Government: If you Think The Problems We Create Are Bad, Wait Until You See Our Solutions, Part 3

This is the third and final post in a series that examined the 14 major screw ups of the Federal government over the past fifty years or so. These posts are a continuation of the theme in a previous series as it related to the book and move, the “Hunger Games.”

In the “Hunger Games,” an elitist set of people, politicians, have set themselves up in the seat of government to enjoy personal self enrichment at the cost of hard times for the rest of the citizens and at the cost of never resolving any major issue facing the nation. In our case, we found out that in Washington D.C. the salaries are higher, the unemployment rate is lower, and political cronyism is rampant.

Our political class is so busy taking care of their own needs that government programs like Medicare, Medicaid, ethanol subsidies, alternative energy subsidies, failing public schools, etc. either never work, never come close to attaining their objectives but waste trillions of dollars in the process of not working, or make the original situation and related areas worse than before the government program was established.

Today will go through the final four, greatest Federal government failures. The first ten in this series can be reviewed at:

http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/02/government-if-you-think-problems-we.html

http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/02/government-if-you-think-problems-we_18.html


11) The Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) constantly provides new material to be discussed in this blog, none of it any good. From groping American citizens to purchasing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of airport screening equipment that it will never use to failing random tests of their screening processes, the TSA has been incompetent, expensive, and affront to freedom. It should be privatized like most every other single country in the world has done in order to finally get competent, efficient, and effective airport security in place.

12) According to FBI crime statistics, overall gun homicides have dropped 14% since expiration of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban in 2006. Total violent crime has dropped nearly 70% since 1973. Good news. Bad news: the political class in Washington wants to reinstate the assault weapons and make gun ownership harder to do, if not ban gun ownership altogether, despite these trends. A case of politicians mucking up a good thing, peaceful law abiding citizens defending themselves as a result of the Second Amendment.

13) Some random facts about Social Security:

• When Social Security implemented in 1935, it was a safety net program that taxed only 1% of income. Now it is over 6.2% and growing.
• The Social Security program is financed like a Ponzi scheme, where younger generations pay for the retirement of older generations, who are ironically wealthier in terms of net worth, i.e. poorer Americans subsidize wealthier Americans.
• The system is cash flow negative as of last year, i.e. it is no longer self funding, it requires the Federal government to sell more debt to cover its expense stream, constantly adding to the national debt.
• The Social Security Trust Fund does not exist, it is an accounting mirage. There is no $2 TRILLION trust fund sitting around in the U.S. Treasury to cover future Social Security expenses.
• The Supreme Court has reaffirmed the Federal government’s power to change the rules, payouts, tax scheme, etc. as it pleases, there is no guarantee of future benefits or payouts.
• The Social Security system is estimated to have future unfunded liabilities of about $45 TRILLION.
• The ratio of workers paying into the system relative beneficiaries taking out of the system has gotten dramatically smaller over time, place a larger and larger financial burden on today’s workers.
• Analytical study after analytical study, both by private entities and government agencies, have definitively proven that the Social Security process and model is an absolute lousy retirement investment program.

A typical government approach: expensive, going bankrupt, inefficient, and subject to the whims and actions of the Washington political class.

14) In an ABC News interview in 2009 President Obama said that if Congress did not pass health care legislation that brought down health care costs, the Federal government “will go bankrupt.” Congress passed his plan but Obama Care costs are now triple what the President promised they would be in 2009, now standing at $2.7 trillion, up from under $900 billion just a few years ago (double click on the image for a larger view):

Seems like the Federal government will go bankrupt but Obama Care, rather than preventing it, will accelerate the bankruptcy proceedings.

So let’s review this less than stellar checklist of accomplishments:

• Operating a successful retirement program via Social Security: Failure
• Operating a successful retirement medical program via Medicare: Failure
• Operating successful pre-retirement programs via Medicaid and Obama Care: Failure
• Operating a successful national energy program via ethanol and alternative energy subsidies: Failure
• Operating a successful farm policy via programs that encourage farmers not to farm: Failure
• Operating a safe society by disarming law abiding citizens in violation of the Second Amendment: Potential failure
• Operating an efficient, non-groping airport security program: Failure
• Operating an efficient, effective, and compassionate illegal immigration policy: Failure
• Operating an efficient, effective, and compassionate illegal drug policy: Failure
• Operating anything that is efficient, effective, and compassionate: Failure

One damning list of non-accomplishments. That is why several steps from “love My Country, Loathe My Government” are critical to fixing what ails America:

1. Step 1 would reduce Federal spending by 10% a year for five years. Not only would this go a long way to getting our national debt under control it would also help focus the political class on far fewer priorities since they would not have the budget to fund everything they fund today. Hopefully by having less to focus on they could actually resolve a major issue or two.
2. Step 34 would hold Congressional committee members responsible for their committees' actions and records. Poor performing committees would have their members replaced for incompetence and dereliction of duty, i.e. we would hold politicians accountable, a foreign concept to most of them.
3. Step 39 would impose term limits on all Federal politicians. Many members of Congress have been in office for twenty, thirty, or more years. They were present when all of the above failures happened. They are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Maybe we can eventually get to a state of government when government solutions actually work and work efficiently and cost effectively without unwanted unintended consequences. Until then, let these 14 examples of failure and incompetency be the legacy of the people we continue to keep in office.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w