellers of that company's products and services.
- Void labor contracts that exist between the company and its employees.
- Restructure debt with existing bond holders and stock holders.
- Sell off divisions or shut down unprofitable divisions.
- Look to restructure or default on existing debt obligations to suppliers, vendors, etc.
Companies go through this type of thing all the time, no big deal and no government intervention required, just a judicial proceeding. However, in order to preserve some level of loyalty with Obama's labor interests, his administration unnecessarily stuck itself in the middle of what should have been a typical bankruptcy proceeding and, at last count, had not seen the return of about $25 billion worth of taxpayer bailout money that went to GM as a result of this unnecessary government intervention.
Now, some defenders of this intervention and ill use of taxpayer wealth will claim that Obama saved the car industry in this country. No, he saved some union votes. Let's illustrate via an example: in normal times, I believe the annual market for cars and small trucks in this country is about 16 million vehicles. I also recall that GM's market share of this market is about 25%.
Question: if GM went out of business, how big would the domestic car market be in this country? If you said 12 million vehicles, 16 million less GM's 25% share, you would be wrong. The size of the domestic car and small truck market would still be about 16 million vehicles. The 25% share that GM claims now would be taken up by Ford, Honda, Nissan, etc. Thus, the market would be about the same size but GM would not be a part of it. That is the fallacy in his argument.
But even if the Obama administration had stayed out of the GM bankruptcy proceedings and saved billions of taxpayer dollars, there would still be a GM today. GM might have restructured differently, GM might be smaller than it is today, GM's unions may not have gotten such a sweet deal, but GM and the domestic car market would still exist and those jobs that go into making the 16 million cars a year would still exist. They might exist at Ford, they might exist in a domestic factory of a foreign car maker, they might exist at a slimmed down GM but they would exist.
This is a long winded way of saying that the risking of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars via this bailout was insanity, especially when you look at the numbers today. According to a Huffington Post article from earlier this year,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/26/bailout-taxpayers_n_1233374.html,
General Motors still owes the American taxpayer about $25 billion. Although this article is a little on the old side (about five months old), I could find no more recent credible source that indicated that GM had paid back any of this debt since then. So let's go with the Huffington piece as the reality of today. As of the close of the stock market yesterday (August 2, 2012), the market value of General Motors (number of stock shares times the stock price) was about $30 billion.
If the market capitalization or value of the entire GM operation is now valued at about $30 billion, about 83% of that value would have to be used to pay back the $25 billion owed to American taxpayers. Thus, the Obama administration has gotten us into a very bad financial situation if our debt load is more than 80% of the company's ENTIRE value. The chances of that $25 billion ever being repaid is almost zero.
That near zero possibility was laid out in the Huffington article. The writer asserts that the stock price of GM stock would have to get to almost $54 a share for the American taxpayer to break even on this investment. Given the track record of the GM stock price (double click on the graph for a larger view):
it is highly unlikely that the $54 stock price is going to be attained any time soon. And unlikely that the taxpayers of this country will get paid back any time soon.
Yes, Bin Laden is dead and GM is alive. But GM is on life support relative to the bad, unnecessary investment the Obama administration made in this company. But this is not surprising, given Solyndra, Beacon, Abound, Spectra, Ecotality, and a myriad of other poor investments his Presidency has made with taxpayer money expended and no value returned.
But let's not stop here, let's move on to other bad investments that have burned though billions of taxpayer dollars for nothing in return. Now, President Obama may not have been the overriding force behind these bad investments like he was on the GM bailout but as Senator and then President, he was in agreement with their ill fated financial principles.
According to the same Huffington Post article, American Insurance Group (AIG) still owes the American taxpayer about $50 million. But the recent stock performance of AIG put the market value/capitalization value at about $56.2 billion. Thus, AIG's liability to the American taxpayer of $50 billion or so is about 89% of its total market value. Doubtful that AIG will ever be able to pay back the entire $50 billion taxpayer bill if what it owes is a whopping 89% of its market value.
But the damage to taxpayer wealth by the recent and current political class does not stop with these two companies. The Huffington article reports on the testimony of the inspector general of the bailout funds who told Congress that in total, 371 banks still $133 billion and that the funds are unlikely to be paid back any time soon.
