The first post in this month’s series can be accessed at:
1) Although just about every Federal program wastes money, the way that Washington accounts for their spending of that wasted money even manages to undercount the true costs to taxpayers. According to a recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis, a number of government programs actually cost taxpayers far more than what is shown in official budget figures and results.
For example of how this charade works, consider the skyrocketing student loan aid problem in this country. Some Washington Democrats have introduced legislation to reduce costs for student borrowers. According to Senator Elizabeth Warren, among others, she seems to believe that the Federal government makes a profit from managing its transactions with student borrowers. Thus, student loan rates can be reduced to ease the debt problem without costing taxpayers any money.
However, the CBO's analysis, using the correct accounting procedures, shows that Federal student loan programs represent subsidies to borrowers and COSTS to taxpayers, not PROFITS as Warren claims under her use of a bogus accounting approach. Applying fair-value accounting acid test to other government programs yields similar results:
- The six largest programs of the Export-Import Bank, which provides loans and loan guarantees to U.S. exporters, create $14 billion in savings under normal terms, but in the fair-value analysis, they cost $2 billion. Thus, the cost to taxpayers looks eight times better when the wrong accounting procedures are used.
- The Federal Housing Administration's single-family mortgage guarantee program for low-income families is credited with budgetary savings of $63 billion, but it really costs taxpayers $30 billion when accounted for properly.
2) While recently appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” conservative columnist George Will discussed why the current government is so difficult to manage, namely it is “too big for meaningful oversight and effective management.” The lack of efficiency shouldn’t shock Americans:
But why are we surprised the government that runs the Post Office badly and runs Amtrak badly can’t run a health care system? Delivering a postcard from A to B or a passenger from point A to point B is a lot simpler than delivering health care. So, we shouldn’t be surprised by this.
We totally agree with Mr. Will regarding the obesity of the Federal government, with our comparison of likening the overgrown and obese Federal government bureaucracy to Jabba The Hutt from the Star Wars movies: an overblown, overweight behemoth that is slow, mean, and a hoarder of resources but providing nothing positive to society in return.
You’d think the government would be able to handle something so easy as the postal system or a train network, but it has proven time and again that it cannot do either efficiently or effectively despite having been at those tasks for centuries or decades. Why should we trust a government like that with something so precious as our health care?
3) Hypocrisy alert. Back in the 2012 Presidential election campaign, Obama, Harry Reid, and other Democrats tried to demonize Mitt Romney and his association with Bain Capital, a financial firm that Romney used to run. Seems that Bain had the audacity to give money to Democratic political opponents and thus, incur the wrath and venom of election year politics and being depicted as the worse aspect of Republicans and our election system.
Fast forward to the last weekend in May, 2014: guess who Barack Obama played golf with over the last May weekend? Not only did Obama play golf at an exclusive Robert Trent Golf Club over the weekend, one of the people in his foursome was none other than a lobbyist for Bain Capital named Joe O’Neil. Those people at Bain that were so evail less than two years ago are now golf partners with the President, a President who falsely promised to stay clear of all lobbyists in his ill-fated “most transparent administration of all time” campaign promise.
As with government budget numbers, trust no one who has the word “politician” on their resume.
4) Getting back to the Post Office and its inefficiencies, consider a recent Inspector General report on the Post Offic. The report found that while the Postal Service pays its hauling contractors and truckers for fuel based on the miles they must drive to deliver the mail, the contractors' trucks are actually more fuel-efficient than what the Postal Service calculates the fuel payments for.
According to the Inspector General report, when estimating vehicle miles-per-gallon, the Postal Service uses a rate as much as 2.2 miles lower than the industry hauling and trucking average. This results in the Postal Service paying for more fuel than what the hauling contractors actually use, to the tune of almost $100 million a year. According to the Inspector General's report: "This can create an environment for fraud, waste, and abuse. The risk is that suppliers may use excess gallons for non-Postal Service operations, which is prohibited."
Again, the Post Office has been around for a long time. Wouldn’t one think that it would know how to run an efficient and cost effective operation by now and not have to have its failures identified in a separate Inspector General report? If they do not know the reality of their own industry, it is no wonder that they are on target to lose almost $2 billion this year alone, a loss that will somehow be eventually dumped onto the American taxpayer.
That lost of $2 billion could have been easily reduced by 5% if they just knew the reality of their trucking and hauling processes. But knowing reality has never been a strong suit of the Federal government or the politicians that run it.
5) You know we are really in bad shape as a country when we have to ask the question: relative to the major scandals of this Presidential administration, is the President ignorant of life and reality or is he a liar? We make this discouraging type of statement since it appears that this President finds out about the major issues and scandals of our time by watching the evening news on television.
Is he really that out of touc and ignorant that television news is his primary source of what is happening around the country and the world? Or is he so incompetent and unable to address those issues and scandals that he disavows any knowledge of them, lying, until they explode into the national view?
Are we to believe that with the large and well paid (or overpaid) staff at the White House that no one had the guts, the ability, or the face time to maybe give the President a heads up on such major issues as Fast and Furious, the IRS shredding the First Amendment rights of Obama’s political adversaries, the NSA spying, the disgraceful treatment of our veterans, etc.?
Consider the following set of video clips which seem to prove that we are living through the most disconnected, oblivious Presidential administration of all time:
If the President does not take the time to understand or does not have the ability to comprehend these major issues until he watches television, then it would be impossible for him to understand and take action to reform the workings of the Federal government. This is a government that probably wastes more than a TRILLION dollars a year through duplication, ineffectiveness, and outright criminal fraud.
Or maybe those issues have not yet come to his attention because CNN has not had a news story on them yet. Lying or ignorant, you decide, but either option is certainly an embarrassing trait for the President of the United States.
So what did we learn today? We learned that the government uses faulty accounting, it operates a faulty train system, it operates a faulty postal system, if operates a faulty Presidential briefing system, relying instead on the evening news to brief the President, and Bain Capital and its lobbying money is back in good graces with this administration. More insanity 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
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