Help Wanted, Lawyers and Legal Resources, To Fight The Invisible Empire, Part 3: Suing The Political Class To Save Our Democracy

Three previous posts this week were focused on how ordinary Americans might be able to retake control of our democracy since the Washington political class seems to be very uninterested in protecting our democracy and doing their Constitutionally required jobs:

• On Monday we reviewed the massive $46 TRILLION lawsuit that has been filed in Brooklyn Federal court in an attempt to reverse the banking cronyism that has resulted in the political class redistributing taxpayer wealth to Wall Street bankers and others (“banksters”) in return for campaign donations and political support.
• On Tuesday we reviewed how delinquent and inept our politicians in Washington have been in carrying out their Constitutional and legal mandates when it comes to putting together coherent and detailed budgets on time.
• On Wednesday, we reviewed the dire financial situation we are in as a nation, mostly as a result of our politicians being unwilling or unable to do their jobs, most notably implementing coherent and rational budgets as required in the timeframes required.

These three posts lead us up to today’s proposal. Since it is obvious that our needs and priorities are not compatible with the election and personal enrichment priorities of the politicians in Washington, we need a new approach to reclaiming our democracy. The political class controls the country’s election processes via gerrymandering of Congressional districts, using taxpayer funded earmarks to buy support for their continual reelections, controlling the membership and activities of the toothless Federal Election Commission, allowing billions of dollars from organized entities (unions, corporations, PACs) to overwhelm individual citizen needs and priorities, etc.

This control does not mean we should not take steps to continue to regain control and get back to election processes that actually reflect the desires of ordinary Americans. Many of these steps are outlined in “Love My Country, Loathe My Government” and also include the critical step of instituting term limits so that all Washington politicians are “one and done.”

However, using the $43 TRILLION lawsuit as a new paradigm, we need to go to court to reduce the power, corruption, cronyism, and liberty reduction activities of our political class. This post proposes two approaches. After reviewing them below, we will ask for support and guidance on how to move forward on this track.

Before going into the two judicial processes, let’s review some recent Federal government budget results and disasters:

• Recall from our posts earlier this week that the U.S. Senate, and consequently the entire Federal government, has not passed a comprehensive, coherent, and Constitutionally mandated Federal budget since April, 2009.
• Thus, for fiscal years, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013, the American political class has failed miserably in accomplishing one of the basic requirements of their job description.
• If we go to the official White House budget website, (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals), we see that from 2010 through the expected results of 2013, the Federal government will have spent $14.658 TRILLION.
• In that same timeframe, the Federal government collected $9.837 TRILLION in taxes/revenue, incurring a spending deficit of $4.821 TRILLION.
• I contend that this $4.821 TRILLION deficit would not have occurred if there had been actual budgets passed and adhered to, like what is supposed to happen in our democracy.
• There are about 315 million Americans living in the U.S. today.
• If we divide the deficit spending over the past four years by the number of Americans, I contend that because of the lack of a formal budget, the political class has illegally overspent its revenue stream and wasted taxpayer wealth to the tune of about $15,000 per American ($4.8 TRILLION deficit divided by 315 million Americans.)
• We recognize that Congress has the power, as laid out in the Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1, to collect taxes: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United State.
• However, under the Constitution’s Appropriation Clause, Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 and the laws on budget processes that have been implemented to support the Appropriations Clause, Congress and the Federal government are required to pass and adhere to timely budgets: No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.
• The Heritage Foundation provides a coherent definition of what is required as a result of this clause: The Appropriations Clause is the cornerstone of Congress's "power of the purse." It assigns to Congress the role of final arbiter of the use of public funds. The source of Congress's power to spend derives from Article I, Section 8, Clause 1. The Appropriations Clause provides Congress with a mechanism to control or to limit spending by the federal government. The Framers chose the particular language of limitation, not authorization, for the first part of the clause and placed it in Section 9 of Article I, along with other restrictions on governmental actions to limit, most notably, executive action.
• Given these two clauses from the Constitution and the Heritage Foundation’s interpretation that the Constitution requires Congress have a mechanism to control or limit spending, we contend that by not passing detailed budgets in any year since 2009 that Congress, specifically the Senate, has failed to implement the mandated mechanisms to control or limit spending, resulting in catastrophic and unnecessary deficit spending.