Even that amount of taxpayer money would be higher since one hundred thirty-seven banks repaid their bailout money using cash from a separate Treasury-run fund, which obviously was also funded with taxpayer money. If you add in the $189 billion (and counting) of taxpayer wealth that the political class has diverted to salvage the remnants of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, you can easily calculate that on average, every American household paid about $3,000 of its own wealth to bailout GM, AIG, Fannie, Freddie, and 371 other banks, a total that is unlikely to decrease any time soon.
Which brings us back to a point we have made many times in this blog with one simple chart. How could the entire political class, Republicans and Democrats in Congress and the White House, and the entire Federal government (SEC, FDIC, Federal Reserve, HUD, Fannie, Freddie, Senate committees on housing and banking, House committees on housing and banking) been so oblivious to the housing bubble that was occurring over the past ten years and not taken remedial action beforehand to stop the resultant bailouts and wasting of hundreds of billions of dollars (double click on graph for a larger view):
How could something so obvious as the bubble on this chart by ignored or not understood by so many people in Washington? Yes, Bin Laden is dead but so is the ability of the Washington political class to think strategically and proficiently, negative traits that always get dumped on the wealth of the American taxpayer.
Just another reason to implement Step 39 from "Love My Country, Loathe my Government." Step 39 would impose term limits on all Federal politicians, "one and done." Since most of the people in Congress, and the current resident of the White House, were present when the economic flame out occurred, requiring massive taxpayer bailouts despite advance warning, we have to assume that they were part of the problem and are unlikely to be part of the solution of efficient, competent, and effective government.
Please visit our Presidential 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/
Last Friday we did the first half of political class insanity for the month of August, 2012. As we discussed yesterday, the continuing volume of insanity and idiocy coming out of the American Washington political class requires that we now devote two days worth of blog posts to get it all covered. Yesterday was the first day, today continues the insanity we have uncovered in just the past 30 days:
- According to a May 29, 2012 article from the Associated Press, after the 9-11 terrorists attacks, California lawmakers created a program to honor those Californians that perished during the attacks to support their families. The program they came up with was to create a specialty auto memorial license plates that carried the words, "We Will Never Forget."
Fifteen percent of the money raised through the sale of the plates was to supposed fund scholarships for children of California residents who perished in the attacks, while the remaining funds were supposed to help fund anti-terrorism efforts. Nice thought, bad execution.
The Associated Press article reported that of the $15 million generated since the onset of the program, only a small fraction of the money went to scholarships. While 40 percent has funded anti-terror training programs, $3 million was raided by Gov. Jerry Brown and his predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to plug the state's budget deficit.
Thus, not only did the 9-11 families not the funds promised to them, only 40% of the funds went to anti-terrorism activities while the remaining funds have been spent on budget items with little relation to direct threats of terrorism, including livestock diseases and workplace safety. Despicable bait and switch tactics from California's politicians, an insult to the memory of those that were murdered in the 9-11 attacks.
- According to a Foreign Policy article on its website on July 5, 2012, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood argued that China outpaces the United States in building major transportation infrastructure like high-speed rail because of its authoritarian system:
"The Chinese are more successful [in building infrastructure] because in their country, only three people make the decision. In our country, 3,000 people do, 3 million," LaHood said in a short interview with The Cable on the sidelines of the 2012 Aspen Ideas Festival on June 30. "In a country where only three people make the decision, they can decide where to put their rail line, get the money, and do it. We don't do it that way in America."
According to Secretary Lahood, it truly is a shame that democracy gets in his way. Better to have a small dictatorial politburo of bureaucrats seize taxpayer money and spend it anyway they want since they are obviously smarter than everyone else in the nation. LaHood went out of his way to blame Republicans in Congress and the Tea Party for insisting that democracy be part of any government decision.
We will be dedicating an entire blog post to the fatal and economic failure of this Chinese approach to high speed train along with the failures of the same concept in this country in the near future.
- A July 13, 2012 Associated press article reviewed the efforts of the Voter Participation Center. The Center apparently has been bragging about their distribution of some 5 million voter registration forms in recent weeks, targeting Democratic-leaning voting blocs such as unmarried women, blacks, Latinos and young adults. However, there were a few problems with their effort:
- Rosie Charlston's name was complete and accurate as was her Seattle address. Unfortunately, Rosie was a black Labrador dog who died in 1998.
- A Virginia man and woman received similar voter registration documents for his dead dog and her cat.
- The AP article reported that this organization also sent voter registration forms to people who were dead, non-citizens, or below the legal age to vote.
