September, 2015, Political Class Insanity, Part 3: Presidential Failures and Live Anthrax For Sale

It is the start of another month which means it is time for our monthly review of the latest political class insanity that continually spews forth from America’s politicians. Their actions, words, quotes, incompetency, and general ineptness continue to reinforce our theory that we are currently being served by the worst set of politicians in the history of the nation.

As you read about the latest shenanigans and ineptness of the political class, keep in mind what should be their priorities in these difficult times and compare this list to what they are actually working on:

• NBC recently reported that ISIS forces are getting larger and stronger despite the Obama administration spending billions of dollars on a failed air campaign and military strategy.
• The stock market is in free fall.
• Job creation is barely keeping up with population growth.
• Wage growth is anemic, growing just .2% in the second quarter, the lowest quarterly growth since 1982.
• The labor participation rate is at the lowest level in decades because the Obama economy cannot generate enough jobs.
• Thousands of veterans are still not getting the medical care they were promised by the Federal government.
• 45 million Americans are still receiving monthly Federal food assistance.
• Our borders still leak and thousands of illegal immigrant criminals continue to walk our streets.
• A record number of police officers have been assassinated in the past week.
• Major programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are hurtling towards insolvency and lose hundreds of billions of dollars every year to fraud and mismanagement.
• Our kids are still getting lousy public educations at most public schools.
• The IRS and other government functions seem to be getting their computer systems hacked on a regular basis, exposing tens of millions of Americans to identity theft potential.
• Obama Care is a failure along so many dimensions as health care costs continue to soar despite the Obama promise that they would decrease.
• Annual Federal deficits, while down, are still about half a TRILLION a year meaning that even though the Federal government is collecting more in taxes than ever before, it still cannot run a balanced budget.

Again, keep these real crises in mind as you read what our politicians are actually doing.

1) A September 3, 2015 article in the Washington Examiner by Jacqueline Klimas reported that an investigation at an Army laboratory found that live anthrax was found outside of the proper containment area. This finding comes on the heels of another revelation that Defense Department personnel have accidentally shipped live anthrax specimens around the world after safety procedures at the Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah failed to neutralize and kill the anthrax spores, resulting in live anthrax being shipped.

And we are not talking a few shipments. Live anthrax shipments were sent to almost 200 locations and labs in all 59 states, the District of Coliumbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S.Virgin Islands, Japan, Britain, South Korea, Australia, Canada, Italy, and Germany. Defense Undersecretary Bob Work said that the accidental shipment of live spores was due to "institutional and procedural failures." Ya think?

Besides the incompetence of the Army personnel and procedures involved in this potentially deadly mishap, I think the question needs to be asked is why are we shipping anthrax all over the world to begin with? This stuff is easily transformable into a terrorist weapon, especially when we have incompetent handling procedures that result in live anthrax being shipped everywhere. Again, you cannot make this stuff up, it is that unbelievable.

2) Yesterday, we discussed the reality that the air attack component of Obama’s war on ISIS has been a failure since although billions and billions of dollars have been spent on bombing ISIS positions, ISIS is stronger, bigger, and covers more geography than prior to the air campaign. And it now appears that another component of Obama’s anti-ISIS strategy is also an abject failure.

That component was supposed to take and train Syrian citizens to fight ISIS forces inside Syria. However, according to an article in the August 14, 2015 issue of The Week magazine, the Obama administration has already spent $36 million to train its recruits, which total a grand total of …. 54 people. Yes, for $36 million we have trained 54 individuals to fight the 30,000 person strong ISIS force. 

This comes out to about $670,000 to train one Syrian recruit. Pathetic waste and abuse of taxpayer wealth. Why bother if your results are so pathetic? How many needy veterans could have had their medical needs addressed for $36 million instead of flushing it away on futile training effort half a world away?

Another failed Obama foreign policy and strategy effort.

3) Sometimes you see a politician do something and you just wonder why someone on their staff did not speak up and stop them from embarrassing themselves. Such was the case when President Obama gave a speech in Kotzebue, Alaska. Which is certainly not a problem except that he was north of the Arctic Circle and hyping how those Americans living there should make better use of wind and solar energy options. 