This deficit spending has resulted in every American being burdened with an unnecessary $15,000 of national debt. Thus, we intend to sue Congress, specifically Harry Reid and the Senate, for damages to the tune of $15,000. This $15,000 could be paid in any number of ways:

• Harry Reid, as Senate Majority Leader, and the reason for the failure to produce a Federal budget for the past several years, could write us a personal check for $15,000.
• The members of the Senate Finance Committee and Budget Committee, all of whom bear some responsibility for not doing their jobs and building annual Federal budgets, could all chip in individually to come up with the $15,000 total.
• The least attractive option, but one that we could accept, is for the $15,000 to come out of Federal tax streams. The unattractiveness of this option is that those responsible for the budget and deficit crises do not feel the pain of their negligence.

However, we would consider an alternative settlement in lieu of the $15,000:

• As a result of his inability to lead the Senate to the completion of one of its most basic duties, producing a coherent annual budget, Harry Reid would step down as the Senate Majority Leader and never chair another Senate committee as long as he was in Congress.
• The Congress and President would agree to a new law that would suspend the salary payment and all benefits of the President, members of the House of Representatives, or members of the Senate whenever a mandated budget deadline is missed. Their salary payment would commence again once they fulfilled their budget development responsibilities but they would never regain the salary that was loss because of their tardiness. Its called accountability in the real world and accountability comes with consequences.
• If two consecutive annual budget deadlines are missed in either the House or the Senate, the Speaker of the House and the Senate majority Leader would be permanently removed form those positions.

That’s the situation and that’s the strategy. There has to be another way to levy accountability on these Washington politicians who are failing to execute a primary responsibility of their position, developing and adhering to a responsible budget. By making them accountable, either by writing a $15,000 check or suspending their pay, we hope to finally make them do their job.

However, I am certainly not a lawyer, legal expert, or have any idea how to start and operate this process. Thus, if there are any readers, with any kind of legal expertise, out there that feel this might be a worthwhile effort to finally make politicians subservient to the needs of Americans and not to their own self enrichment and political careers, please consider helping us out.

I believe that there are two options available:

1. Sue the Federal government locally in my home area of Tampa Bay, either in small claims court or any other local venue.
2. Sue the Federal government in Federal court and make this effort a class action suit on behave of every American whose family will eventually have to pay upwards of $15,000 for the government’s wild, budgetless spending.

I am pretty sure if this is done properly that media and press attention would be quite wide. It is a novel approach to make government efficient and effective as opposed to what we have been living with over the past several years. I believe that the last thing politicians want is to be called out into the sunshine of accountability and this approach would hopefully do just that, with the resultant media coverage and pressure.

Is this a pipe dream and just a flight of whimsy? Possibly, but I know of very few other ways that we could use to finally get the Federal government under control, get its spending under control, make the politicians in Congress actually do their job, and save our fiscal future for our kids and grandkids. Can anybody out there help get this approach launched?

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:

http://www.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Even The Washington Post Is Starting To Wonder If President Obama Is Unworthy Of A Second Term

Last week we ran a three part series on why we felt President Obama was unworthy of a second term in office. We came up with 88 reasons that covered a wide range of areas including economic failures, foreign policy failures, blaming everyone else in the word for his failures except himself, sitting silent while his Democratic Party partners slandered and demeaned Americans for simply having an honest difference of opinion with the administration's views and policies, and several other broad areas. I suggest you read the detailed three part series for the detailed reasons and the logic and data behind our conclusions.

Earlier this week, we had to publish five additional reasons why President Obama is unworthy of a second term, reasons that we missed within the listing of the original 88. Fellow citizens were quick to point out these additional reasons, which were as valid as our original 88.

Now, it seems that at least one writer for the Washington Post has independently come up with his own set of reasons why the President is unworthy of a second term. While his reasons are not as detailed or quantitative as ours, he does cover many of the same broad areas of disappointment and dismay that we have been subjected to by this Presidential administration over the past three years.

The reasons this editorial piece is so critical and surprising, is that I have found the Washington Post to generally have a small but distinct bias in their reporting and writing towards favoring the Democrats within the American political class. It is my opinion that I usually have seen their writers to take a favorable and go easy approach when reviewing the Obama administration's record.

To have one of their writers come out and accurately summarize the failures of this Presidency is frankly, quite shocking and surprising. I would have expected such a piece out of Fox News, not the Washington Post.

