There is a lot going on in the world: Obama and Russiagate findings, Middle East powder keg, the Russian/Ukrainian war, etc. But through all this, the American political class continues to constantly deliver its own special brand of insanity, stupidity, wasteful taxpayer spending, and ineffective government programs.
1)We have been talking a lot lately about how we think that a state government will soon go bankrupt, given the horrid and worsening financial conditions in some of these states. Residents and businesses are fleeing these states in search of less taxation, less government business regulation, less crime, better quality of life, etc. This in turn reduces the tax base and government revenue which forces the state’s politicians to raise taxes which drives more residents and businesses out of the state and the financial death spiral is in full force.
The four states we feel are most likely to win the race to bankruptcy court are California, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois. They all share the same characteristics described in the first paragraph and their government financials and quality of life for its citizens continue to deteriorate.
Depending on the day and latest bad news, the leader in this race bankruptcy varies. However, it seems that California has taken the lead, given what is going on inside the state on so many fronts, none of which is good news. Consider the latest bad news out of the state:
According to CalNews, California has the highest “supplemental” rate of poverty in the whole country.
This poverty rate of 17.7% translates into almost 7 million Californians being classified as impoverished.
This 17.7% is five percentage points higher than the national average and ties the state with Louisiana.
The poverty rate is almost three times higher than the state with the lowest poverty rate, Maine at 6.7%.
Even worse, the trend is going south as the poverty rate is 2.3 percentage points higher than it was just a few years ago.
Another study, this one from the Public Policy Institute of California and the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality, found that not only were 16.8% of Californians living in poverty but another 17.9% were living in “near poverty.”
The combination of these numbers means that over 13 million state residents are having trouble covering daily food, living, and other expenses.
And locally the situation is worse with several areas in the state including Los Angeles looking at almost a 20% poverty rate.
And yet it appears that state politicians do not get it or how to fix what they broke in the state, at least according to the self congratulations state Assembly speaker Robert Rivas heaped on himself: “We went big, We produced results. We delivered historic progress — on housing, on energy, on climate, on health care, and on human rights. And that progress is something every one of us can be proud of. And while our work is not finished fixing California’s housing system, this year marked a turning point in California’s housing story. And today, we also advanced the most significant energy package in years. We passed measures that will deliver real relief for families on their electricity bills. We took action to stabilize gas supplies, to prevent price shocks — while keeping health and environmental protections in place.”
So the same people that let the state get this bad all of a sudden think they fixed what they broke, doubtful.
More information that reinforces the decision of so many state residents and businesses to flee to other locales with better quality of life and lower taxation. Even if these supposed fixes listed above are the right things to do, it will take years to undo what has been broken in the state. Not sure they have years before the state government has to enter bankruptcy. Time will tell
But it is amazing that a state with the highest tech job concentration in the country, wealthy Hollywood types, great climate, great recreation options, great natural resources, could become such a Third World disaster, a disaster that may only be fixable by bankruptcy.
2)We also believe that a major city in the country will soon go bankrupt with the top candidates being Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. They also face a dwindling tax base, high crime rates, and other quality of life issues that are causing residents and businesses to flee to other areas.
Consider Chicago. Like the politicians in California, Chicago politicians have been facing issues for decades, especially high murder and violent crime rates, and have been unable to stem the negative impacts on their citizens. The latest effort by the governor of the state, J.B. Pritzker, just had another embarrassing set back:
Given all other attempts to fix Chicago have failed, his latest brainstorm, related to the inane “defund the police” affliction, was to create a group of people called “Peacekeepers.”
These Peacekeepers would be non-law enforcement folks who would be sent into police needed situations and calmly talk away the criminal and violence problem, a stupid process on the surface and in practice.
But hey, nothing else worked so Pritzker at least gets a star for trying.
But as we discussed a few posts ago, one of his Peacekeepers was actually a member of a criminal gang that rammed a truck into the showroom of a Chicago Louis Vuitton store, grabbed as much of the designer's goods as they good, made off in separate vehicles and ended up killing an innocent Chicago resident.
Obviously, Pritzker did not do a good job screening this applicant for his nonviolent peacekeeper effort.
But now we find out that another Peacekeeper was also a violent felon.
CBW Chicago, a local Chicago news outlet, reported that another one of Pritzker’s Peacekeepers was recently sentenced to 22 years in prison for his criminal activities.
Jamari Edwards was the culprit sentenced to prison time for being involved in multiple carjackings, shooting a victim, and threatening others at gunpoint.
Edwards also pleaded guilty to Federal firearm charges as it related to his multiple carjackings, three of which happened in the same week.
Unbelievable, now we know that at least two of Pritzker’s non-violent Peacekeepers were violent criminals with long records of violence. Does nobody know how to do a background check in the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago? Unbelievable incompetence.
No wonder that residents and businesses are leaving the city, a city that cannot even do background checks but was ready to send at least two violent criminals into the community to reduce violence.
3)The national debt is over $37 trillion so it is a good bet that the Washington political class has wasted a lot of taxpayer wealth over the decades. And a recent Congressional report uncovered another whopper of wasted tax money:
Apparently the Biden administration spent a whopping $900 million, almost a billion dollars, to promote its public relations objective on the covid pandemic.
It’s one thing to put out some public service announcements on how to protect yourself from the virus but almost a billion dollars?
Of course, more was involved than protecting our health, the program was, according to the report, designed to keep Americans in a constant state of fear, make Americans be more compliant with lockdowns, and support Biden’s covid policies, all of which does not sound like public service advice.
Biden's Health and Human Services Department used these millions and millions of dollars to create manipulative advertisements to suggest that the covid vaccines were the only route to resuming normal life.
The ads that were developed falsely promised that if you got the vaccine, you would not get the virus, a lie that proved to be incredibly wrong.
This failure of the covid vaccines, according to the report, undermined Americans’ confidence in real and effective vaccines, a long term health problem.
Possibly even worse, some of the money was apparently used to force the Big Tech companies to track and monitor Americans’ covid postings on social media, possibly infringing on Americans’ First Amendment rights.
As a result of the monitoring, doctors, nurses, and others had their social media accounts blocked or censored.
A whopper of a waste of money: politicizing a pandemic, censoring dissenting voices, infringing on First Amendment rights, spreading false virus information, this waste of money had it all going on.
That’s enough for today: almost a billion dollars wasted on Biden's covid misinformation campaign, another violent felon Peacekeeper in Chicago, and living in poverty in California.
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If you agree that we need to deseat every member of Congress for their lack of success and accomplishment, then please consider going to the following petition link to help the cause:
https://www.change.org/p/deseat-congress-reset-freedom
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