Which is certainly a safe topic and noble goal if you are talking about solar energy in New Mexico or wind energy on a Colorado mountain top. But you are north of the Arctic Circle where:

• Kotzebue gets less than six hours of sunlight for 34 days from early December through early January, assuming that clouds do not block out the sun during that time. For other months prior to and after that time period there are limited hours of sun, making solar energy not an optimal energy source for many months in Kotzebue.
• It gets very, very cold north of the Arctic Circle, so cold that petroleum products can start turning into solids which makes oil in cars and lubricants used in wind turbines useless.

Right message, certainly far from the right location.

4) In the same inane speech the President gave in Alaska, he also made the following statement: “One of the reasons I came up here is to really focus on what is probably the biggest challenge our planet faces. If there’s one thing that threatens opportunity and prosperity for everybody, wherever we live, it’s the threat of a changing climate.” 

Thus, in his view, changing climate, something that has been occurring since the beginning of the planet is the “biggest challenge our planet faces.” This makes the following crises secondary in his mind:

• His potential nuclear arms deal with Iran is likely to result in a nuclear arms race in the Middle East,
• That same deal is going to give the world’s leading terrorist nation over $100 billion to greatly expand their current terror activities.
• China and Russia just finished joint naval exercises off the Alaskan coast.
• A Russian navy ship was recently spotted off the coast of Georgia.
• Much of the North Korean submarine fleet recently left their home ports and are nowhere to be found.
• Russia likely has territorial objectives that extend well beyond parts of the Ukraine.
• ISIS is expanding its terrorism beyond Syria and Iraq, resulting in the persecution of homosexuals, the enslaving of women and its terrorism far beyond its original geography.
• Governments around the world are drowning in debt which is likely to crash the world’s economies and financial systems in the future.

All for a theory, man made activities are ruining the climate, that may or may not be true. (enter the phrase “global warming doubter” in the search box above for dozens of examples that indicate that man made activities are NOT affecting the climate.)

Another day of political class insanity: A President that thinks a shaky scientific theory (climate change) is more important than nuclear arms races, aggressive foreign powers, and the collapse of the world economy, a President who makes the right speech in the wrong location, a President who spends $36 million to train a paltry 54 military recruits, and an Army that sends live anthrax around the world without checking its status beforehand. 

Worst yet, we are still not done with the latest political class insanity for this month.

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

May, 2014 Poltiical Class Insanity, Part 4: Spending More But Getting Less, The Obscene Cost Of Regulation, And Destroying Good Ammunition

This is our fourth and probably not last post this month in our monthly series on political class insanity. At the beginning of every month, we review the insanity, lunacy, idiocy, and wasteful spending and programs of the American political class. Having done this for the past five years, we are continually amazed at how inept and incompetent our politicians are today with our wealth, our freedom, and quality of life.

1) The first several instances of insanity today comes to us from the wonderful website, Bankrupting America. In a previous insanity post several months ago, we discussed how in 2013 the Obama administration had issued over 3,000 new Federal regulations, almost 10 a day for every day of the year.

The obvious problems with such a performance is threefold:

1. Forcing businesses to comply with ten new regulations everyday takes away from business owners’ ability to grow their business and thus, grow the economy and economic opportunities for Americans.
2. At some point, the ever growing mountain of regulations becomes self defeating since they are too numerous to know or too numerous to comply with.
3. And if these thousands of new regulations are so important, why were they not identified in previous Presidential administrations? Could it be that we have gotten to a point that government bureaucrats are making up regulations just to justify their government existence and large compensation packages?

And now Bankrupting America has identified a fourth reason why so many regulations are so stupid and dangerous. A new study conducted by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) found that the average US household pays nearly $15,000 a year in regulatory costs as a result of the thousands and thousands of government regulations. 

If this estimate is accurate, this means that in 2013, the average consumer spent 23% of their household income to pay for just the Federal government’s regulatory burden. Obviously, state government and local government regulations place an additional burden on U.S. household incomes and wealth. 