I have included his words and thoughts below for your review and analysis:

**********

The Washington Post



Obama: The Affirmative Action President by Matt Patterson (columnist - Washington Post, New York Post, San Francisco Examiner)

Years from now, historians may regard the 2008 election of Barack Obama as an inscrutable and disturbing phenomenon, a baffling breed of mass hysteria akin perhaps to the witch craze of the Middle Ages. How, they will wonder, did a man so devoid of professional accomplishment beguile so many into thinking he could manage the world's largest economy, direct the world's most powerful military, execute the world's most consequential job?

Imagine a future historian examining Obama's pre-presidential life: ushered into and through the Ivy League despite unremarkable grades and test scores along the way; a cushy non-job as a "community organizer"; a brief career as a state legislator devoid of legislative achievement (and in fact nearly devoid of his attention, so often did he vote "present") ; and finally an unaccomplished single term in the United States Senate, the entirety of which was devoted to his presidential ambitions. He left no academic legacy in academia, authored no signature legislation as a legislator.

And then there is the matter of his troubling associations: the white-hating, America-loathing preacher who for decades served as Obama's "spiritual mentor"; a real-life, actual terrorist who served as Obama's colleague and political sponsor. It is easy to imagine a future historian looking at it all and asking: how on Earth was such a man elected president?

Not content to wait for history, the incomparable Norman Podhoretz addressed the question recently in the Wall Street Journal:

"To be sure, no white candidate who had close associations with an outspoken hater of America like Jeremiah Wright and an unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers, would have lasted a single day. But because Mr. Obama was black, and therefore entitled in the eyes of liberaldom to have hung out with protesters against various American injustices, even if they were a bit extreme, he was given a pass."

Let that sink in: Obama was given a pass -- held to a lower standard -- because of the color of his skin. Podhoretz continues:

"And in any case, what did such ancient history matter when he was also so articulate and elegant and (as he himself had said) "non-threatening," all of which gave him a fighting chance to become the first black president and thereby to lay the curse of racism to rest?"

Podhoretz puts his finger, I think, on the animating pulse of the Obama phenomenon -- affirmative action. Not in the legal sense, of course. But certainly in the motivating sentiment behind all affirmative action laws and regulations, which are designed primarily to make white people, and especially white liberals, feel good about themselves.

Unfortunately, minorities often suffer so that whites can pat themselves on the back. Liberals routinely admit minorities to schools for which they are not qualified, yet take no responsibility for the inevitable poor performance and high drop-out rates which follow. Liberals don't care if these minority students fail; liberals aren't around to witness the emotional devastation and deflated self esteem resulting from the racist policy that is affirmative action. Yes, racist.

Holding someone to a separate standard merely because of the color of his skin -- that's affirmative action in a nutshell, and if that isn't racism, then nothing is. And that is what America did to Obama.

True, Obama himself was never troubled by his lack of achievements, but why would he be? As many have noted, Obama was told he was good enough for Columbia despite undistinguished grades at Occidental; he was told he was good enough for the US Senate despite a mediocre record in Illinois; he was told he was good enough to be president despite no record at all in the Senate. All his life, every step of the way, Obama was told he was good enough for the next step, in spite of ample evidence to the contrary. What could this breed if not the sort of empty narcissism on display every time Obama speaks?

In 2008, many who agreed that he lacked executive qualifications nonetheless raved about Obama's oratory skills, intellect, and cool character. Those people -- conservatives included -- ought now to be deeply embarrassed. The man thinks and speaks in the hoariest of cliches, and that's when he has his teleprompter in front of him; when the prompter is absent he can barely think or speak at all. Not one original idea has ever issued from his mouth -- it's all warmed-over Marxism of the kind that has failed over and over again for 100 years.

And what about his character? Obama is constantly blaming anything and everything else for his troubles. Bush did it; it was bad luck; I inherited this mess. It is embarrassing to see a president so willing to advertise his own powerlessness, so comfortable with his own incompetence. But really, what were we to expect? The man has never been responsible for anything, so how do we expect him to act responsibly?

In short: our president is a small and small-minded man, with neither the temperament nor the intellect to handle his job. When you understand that, and only when you understand that, will the current erosion of liberty and prosperity make sense. It could not have gone otherwise with such a man in the Oval Office.


*****
Sounds familiar. It is never his fault. No discernible accomplishments, either prior to the White House or while in the White House. Standing by when others within his domain denigrate America and those in it. Refusing to take responsibility and leadership. Instead, "so confident in his own impotence."