Makes you wonder if we are still the land of "one person, one vote" principle or we are becoming the Chicago voting system where one is encouraged to "vote early and vote often."
- I always love it when politicians talk because sooner or later they show how idiotic their behavior is. Recently, the House Of Representatives passed a bill that would audit the Federal Reserve Board and investigate some of its inner, secret workings. The words "secret" and "government" should never appear together, like it often does in reference to the Fed, so I applaud this bill in the House. The vote was overwhelming in favor, more than a three to one vote in favor with support from both parties.
But Steny Hoyer, a Democratic Party Congressman from Maryland, opposed the legislation for the following reason: "Congressional review of the Fed's monetary policy decisions would be a nightmarish scenario, especially judging by the track record of this Congress when it comes to governing effectively." I could not agree with Mr. Hoyer more, the track record of this Congress and EVERY politician serving in it has been disgraceful, lacking of integrity, lacking of brain power, and lacking of a positive track record.
So in Mr. Hoyer's world we should not investigate a Federal government organization that secretly commits TRILLIONS of dollars of U.S. taxpayer wealth in potentially dubious ways because Congress is incompetent. Insanity.
- An August 3, 2012 Associated Press article reported that Congress has gone out of session and Congressional members will now get a five week vacation. The article reported that these people left town without solving some short term problems affecting many Americans including providing support to farmers hard hit by the drought and how to protect America's infrastructure from cyber attacks.
Of course, they also left for a five week vacation without solving any of the country's long term problems like escalating health care costs, high unemployment, almost $16 TRILLION of national debt, leaky borders, etc. Nice work if you can get this Congress gig, high pay, the best benefits, no pressure to get anything accomplished, and the best vacation plan in the world.
Insanity, lunacy, idiocy, and more, all courtesy of the American political class and the government functions it mismanages every day.
Please visit our Presidential 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/
Every month since we began this blog we have taken time out to review the latest insanity, idiocy, waste, and bad priorities from the political class at all levels of government. Unfortunately, as we have gone through time, one posting every month has not been enough to cover all of the insanity. Same this month, we will need today and tomorrow's posts to get it all in as we go through political silly season, i.e. the run up to the November elections.
Thus, here is the first batch of insanity for this month:
- The July 2, 2012 issue of Business Week reported that the latest Farm Bill working its way through Congress contains a $1.2 million allocation of taxpayer money to North Carolina producers of roses "to study how to extend the vase life of flowers." Of all the problems facing the nation and its citizens today, where on that list of top 50 problems would the "vase life of flowers fall" and is it worthy of even $1 dollar of taxpayer wealth never mind $1.2 million?
- The same article from Business Week reported that the American taxpayer paid American cotton farmers $639 million in direct payments. However, this kind of direct payment is a violation of existing free trade agreements, so the American taxpayer, via the Washington political class, had to also cough up another $147 million, which was really blackmail money paid to Brazilian cotton farmers to not object and legally retaliate for the trade violation.
- The LA Times recently reported, as summarized in the July 20, 2012 issue of The Week magazine, political class advertising this year will be close to $10 billion nationwide, according to Borell Associates, a media consulting firm. If true, this would be a whopping 43% increase over the 2008 Presidential election cycle. Imagine how much more long term good for humanity $10 billion would do rather than wasting it on negative, false, and misleading political advertising and activities.
- A New York Post article, which was summarized in the July 6, 2012 issue of The Week magazine, reported that an airline terminal at JFK airport was shut down and hundreds of travelers were forced to go through security checkpoints again. The reason? A TSA baggage screener realized that his metal detector was unplugged.
Makes you wonder why the TSA screener did not see the problem right away before hundreds of people had gone through his station. Or as a local law enforcement is quoted as saying: "This is a failing of the most basic level of diligence." Stating the obvious was never so obvious.
- A July 23, 2012 Associated Press article focused on the security leaks that have occurred from the highest levels of the Federal government and reported: "U.S. officials said the number of people with access to some of the nation's most carefully guarded secrets topped 4.86 million in 2011."
I do not care how careful the Federal government is with the nation's secrets, I would no longer consider them "secret" if 4.86 million people have access to them. I think they move from the realm of secret to the realm of common knowledge at that point in time.
- One of the largest tragedies of the 9-11 attacks is that many of those who hijacked the airplanes that crashed into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon learned how to fly those plans by attending flight training schools right here in this country. As a result, the Federal government maintains a no-fly list to try and stop suspicious people from ever getting on a plane and duplicating this means of terrorist attack.
