To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.
1) After the tragic death of George Floyd in Minneapolis earlier this year at the hands of some rogue police officers, the city and the country erupted in violence and riots. As a result of the incident, many liberal cities, including Minneapolis, called for “defunding the police,” i.e. reducing the funds available for police work and shifting it to a nebulous concept that involves community something or other.
Which is all well and good if you know where you want to go on a strategic basis. But the folks in Minneapolis on the city council and mayor just started slashing police resources and bad mouthing and disrespecting the overwhelming majority of police officers that do a very difficult job very well everyday under always dangerous circumstances without having a replacement plan in place.
As a result of this insanity to rush to an undefined future while screwing up the present, a lot of bad things happened:
- Police officers either retired or just quit, not wanting to be the butt of harassment and disrespect at the hands of city politicians who have no clue.
- The ever growing number of veteran officers who have left the force. combined with the budget reductions which handicapped the police to actually do their job, led to violent crime spiking up in the city.
- This has caused both businesses and residents to strongly consider or who have already acted in getting out of the city, taking their tax revenue and jobs with them.
- The volume of violent criminal acts in the city has skyrocketed over the past few months.
- The chief of police essentially told these businesses that they were on their own from a crime perspective, that he could not guarantee their safety in the event of a criminal act being done to them or their business.
- Things got so bad that city council members, the very people who screwed everything up, decided to use taxpayer funds to hire private security guards to protect themselves from the ever rising level of crime, something not available to regular, taxpayer citizens.
- The city police force has been so decimated that the chief had to ask the local politicians for funding to bring in outside police personnel to help fight the ever rising crime rate.
- That was the message that chief Medaria Arrandondo brought to the town council recently.
- He asked for an additional $500,000 to combat the rising crime rate: so far in 2020, 74 city residents have been killed and about 500 have been wounded in the city, the highest level in 15 years.
- Which is not surprising since the police force has 143 fewer police officers on payroll since January and another 845 are on some sort of sickness leave, including many who say they have PTSD from the job stress over the past six months.
- According to the chief, “Resources are hemorrhaging. I’m trying to do all I can to stop that bleeding.”
- He wants to bring in 20 to 40 police officers from a local county sheriff’s office.
For example, Council Member Steve Fletcher voted against the additional funding with the following flawed reasoning: “So, we're going to take a thing that has not been working very well and has not been addressing carjackings, has not been addressing the rise in violent crime ... and say if we just do 5% more of it, that will get us to a better place. I'm struggling to get my head around why that is a good idea.”
He cannot get his head around this idea and yet proposed no idea of his own to fight the dangerous rise in crime. Arradondo countered this insanity by stating the obvious: “We can go back and forth on the $185 million but that is not stopping the bloodshed that is occurring every day in our city. If you choose to say no to these victims of crime, then please stand by that.”
Pompous politicians that have private security guards but refuse and fail to protect the lives of city residents and businesses, a basic function of government.
2) We have often and recently discussed the declining fortunes of many American cities and states. Places Like Chicago and New York City, Illinois and New York, and other places are already in a financial death spiral: current budget shortfalls, outrageously high unfunded financial liabilities, rising crime rates driving out residents and businesses, taking their tax revenue and jobs with them, etc.
In fact, we have placed our bets on Chicago (followed by New York City) and Illinois (followed by New York) as being the first city and first state to go bankrupt. Cato has some other data that verifies our own analysis:
- Of the 25 highest tax states, 24 of them have had net out-migration of residents in 2016, a trend that our data and analysis shows is still basically a true statement.
- Of the 25 lowest tax states, 17 had a net in-migration.
- The largest out-migration state in 2016 was New York with Florida having the largest in-migration, which is not surprising given the very high taxes in New York and the lack of a state income tax in Florida.
- Cato's conclusion was that the high tax states should downsize their bureaucratic state governments, cut taxes, cut spending, and reduce regulations, all of which would increase personal freedom and make their states and cities more desirable.
3) We have too often talked about the incredible amount of fraud and wasteful spending in Afghanistan since 2001, it has been a total disgrace and insult to the American taxpayer. Unfortunately, a recent Federal government audit report found that the fraud STILL continues:
- A whopping $19 billion of taxpayer wealth which was supposed to rebuild Afghanistan has been lost to fraud, wasteful spending, and abuse in just the past ten years.
- The audit found that an amazing 90% of the spending cases that were audited found that the budget was spent “carelessly, extravagantly, or to no purpose.”
- And the $19 billion came from only about half of the budget items that were in the Afghanistan budget.
- Disgraces included losing almost $500 million in oil that was supposed to go to the Afghan National Army, a $335 million power plant that is rarely used, tens of millions of dollars spent on failed drug addiction programs, and $18.5 million for a prison that was never used.
- The inspector general says that the Federal government doesn't know where, when and what impact, if any, the spending has had.
- Other failures included books purchased for an education program that were never used, a sports stadium that was built but never used because of many problems, and a $5.2 million border patrol building that was also not used.
- The audit found that “Endemic corruption, widespread insecurity, and a lack of accountability over on-budget assistance continue to make any investments made in Afghanistan vulnerable to waste, fraud and abuse and may threaten the peace process as well as the perceived legitimacy and effectiveness of the Afghan government.”
- We have previously discussed the reality that on average it costs about $2.94 to provide a nutritious meal to a homeless American.
- Thus, $19 billion could provide 6.5 BILLION meals to homeless Americans.
- This comes out to 11,671 meals per homeless American or 10.8 years worth of three meals a day per homeless individual, unbelievable.
- On average it costs $6,522 to provide annual resources to treat a drug addicted individual.
- Thus, that $19 billion could have treated almost 300,000 American drug addicts for ten years.
Enough insanity for today: $19 billion wasted in Afghanistan, cities and states going bankrupt, and Minneapolis politicians still clueless and lost, endangering the lives and property of its citizens and businesses.
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:
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
No comments:
Post a Comment