We called it a condescending attitude towards all who disagree with him since he seems to think he is smarter than everyone else. However, I like the use of "the sort of empty narcissism on display every time Obama speaks" as a better description of how this man approaches life.

88 reasons last week, five more reasons this week plus the above essay today. Time to look for some real change (and actual plans) this fall which can be found at www.unitedstatesofpurple.com. Check it out, no narcissism allowed.




We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

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:
 http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment

Maybe It Should Be Prince Obama Rather Than President Obama

As with most politicians, I have never been a big fan of President Obama. I did not vote for him in 2008 but was willing to give him a shot since many people who I respect thought he would be a great President. I had hoped that they saw some qualities of leadership and smarts that eluded me back at the last Presidential election.

However, two and half years into this Presidency, I am pretty sure that those perceived attributes and qualities of leadership and smarts will never materialize. In fact, if I look back to the report card of the President from the past two and half years, the following facts jump to the head of the list:

• Obama set a record for most foreign trips in the first year of his Presidency, exceeding first year foreign trips of every other U.S. President that came before him.
• In the first two years of his Presidency, he visited 42 countries (includes multiple visits to the same country).
• He took time off from his job responsibilities to fly to Denmark and lobby for his home town of Chicago to host a Summer Olympics. This effort resulted in the United States being the first country being thrown out of the finalist pool.
• He recently traveled to Ireland in the inane attempt to convince the Irish, both in Ireland and here in America, that he had a strong Irish background, and then flew off to England for tea time and a state dinner with the Queen.
• In 2009, he took time off from being the President to film a television promotion spot for the George Lopez Show.
• For the past three years he took substantial time out of being President to not only developing his picks for the March Madness NCAA basketball playoffs but also went on television every year to discuss, in detail, his picks.
• In just the past year or so he has taken time out of being President to host visits by the NBA champion LA Lakers, the WNBA champion Seattle Storm, the NHL champion Chicago Black Hawks, the NFL champion New Orleans Saints, the NCAA Division I football champion Auburn University, the Division 1A football champion Villanova University, the NCAA women's cross country champion Villanova University, the NCAA lacrosse champion Duke University, the NCAA Division I men's basketball champion the University Of Connecticut, and the NCAA champion rifle team from TCU,
• He took time out from being President to attend an anti-bullying forum.
• He has taken innumerable vacations in the past two and half years.
• He has played dozens of rounds of golf and played in dozens of basketball pick up games.
• He has attended over thirty political fund raisers in the past few months in preparation for the 2012 Presidential election, about ten times as many fund raising events that George W. Bush attended at the same time in his Presidency.
• In injected himself into a local police matter in Massachusetts, overreacting without all of the information that was available, and which resulted in a week's worth of distraction that culminated in the inane "beer summit" at the White House.
• He has always been charming when appearing on day time television shows such as Oprah and The View.

In the meantime, what has been going on in the country and the world:

• U.S. unemployment is still unacceptably high at about 9%.
• Every week, over 400,000 Americans are usually filing for first time unemployment benefits.
• The country is weeks away from defaulting on its debt and fiscal solvency.
• The national debt is steadily climbing and accelerating under Obama, currently north of $14.3 TRILLION.
• All of this administration's economic policies and programs have been failures.
• Despite our dire economic times, he recently decided to stop getting daily face-to-face economic briefings from his economic team, opting instead for a daily written report and an occasion economic update from Joe Biden, someone who I believe has minimal economic training.
• The housing market is still in the dumps with low sales and continually falling prices.
• Gas prices, while having recently moderated, are still substantially higher than when Obama took office.
• We are still fighting three wars, the last of which might, in fact, be illegal relative to our nation's laws, where American troops are dying every day.
• Iran and North Korea are two and a half years closer to being nuclear weapon capable.
• The Middle East is still a powder keg.
• South Yemen is politically unstable and there appears to be no way to keep it from becoming a terrorist haven.
• The country is as divided as ever with the President refusing to intervene when Americans expressing a difference of opinion with his policies are characterized by Democrats as being un-American, racists, members of the Ku Klux Klan, gerbils, a__h____s, and knuckle dragging Neanderthals.
• The biggest legislative victory of the President has been his health care reform that is being shown almost daily to be a disaster in every imaginable way.
• His second biggest legislative victory, the reforming of the country's financial markets, was an empty piece of legislation that omitted major segments of the economy (car loans and Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac mortgages) and left the details for implementation up to government bureaucrats, creating uncertainty in the private sector.
• We are no closer to finding solutions to our failed war on drugs, the the illegal immigrant problem, our failing public schools, and the lack of a national energy strategy then we were two and a half years ago.