However, according to an Associated Press article from July 18, 2012, the Federal government never took what seems like the logical step of preventing the 500 or so American citizens on this terrorist no-fly list from taking flight training lessons from training schools in this country. This astounding security screwup came to light in Congressional Homeland Security hearings last month.
And a further screwup, according to the article, is that Homeland Security does not know whether an American on the terrorist no-fly list has actually undergone flight training in the U.S. in the past 10 years. Unbelievable, have we learned nothing about terrorism since the attacks?
- And finally for today, this little news brief from North Carolina. According to a news report from a local North Carolina news source (http://www.wral.com/news/state/nccapitol/blogpost/11274640/), the Governor of North Carolina, Bev Perdue, was trying to prevent one of her vetoes from being overturned.
Her veto was relative to fracking, a controversial method of extracting oil and natural gas form the ground. The Governor did not want this procedure to be implemented in her state and the legislature was trying to override the veto she had done over a bill that would allow fracking.
Unfortunately, one of her anti-fracking supporters in the state assembly hit the wrong button when the vote came up in the Assembly and this screw up was the deciding vote that allowed the Assembly to override the Governor's veto. She hit the green button to override the veto when should have hit the red button to uphold the veto. North Carolina legislature rules do not allow a lawmaker to change their vote once it is cast if it will change the outcome of the overall results.
The supporter said she was tired and that is why she hit the wrong button. Seems she is like the rest of us, tired of politicians that do not get it right, not even when it comes to determining the difference between a red button and a green button.
Tune in tomorrow for other tales from the crypt, also known as the American political class.
Please visit our Presidential 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/
We have a new treasure trove of wasteful and unnecessary Federal government spending to share today. Just when you thought that all of the government wasteful spending had been identified, whack, a new set smacks you in the face. Makes you wonder if the government spends taxpayer money on anything useful, given the extensive, wasteful spending examples we continue to uncover in this blog.
1) Let's start with Joe Biden's golf game, as laid out by a NewsMax investigative report on June 4, 2012:
- Every Friday, Biden takes a helicopter from the Vice President’s residence to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland
- He then gets on Air Force Two to fly back to his home in Delaware.
- At the end of the weekend, he returns on Air Force Two.
- If the weather is right, Biden will return to Andrews on the airplane the very next day, Saturday, to play golf with President Obama.
- After the round of golf, he flies back to Delaware Saturday evening and returns to Washington on the same plane on Sunday evening.
- The Secret Service rents 20 condo residences in the Wilmington, Delaware area to accommodate this schedule, keeping a full time contingent of agents in Delaware at all times.
- This is a different Joe Biden from when he was a Senator, according to the article, since Senator Joe Biden bragged that he used Amtrak to get to and from his home state of Delaware. The Amtrak station in Wilmington is even named after him.
- The cost of just this weekend travel comes out to about $1 million a year worth of taxpayer wealth.
I understand the VP needs the best security available. I understand that the VP needs down time and relaxation. But as President Obama's designated cost cutter for this administration, could he at least try and set a better example:
- If he knows he is going to play golf on Saturday, why travel to Delaware on Friday just to turn around and come back the next day? Why not get a morning tee time on Saturday, come home after the round and go back to D.C. on Monday? It saves a round trip of gas and expenses without reducing his down time.
- Given the sad state the country is in on so many dimensions, why is he going home EVERY weekend? Maybe a little overtime work is needed, not just by the VP but by everyone in D.C., to find a way to fix what ails the country.
- Do we really need to rent 20 condos year round for Secret Service people in Wilmington, to serve a VP that is only there on weekends? Sounds excessive.
- Washington is only about two and a half hours away by car, is not that a viable alternative, and much cheaper alternative than flying every weekend? By the time the helicopter takes the VP from his D.C. residence to the plane which then flies to Wilmington where he is picked up and then driven to his home, that has to be almost as long as driving up I-95. Not saying he needs to drive every weekend but it would be a nice symbolic act for him to cut back his expenses, incur a little inconvenience, as a good example for the rest of the country.
But all of this would involve self sacrifice and a little leadership, two characteristics that we continue to contend is in short supply in Washington.