The CEI study was entitled, titled “Ten Thousand Commandments 2014,” and it found that:

• In 2013, Federal regulation costs reached $1.863 trillion. 
• This is more than the GDPs of Canada or Australia. 
• In 2013, Congress passed only 51 laws but that resulted in 3,659 new rules and regulations, a ratio of 72 new regulations for each law that was enacted.
• Federal regulations burden each household with almost $15,000 in costs each year which is more than what an average household spends on every other household budget item except housing - more than health care, food, transportation, entertainment, apparel, services, and savings. 
• Even worse, according to the CEI, 63 Federal departments, agencies and commissions have more regulations in development.
• The study also showed that small businesses pay more in per-employee regulatory costs than larger firms. According to CEI, “Firms with fewer than 20 employees pay an average of $10,585 per employee, compared to $7,755 for those with 500 or more employees.” These costs are costs that cannot be used to expand business opportunities, which in turn expand the economy and economic opportunities for Americans.

Look, some regulations are necessary to protect the safety and welfare of citizens, that is one of the few legitimate fucntions of government, But adding 10 new Federal regulations every day proves that the political class and the government it oversees has no clue as to what are critical safety needs and what is bureaucratic idiocy and redundancy. And it is quite possible that this idiocy and redundancy are what has stifled economy growth for the entire length of the Obama Presidency.

2) Also from Bankrupting America, in late April, 2014, USAToday reported that the Pentagon plans on destroying more than $1 billion worth of ammunition that otherwise could still be used. According to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, the GAO found that the different armed services for the Defense Department have ammunition inventory systems that cannot share data directly. 

Only the Army uses the standard Pentagon format to report their ammunition stockpile, while the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps operate under different and obsolete formats. The GAO suggests this leads to waste from buying new ammunition, while usable stockpiles exist.

Sen. Tom Carper, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee stated, “We simply cannot afford this type of waste and ineffectiveness. The (Pentagon) has a responsibility to efficiently manage its ammunition stocks, not only because it is important to be fiscally responsible, but also because our antiquated ammunition inventory systems can shortchange our war fighters and compromise their ability to complete their mission.” Could not agree with you more, Senator, what are you going to do about it? 

Our armed forces have been around for over two centuries. Computers have been around for over sixty years. We pay the Pentagon hundreds of billions of dollars every year. Given these factors, is it asking too much of the Federal government and the Washington political class to have a few databases that can count and not waste billions of dollars in perfectly good ammunition?

3) Another Bankrupting America update comes from an editorial piece that recently ran in The Hill publication. The editorial discussed a recent study from the Mercatus Center that examined the true root causes of poverty in America and how to attack this chronic problem. 

The study found that there are two simple truths about poverty: poverty arises from joblessness, and government spending doesn’t reduce poverty, two pretty simple ideas that seem lost on the Washington political class. The study identified laws such as the Affordable Care Act and minimum wage legislation that are government programs with good intentions in an ideal world (everyone gets health care, low-wage earners receive higher wages), but in reality lead to greater rates of joblessness and poverty. 

Additionally, consider a quote directly form the study itself, a quote that examines the insanity of how politicians waste our wealth on failing programs:

Throwing more government dollars at this problem won’t solve it. Despite record spending on programs to help the needy, there were a record 46 million Americans in poverty in 2012. Federal spending alone on these programs was $750 billion in the 2011 fiscal year, up more than 30% from 2008.

Let’s do some simple math to put these numbers in perspective: at $750 billion a year, with 46 million Americans in poverty, if we could somehow divide up the $750 billion and just send a check to every American living in poverty, each one of those people would get a check for over $16,000. A family of four would get a check for over $64,000, more than the median household income of every U.S. household. That is how insanely inefficient and ineffective our politicians are when it comes to helping Americans in poverty. 

The money to help them is there, the delivery of that support is pathetically poor. And that $16,000 per person does not include poverty support from state and local governments.

The study concludes that the root of problem lies in the labor market. The majority of Americans living in poverty between the ages of 18 to 64 were unemployed, and only 11% had full-time employment in 2012. According to the editorial, as long as the government continues to pursue policies that discourage people from working or businesses from hiring (see the regulations insanity discussed above), we’ll continue to see high rates of unemployment and consequently, high rates of poverty.

The real problem is that there does not appear to be anyone in Washington who is bold enough and bright enough to break this cycle of wasting taxpayer wealth on poverty programs that do not reduce poverty. As a result, more Americans fall into poverty while anti-poverty programs spend more and more money. Only in Washington could this idiotic combination continue to exist for decades, spending more to get less.

That will do it for today but more insanity will come forth tomorrow. If interested in actually ending the insanity, please consider joining our effort to impose term limits on all politicians at:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

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