I do not begrudge the President some rest and relaxation time, it is obviously a high stress job.  I realize that he needs to visit other countries and promote U.S. interests around the world. But I believe he takes all of the frills, pomp, and pageantry of the Presidency much too seriously while dangerously neglecting the difficult, hard core responsibilities of being a President.

American citizens should come first. His many golf rounds, his many vacations, his many non-serious television appearances, his many foreign travels, his tolerance of name calling, his penchant for dinners and fundraisers, etc. are more befitting a Prince who has only ceremonial, trivial, and self gratifying duties, not someone who has serious responsibilities.

Given President Obama's shallow behaviors and non-performance on the serious issues facing the country, I propose that we make him Prince of the United States. In that way he can visit with any sports team he wants, he can visit any country he wants at any time, he can play all of the world's great golf courses, and appear on any television show at any time while not disappointing the voters and failing the country.

In his place, maybe we could finally find a Presidential leader whose ego is second to service, who busts his butt while in office to bring detailed and proper solutions to major problems, who strives to unite the country, who is seriously working the many economic problems facing the country, and who is actively engaged in international actions to improve the welfare and safety of the country. A Prince should not be weighed down by such heavy responsibilities, which makes this new position of royalty perfect for the current White House resident.





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 http://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:

http://www.loathemygovernment.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment.com

Here's Another Fine Mess, Or Messes, You've Gotten Us Into

It is pretty obvious that our political class has not resolved many large issues facing the American public over the past four or five decades. Nixon declared war on drugs in the late 1960s but the illegal drug problem is bigger and more violent than ever. We suffered through the oil shocks in the 1970s but the political class has yet to implement a comprehensive and effective national energy policy. The Reagan administration identified the many problems and threats due to our failing public schools in 1983 but today our kids are getting a vastly inferior education compared to the rest of the world despite the highest expenditure on public schools in the world. Our borders leak, our national debt is sky high, and Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are rushing towards insolvency.

Great, what a downer. But it gets worse. There are plenty of other fine messes all levels of our political class have gotten us into that sometimes get crowded off of the front pages due to the above listed issues and unfortunately, the next election:

- The government has been involved in trying to make our skies safe for all of those that fly for decades. One would have thought that they would be pretty good at it by now. Not the case. In just the past few weeks, government employed air traffic controllers have been found asleep on duty several times when they should have been working to keep the flying public safe. A few days ago, a jet carrying the First Lady had to abort a landing when it came too close to another plane in the area. In the April 22, 2011 issue of The Week magazine, there was a short article describing an incident where a commuter jet clipped the wing of an Airbus 380. This happened at NYC's Kennedy airport, imagine the destruction on the ground if this was not just a clipping of a wing.

What a mess. Employees falling asleep, planes almost colliding, and these are the incidents that we know about. Last year an Associated Press article reported that the FAA did  not know the owners or the physical locations of thousands of airplanes, airplanes that could have potential terrorist applications. After decades of involvement in air regulation, we should not be dealing with this mess today. The political class and the government it runs should know how to avoid these types of messes.

- The attention of the world relative to nuclear energy has rightfully been focused on the disaster in Japan. However, we have a nuclear mess brewing right here in the United States. The government has been involved in regulating the nuclear power industry since its birth decades ago. Unfortunately, much like mismanaging the air traffic above us, the government is having a serious time trying to manage the nuclear waste around us.

According to a detailed article in the April 15, 2011 issue of The Week magazine, the country really has no plan in place or one being contemplated on how to safely dispense with and store spent nuclear fuel rods from our stateside nuclear reactors. When uranium in the fuel rods is used up, the rods are usually placed in deep water pools, on the same site where the nuclear reactors are located. There water is circulated around them to cool them down. This cooling process usually takes about 10 years. However, they remain radioactive for about 10,000 years.

In the U.S., we have no plan to manage the increasingly large pile of spent fuel rods. The ponds where they current reside were built and designed to hold about one fourth of what they currently hold. The total volume of spent rods is about 72,000 tons. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission predicts that by 2015, there will be no more storage space on site for the rods and there is no plan to move them to a safe place and there is little space to dig more cooling ponds.