2) The Miami Herald reported in early July that the Federal government is going to spend $40 million to install a high speed fiberoptic underground cable from the mainland to the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay. This is the same prison that President Obama campaigned against in 2008, claiming that it was a disgrace to American ideals and that if elected, he would shut it down it down in
the first year of his Presidency.
Three and a half years later, we have already reported that it is costing the American taxpayer about $160 million a year to maintain the facility and its 169 detainees. Now, taxpayers are going to invest another $40 million into the facility's infrastructure. Thus, it does not appear that this administration 1) has any short term intent of shuttering the prison even though it was once considered an embarrassment, and 2) we will be paying for it for a long time to come.
This conclusion is supported by the words of the outgoing commander of the base, Navy Capt. Kirk Hibbert, who told the Herald: "It only makes sense to do if we're going to be here for any period of time.” This investment will be the largest single investment made at the detention facility since it was opened.
What a waste of time, energy, money, and resources. But I guess it is necessary as it now appears that the U.S. has its first official, permanent gulag in its history.
3) According to a July 13, 2012 Associated Press (AP) report, an audit of the $51 billion the U.S. has spent on various Iraqi development projects over the past decade concluded that the projects are probably rife with waste and corruption - it is just that the auditors could not even accurately estimate the extent of the waste, that is how bad the situation has been. According to the article, "The precise amount lost to fraud and waste can never be known."
According to the auditor's report from the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Funds, a full range of accounting weaknesses put "billions of American taxpayer dollars at risk of waste and misappropriation." Great, not only did we unnecessarily waste hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives fighting in Iraq, we extended the waste to reconstruction efforts also.
Examples of the fraud include the following:
- One contractor charged $80 for a pipe fitting that its competitor was selling for $1.41 because the company's billing documents were either reviewed sloppily by U.S. contracting officers or were not reviewed at all.
- The auditors came across a case in where the State Department had only one contracting official to validate more than $2.5 billion in spending on a DynCorp contract for Iraqi police training.
- Earlier reviews of DynCorp invoices resulted in the recovery of $60 million so you would have thought that the State Department would have been smart enough to assign more than ONE person to subsequent DynCorp invoice reviews.
- The inspectors found that possibly up to $35 million set aside to renovate the Baghdad airport may have been wasted.
You know that government wasteful spending is out of control when its auditors cannot even come up with a decent estimate of its magnitude.
4) We have often discussed the fact that annual Medicare wasteful spending and criminal fraud is estimated to be in the $70-90 billion range. Well, a July 13, 2012 article in the Huffington Post offered some insights as to why that waste is so high.
The first insight is recent news that Medicare has paid out about $188 million over the past few years for penis pumps. Remember, Medicare is supposed to pay for the medical needs of elderly Americans. Penis pumps, at least in my opinion and the opinions of the many protests this news has caused, does not fall into this category. Medicare spent $36 million on this product last year, up from just $7 million that was paid out in 2000.
The article goes on to discuss the fact that not only are some of these expenses "legal" according to Medicare rules but there is also fraud as it relates to Medicare penis pumps. The article cites the case of an Illinois man, Gary Winner, who was criminally sentenced in February for shipping penis pumps to diabetes patients who did not order them. Winner purchased them for $26 each from online sex shops, remarketed them as “erectile pumps,” and then he billed Medicare $284 each for the devices, part of a larger fraud that cost the insurance plan $2.2 million over four years.
Disgraceful. Wouldn't the $188 million be better spent for cancer treatment for elderly Americans? Wouldn't $188 million be better spent to reduce the drug and medicine costs of elderly Americans? Wouldn't the $188 million be better spent researching solution for dementia and Alzheimer's diseases, the scourge of elderly Americans?
But the Huffington Post article goes beyond the Medicare penis pumps scandal. It referred to a law enforcement bust back in May when law enforcement authorities charged 107 doctors, nurses and social workers in seven cities with Medicare fraud that allegedly billed the program of $452 million, the highest dollar amount in a single Medicare bust in U.S. history.
A $452 million bust is certainly good news. But here is the bad news. That is the amount that these criminals have fraudulently collected from Medicare, and the American taxpayer, not the amount that is likely to be recovered. Also, even if the entire $452 million is recovered, it will only be .5-.6% of what Medicare wastes and loses in a single year. It is a very small amount. More work needs to be done to track down these criminals but even more work needs to be done to ensure the fraud and waste does not occur in the first place.
So much waste in so many places. And apparently all our political class worries about is their self enrichment, their reelection, and their golf games.
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/
