January, 2020, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: Illinois Gets Conned, States Going Bankrupt and Bad National Priorities

It is another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Let’s get started:

1) We have often reviewed the ineptness and idiocy of Illinois politicians. They have managed to screw up the finances of a wonderful and robust state so much that they are likely to be one of the first states to declare bankruptcy and that day of reckoning may not be too far off. They keep raising taxes to try and cover both present expenses and future liabilities without reducing state expenses which results in more and more citizens and businesses leaving the state because of higher and higher taxes, reducing tax revenue, which results in state politicians raising tax rates even more and the death spiral is on.

A recent article on the Godfather Politics website reported on just another example of how stupid and incompetent the state government and the politicians who operate it are:

• According to a January 2, 2020 article by Warner Todd Huston, the state government recently spent $23 million of state taxpayer wealth to buy an Abe Lincoln top hat that Lincoln supposedly wore along with other Lincoln artifacts.
• For a state drowning in red ink, it would seem that this is a totally unnecessary waste of taxpayer wealth given the financial straits the state is in.
• But even worse, after the purchase, it was discovered that Lincoln never wore the hat that was bought by the state in support of its “Land Of Lincoln” effort.
• The hat was part of other Lincoln artifacts that was supposed to go into the state’s new Lincoln museum.
• Again, when you are in dire financial straits, I do not think that building a museum is a proper use of limited and shrinking taxpayer wealth.
• A woman owned a huge collection of Lincoln artifacts and told the state that she would sell the entire lot of them to the state for $9 million.
• The state actually took out a loan and after expenses, interest on the loan, and the principal it cost state taxpayers $23 million to buy her collection.
• The crowning piece among the artifacts was the “Abe Lincoln top hat.”
• But according to the Chicago Tribune, Lincoln never owned the hat: “The prize feature of the items bought was the beaver-skin hat — which alone was appraised at $6.5 million — because the 16th president was so closely identified with that style of headwear. And it turned out the hat’s authenticity was quite disputable. It was passed down to the descendants of an Illinois farmer, William Waller, who supposedly got it as a gift from Lincoln when Waller visited Washington during the Civil War. But troubling questions arose, and last year, the foundation commissioned a study by Illinois State Historian Samuel Wheeler to find the truth. His findings were bad news. The report, obtained by WBEZ, found no evidence that Lincoln ever owned or wore the hat. It has no traces of Lincoln’s DNA; it does not appear to be his size; and, reported WBEZ, “its apocryphal Lincoln connection wasn’t even known to descendants of its original owners.” The report also faulted the foundation for its inexplicable carelessness. “It is clear that no one at (the museum) conducted any research on the object before it was acquired in 2007,” said Wheeler.”
• Great, $23 million spent on museum pieces when the state is going bankrupt and the main piece is not even authentic.

No surprise that states like Illinois are going bankrupt. Wasting taxpayer money in times of financial crisis, not doing due diligence when they spent taxpayer wealth, and digging their financial hole deeper and deeper.

2) If Illinois does not go bankrupt first, it may be because a state like California beats it to the bankruptcy court. We have often talked about the hundreds of billions of dollars the state of California has in unfunded liabilities and how the state politicians are creating their own financial death spiral: as they refuse to get out of control state government under control they have to constantly raise taxes to fund their out of control spending. As they raise taxes, citizens and businesses leave the state to escape the high taxation levels. This out migration results in shrinking tax revenue streams which forces state politicians to raise taxes again which forces more people to leave and the financial death spiral is underway.

The American News Action network used those exact words, death spiral, in a recent article about how the out migration of productive, taxpayer state citizens is plunging California into a financial death spiral:

• According to the most recent Census reports, no state has lost more residents in 2019 than California.
• 203,414 California citizens left the state last year.
• In total, when you take into affect the out migration, the in migration, and birth and death rates, the state’s population grew only .35%, far below the national average.
• As a result, the state is on track to lose its first Congressional seat in its 169 year history of statehood.

All of this points to the beginning of a financial death spiral since there is no sign that state politicians are in any mood to significantly reduce state government spending to align with a reasonable taxation rate. In fact, one state politician is on record blaming the out migration not on one of the worse tax burdens in the country but on a bad housing market: “Our failure to build enough housing is at the heart of CA’s challenges: It’s exploding housing costs; It’s fueling homelessness & poverty; It’s creating sprawl, increasing traffic, commutes & wildfire risk," Democrat State Sen. Scott Wiener claimed on Twitter.

I do not think so Mr. Wiener. People want to be free, it is a basic human drive, and that includes economic freedom. With sky high property taxes, onerous gas taxes, some of the highest sales and income taxes in the country, this is not a housing issue, this is a government overspending its revenue stream issue and thus, there is no chance the state politicians can resolve this death spiral since they deny the reality of the root causes of the death spiral.

3) The previous article also listed out the top five states that were losing residents to out migration in addition to California:

1. California: -203,414
2. New York: -180,649
3. Illinois: -104,986
4. New Jersey: -48,946
5. Massachusetts: -30,274

It just so happens that the three states we have constantly predicted would be the first states to go bankrupt are California, Illinois, and New Jersey and these are three of the top four state losing residents according to the Census Bureau. Rats fleeing a sinking ship? Certainly an aspect of a financial death spiral.

4) Back in 2016 we lamented how perverted our political processes had become with candidates in total spending billions and billions of dollars to gain office where once there, they are usually pretty useless. Our political processes have become more marketing campaigns and spend fests than adult discussions and debates about the issues facing Americans.

Unfortunately, it does not look like the political landscape will be much better in 2020:

• Michael Bloomberg is a very, very rich billionaire and former mayor of New York City.
• He would also like to be President.
• According to Advertising Analytics, Bloomberg, has already personally spent over $155 million dollars of his own money on political advertising, a year before the Presidential election and months before any Democratic primaries.
• Most of that $155 million has been spent on TV ads, $136.8 million.
• According to a USA Today study, 58% of those polls have seen his TV ads, which is not bad but only 35% of those that saw the ads them found them at least somewhat convincing while 59% found them unconvincing.
• Despite spending order of magnitudes more than other candidates looking for the Democratic nomination, Bloomberg polls at less than 5% and is in fifth place among Democratic candidates.

Bloomberg may eventually spend enough money to become President. But that is doubtful if $155 million only got you to fifth place and less than 5% preference levels. Thus, in our opinion, this is a vanity effort and a tremendous waste of money, money that could have been used to:

• According to the Feeding America organization, on average it costs about $2.94 to provide a good meal for a homeless American.
• Thus, Bloomberg’s $155 million could have provided almost 53 million meals to America’s homeless population.
• The $155 million could have fed over 48,000 homeless Americans three meals a day for an entire year.
• According to the Drug Abuse government website, it costs about $6,522 to treat a drug addicted American.
• Thus, Bloomberg’s $155 million could have treated almost 24,000 drug addicted Americans for a year.

Look, its Bloomberg’s money, he can do whatever he wants with it. But it does illustrate how bad our priorities are in this country when billions and billions of dollars are spent on political campaigns, the results of which usually result in politicians in office who accomplish very little, while millions of Americans are homeless, hungry, and drug addicted. Bad, bad priorities.

That is enough insanity for today: a vanity Presidential run that wastes money, financial death spirals are in play in several U.S. states, and inept Illinois politicians are conned out of millions of taxpayer dollars. More insanity to follow.

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:

https://www.amazon.com/Walter-Bruno-Korschek/e/B002KYU08Q/ref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

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.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w