At one point, the nation was supposed send its spent rods to Yucca Mountain in Nevada. In fact, the political class has already forced utility users to finance $20 billion worth of construction at Yucca to hold the rods. However, politics intervened and Nevada Senator Harry Reid was able to block the use of Yucca for storage. The President has appointed a blue ribbon commission to develop alternative storage plans.

In the meantime, the terrorism concern is high including the threat that a suicide bomber could crash a plan into the pools, possibly damaging the cooling processes and exposing the rods. By spreading the spent rods around the country, the defense against such a terrorist attack is that much more difficult to prevent.

What a mess. Inviting terrorism targets, no plan for alleviating the tight storage, politics playing a major role, and no plan in sight. Even if the commission comes up with a plan, do we think that the political class has the know how and courage to execute the plan, given their general failings everywhere else?

- And you thought the Federal deficit was a mess? In a fine article by Veronique de Rugy in the April, 2011 issue of Reason magazine, the state government pension mess is a doozy also. Ms. de Rugy does an excellent job comparing the rigor and rules that private pension funds have to adhere to in order to guarantee solvency vs. the lax and silly assumptions that state government pension plans live by.

Rather than going into the details here, the essence of the analysis states that private pension funds conservatively estimate that their funds will grow about 3.5% a year while state government pension funds wildly estimate that their funds will grow 8% a year. When the economy tanks, like it has the past few years, the government pension funds get nowhere close to an 8% return. This puts them perilously close to default.

The added complication they have is that there is no law that requires state politicians to make regular, actuarially sound contributions to the plans. Thus, they can short change the plans for their other wasteful spending programs and hope that the plans can attain unattainable returns to make up the shortfall in contributions.

As a result of bad assumptions and political robbery, the pensions funds are going broke. The article points to an analysis that shows the state government pension funds in at least ten states will run out of money within the next nine years, with five of them running out of money within six years. When that happens, the state either has to cut back or eliminate pension payments or raise taxes in order to retain the promised payouts. And these tax increases would be a fine mess since according to an analysis done by the American Enterprise Institute, the unfunded liabilities of all state government pension systems is about $3 TRILLION. This comes out to about $60 billion per state.

In a state like New Jersey, which is forecasted to run out of pension money in 2018, this means every household in the state will have to pay the state pension plans about $20,000 each in order to keep them solvent and the benefits at promised levels. What a disaster, imagine what a hit those state economies will take as the government continues to suck more and more disposable income out of the local state economy to pay for a pension mess they helped to create. Imagine the resentment that will build up as state government retirees are blamed for the increasingly heavy tax burden for pensions and the lack of money for schools, roads, and other government functions.

It has to be obvious now that our election processes and the candidates and victors they produce are not working. Nothing ever gets solved, it just gets pushed out until panic sets in and ill advised and inefficient solutions, if that, are thrown against the wall. Several steps from "Love my Country, Loathe My Government" would help to change these broken election processes:

• Step 6 would allow only individual Americans to contribute to election campaigns, taking the evil of corporate, union, PAC and other organizational money out of the equation. Once those funding sources are removed, politicians might start acting for the good of the country and not the good of their campaign coffers.
• Step 34 would remove politicians from Congressional committees if those committees make a mess out of their responsibilities. For example, if the spent fuel issue is not resolved shortly, those members of Congress sitting on the respective nuclear committees need to be replaced.
• Step 39 would institute term limits for all Federal politicians. If you have been in Congress for over 20 years, a period of which no major issue was resolved, then you are part of the problem since the solution does not exist yet. 

Sorry for the downer of a post but thought you should know that our issues extend well beyond the front page headlines and the 2012 election. Again, after hundreds of years, we should be able to rely on our government to do some basic things efficiently and safely. Unfortunately, that assumption does not extend to nuclear material safety, airline safety, and fiscal sanity and safety.

While this is all going on, the President is in California to do some campaigning and fund raising for his 2012 Presidential campaign. Congress is in recess for the next few weeks. And a short blurb in The Week from April 22, 2011 cited a Harvard University study that found that 27% of all Congressional press releases are solely intended to make members of the other party look bad, not to address any important problem.

No need to solve problems as long as we make our political competitors look worse than us, we will eventually get around to those spent fuel rods, those bad air traffic control problems, and imploding pensions plans. Unless, of course, it messes up our re-election campaign.



