Unfortunately, every month there seems to be more and more insanity to cover, not a good sign for our future, our nation, and our economy. Consider the following Keystone Kops adventures of today’s American politicians and government officials.
1) Recently, the House Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing dedicated to war the situation in Afghanistan. This is proper that they should do such a meeting, given their oversight responsibility as outlined in the Constitution. The three senior Obama administration officials who were called to testify at the meeting knew ahead of time that the hearing was to be on Afghanistan, this was not a surprise or ambush political hearing.
The video clip where the insanity occurs centers around a few simple questions that Congressman Dana Rohrbacker asked of the three senior officials, one of whom was actually the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan:
- How much does the U.S. government/American taxpayer expend in dollars each year fighting the war in Afghanistan?
- How many U.S. troops were wounded in the past year in Afghanistan?
- How many U.S. troops were killed in the past year in Afghanistan?
As you will see, the Congressman is amazed at how unprepared and ignorant these three were of their jobs and their responsibilities. They are an insult to the American taxpayer who pay their salaries, to the families who lost loved ones in the fighting, and the soldiers who served and suffered through the fighting.
See the video, appropriately labeled “Obama’s F Troop On Afghanistan,” at:
2) I have never been a big fan of MSNBC, viewing them as no more than extension of the Obama administration press office. It started when the network put together a video montage of movie scenes where buses explode into balls of fire, obviously killing all on board, and tried to pass it off as the Mitt Romney campaign bus.
The network was caught red handed editing the George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin 911 call to make it look like Zimmerman was a blatant racist. They actually fired an on air show host for suggesting the someone needed to defecate into Sarah Palin’s mouth but only after the outrage of such insults caused the firing more than a week after the spot aired.
These are hardly the actions of a legitimate news organization, a fact that concerns me in a democracy where freedom of the press needs to be objective and fair, not hateful and politically biased.
But the epitome of their incompetence happened on January 23, 2014 when MSNBC host and political correspondent Andrea Mitchell rudely interrupted former Congresswoman Jane Harman. The uncalled for interruption came in the middle of an interview, and in the middle of a sentence, pertaining to the dangers of the NSA collecting Americans' phone records, you know trivial stuff like the Fourth Amendment, for "breaking" news - about singer Justin Bieber:
"Congresswoman Harman, let me interrupt you for just a moment, we've got some breaking news out of Miami - stand by, if you will. Right now, in Miami, Justin Bieber has been arrested on a number of charges; the judge is reading the charges, including resisting arrest and driving under the influence. He's appearing now before the judge for his bond hearing. Let's watch."
How deeply into trouble are we as a nation when government officials do not know the basic facts about their jobs and a somewhat major news outlet in the country thinks a spoiled 19 year old singer is more important than the Fourth Amendment, Americans’ privacy rights, and the political class‘s destruction of those rights?
3) Consider two facts that were reported by Rob Garver writing in the Fiscal Times on January 15, 2014:
- “Between 2002 and 2012, federal agencies spent more than half a trillion dollars ($688 billion) on payments that should never have been made.”
- “In 2012 alone, the Office of Management and Budget gathered data on just 13 high-error programs in the federal government, and determined that they made a combined $101.3 billion in improper payments. To put that in perspective, that’s almost $16 billion more than the highly controversial budget sequester wound up cutting from government spending in 2013.”
Imagine how much better life would be for ordinary Americans if that wealth had stayed with them and not been wasted on political cronies and criminal elements by the Federal government. Imagine how much better off the economy would be if every American household had an extra $900 to spend every year.
Imagine, but don’t hold your breath since as Mr. Garver points out, this incompetence and wasteful spending has been going on for a very long time. And is trending worse each year. And remember, the $900 per household in waste was for only 13 Federal programs, the actual level of wasteful government spending is obviously higher.
4) Ever wonder why this economic recovery has been so pathetic relative to every other U.S. recession over the past century? Well, the Washington examiner in an article from January 22, 2014 might provide some insight:
- A recent study by the World Bank and the International Finance Corp., "Doing Business 2014: Understanding Regulations for Small- and Medium-Sized Businesses," found that the U.S. does not do well in making it easy for small and middle size businesses to get started, hiring people, and helping grow the economy.
- The annual report, released in October, ranks the relative ease of creating a new business in 189 countries, looking at such measures as the number of procedures required, the time spent complying with them and the cost of doing so, among other factors.
- In fact, the U.S. ranks well behind countries like Rwanda, Belarus and Azerbaijan in terms of how easy it is for an entrepreneur to start a new business.
- The report found that New Zealand is the easiest place in the world to create a new business where starting a business requires "one procedure, half a day, (and) less than 1 percent of income per capita and no paid-in minimum capital." the study noted.
- In comparison, the U.S. requires, on average, six procedures, takes five days and requires 1.5 percent of the company's income per capita.
- In addition to being beaten out by Rwanda (9), Azerbaijan (10), and Belarus (15), the U.S. also trailed Malaysia (16); Taiwan (17); Puerto Rico, which is a U.S. territory (18); and Mauritius (19).
Thus, our politicians appear be making it harder to start a business in this country and making it harder to grow the economy and reduce unemployment and suffering. The top five countries where it is easier to start a business include the generally strong and growing countries of New Zealand, Canada, Singapore, Australia and Hong Kong.
Thus, the equation and relationships are pretty straightforward: get the government, politicians, and the regulations they create out of the way and your economy will grow quickly. Impose ten new regulations every day of the year and you will see your economy’s ability to create new jobs fall lag behind such economic wimps as Rwanda, Belarus and Azerbaijan. Simple equations that still cannot be understood by our simple minded politicians.
Enough insanity for today, more to follow tomorrow.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:
www.loathemygovernment.com
It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
No comments:
Post a Comment