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 http://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:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment.com

Forrest Gump: "Stupid Is As Stupid Does", Harry Reid: "Stupid Is As Stupid Says"

I am sure at some point in time, there were individual American politicians that evolved into statesmen and leaders. Leaders that were above petty spats and disagreements and were interested in finding the best path for America. Leaders who were tolerant and sensitive to the feelings and characteristics of others. Leaders who knew history and what positive lessons it could teach us going forward. Senator Harry Reid, head of the U.S. Senate, is not one of those leaders, he is just a politician. Consider his very public recent statements:

• The Associated Press reported today that Mr. Reid had apologized to President Obama for statements he made in 2008 but which have just recently been made public. These statements included his observation that then-Senator Obama was "light-skinned" and with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."
• Late last year at the opening of the D.C. visitors center (the one that badly and negatively missed both its budget and construction time frame), Mr. Reid was widely quoted as saying: "My staff tells me not to say this, but I'm going to say it anyway. In the summer, because of the high heat and humidity, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol. It may be descriptive but its true. But its no longer true, thanks to the air conditioning indoors. We have many bathrooms here as you can see."
• Last summer, rather than engage ordinary Americans who were noisily but peacefully protesting the health care reform bills being constructed, Mr. Reid instead decided to call them "evil mongers" who were "using lies, innuendo and rumor to drown out rational debate."
• In December, with his frustration mounting with opposition to the Senate health care reform bill he and a small cabal of supporters were constructing behind closed doors, Mr. Reid made references to those that opposed slavery, saying "there were those who dug in their heels and said slow down, its too early." With regard to women's rights, Reid insisted there were those that said slow down, there will be a better day to do that. Today isn't quite right." With regard to equal rights, he said that "some Senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today." Obviously, he is equating Republicans, all of whom currently in Congress oppose the current health care reform bills, with those demons in the past who opposed eliminating slavery, granting full rights to women, and blocking civil rights for minorities.

A few comments and observations:

• By thinking of Americans in stereotypical terms, Mr. Reid is not a leader. By viewing the President by his skin color and dialect, and implying that regular Americans smell and can use the visitors' center air conditioning and bathrooms (as if these Americans did not have air conditioning and bathrooms back home), he does not see people as individuals and celebrate diversity as much as stereotyping them according to some rather low standards.
• By calling Americans names rather than engaging in honest debate or trying to prove the worth of his legislating efforts, Mr. Reid is not a leader. By bad mouthing all those worried about the current health care reform bills and the negative financial and freedom impacts the bills will have on America, Mr. Reid has resorted to playground name calling, not a historic characteristic of a leader. He is neither tolerant or sensitive to the very people whose taxes make his lifestyle possible.
• By incorrectly blaming Republicans for just about every major civil rights problem for the past 150 years, Mr. Reid is not a leader. If memory serves me right, Abraham Lincoln, who helped free the slaves, was a Republican. When Republican Dwight Eisenhower first proposed Federal civil rights bills, it was a Democrat, Strom Thurmond, who filibustered against the effort. In the early 1960s, it was the Republicans who supported President Lyndon Johnson's equal rights efforts to a higher percentage than Democrats. A leader would know the history of the country and use it for good. Henry Reid distorts the history of the country for his short term, political gains.
• By resorting to name calling and stereotyping, Mr. Reid is not a leader. Could you imagine what the outrage would have been if a Republican politician had uttered Reid's words relative to President Obama? Nancy Pelosi would probably be on the warpath, looking for some sort of censure measure, just like she did for Joe Wilson who yelled out "liar" when the President was delivering his health care speech last summer. Which is worse, calling someone a liar or talking about their skin color and speech patterns? By speaking these thoughts, it will be another distraction from solving the nation's ills while the Democrats spend resources and time trying to minimize the words while the Republicans will waste resources and time tyring to maximize the words. A leader would have kept the nation focused, not divided.

There is a famous saying in the advertising business that goes something like the following: "I will know good advertising when I see it." Similarly, for statesmanship and leadership, "I will know it when I see it." And I do not see it with Harry Reid. Name calling, stereotyping based on skin color and speech patterns, insensitivity to other human beings, and distorting history is no way to be a leader, its only a way to exacerbate the divisions in the country and forestall the solving of the nation's problems. Sounds like a pretty stupid thing to do to me, Mr. Reid.

Perhaps Step 38 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would help solve these types of problems inherent in the American political class. Step 38 would "require all Congressional members, the President and the Vice President to annually sign off on a shared value statement" to "help guide their behavior and interactions to create a political atmosphere more conducive to progress and freedom." As outined in the description of Step 38, these shared values could involve such exotic concepts as Respect, Trust, Commitment, Innovation, Integrity, and Teamwork. Not having such a process and statement does not seem to be working, as witnessed by Mr. Reid's statements, why not try having one? How much worse could it get?

Visit our website at www.loathemygovernment.com to order an autographed copy of the book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government -Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom and Destroying The American Political Class" and to sign up for the cause. The book is also available online at Amazon and Barnes And Noble.

You Can Fool Some Of The People All Of the Time...

I was going to follow up yesterday's final Cash For Clunkers post by talking about distressing new health care reform numbers but I will put that discussion off for one day and talk about an observation that hit me today. It neatly tied together three events that illustrate a trend that I have been harping on for years:

• While at the gym this morning, I was on a stationary bike and had to watch the morning CNN news show that was on the monitor in front of me. There is no sound from these TVs, just closed caption. One of the main, and continuing, stories during the news broadcast was about Sarah Palin, ex governor of Alaska and John McCain's VP candidate in last year's Presidential election, and her new book. The hilarious thing I observed is that in almost every case, whenever the CNN news people mentioned Palin they only used here last name. When the talked about her appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show, they referred to Oprah Winfrey by using both her first and last name. When they discussed the infamous Palin interview with Katie Couric last year, they used Ms. Couric's first and last name. For most of the morning, the CNN staff used only Palin's last name but everybody else's full name, a very subtle form of disrespect.
• This CNN disrespect reminded of Peter Jennings broadcast of the 2004 Presidential election when he was going through the preliminary results and trying to add some insights to how the election was unfolding. According to my recollection, when he referred to Senator John Kerry, he almost always said "Senator Kerry." When he referred to President Bush, he almost always used just Bush's last name. A hypothetical example would go like this: "Senator Kerry must win Ohio to have any chance of winning the election while Bush could lose Ohio and still win the election." The preceding is not a direct quote but was similar to what Jennings was saying that night. Again, a subtle form of disrespect and slanting of the news, much like CNN did to Palin this morning.
• Both of these instances reminded me of a short blurb in the September 25, 2009 issue of The Week (www.theweek.com) magazine. The article referenced market survey results from Pew Research which found that only 29% of the survey respondents felt that today's news organizations "generally get the facts straight" while 63% believe that news stories are often inaccurate. I find the word "generally" interesting since it implies that the percentage of time the news organizations exactly get the facts straight is less than 29%. Also, the research found that 60% of the respondents say news organizations are politically biased.

Thus, democracy has gotten a lot harder in this country when the majority of people do not believe that free press in this country are unbiased. Who do you believe if you cannot believe news broadcasts that are supposed to be giving you the facts (I am referring only to new broadcasts, not the talking head shows on cable and broadcast TV) and not slanting the "facts" and news to suit their slanted views? As we see from above, this slanting can be very subtle, i.e. giving respect to "your side" by using their full name and dissing "the other side" by slandering them with just their last name. It can be slanted by stressing certain news stories that make "the other side" look bad and ignoring or downplaying news stories that would make your side look bad. Very, very sad that we do not believe that we can turn on a newscast and feel confident that 1) they got the story right ("generally") and 2) it is not slanted.

This all ties into the first paragraph on page 181 in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government":

With regards to media, look for different and varied ways of getting your news. Understand that most major news outlets today are not unbiased, and each has its own political slant and favorite wing of the political class. If you do not diversify your information sources, you will continue to be fed the same messages that the political class wants you to hear, messages that divert your attention from the real needs of the country, and allow the political class to proceed with their freedom and power grab.Without actively looking for different ways to get your information, you will be forced to live with what the political class wants you to hear as forced through the media outlets they want you to use. You will become a warrior in their tribal fight against other Americans.

At the end of the movie, "the American President", the Michael Douglas character, the President of the United States, states that "America is not easy." The press and its biased reporting make America harder, harder to get the facts and harder to correctly act on those facts. But hard cannot stop us from being free, the political class is depending us to find America too hard.

Visit our website at www.loathemygovernment.com to order an autographed copy of the book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government -Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom and Destroying The American Political Class" and to sign up for the cause. The book is also available online at Amazon and Barnes And Noble.