Tax Day Travesties and Facts, Part 2

This is our second post regarding how much we paid in taxes last year and how little we received in return from the American political class for those taxes in both the quality and quantity of government services. The first post from yesterday can be accessed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/04/tax-day-travesties-and-facts-part-1.html

We will be showing in these tax day posts that we have truly moved from a state of heavy taxation into a state of tax oppression. Many Americans’ Tax Freedom Day, that day of the new year when we stop working for all forms of American government and start working for ourselves and our families has not even occurred yet. Almost four months into the new year.

And what we do get from the political class in the form of government programs and support is usually inefficient, ineffective, criminally targeted and often make the original problem worse or create new problems for Americans via unintended consequences. The tax insanity continues today with the following random facts about taxation in America and how it is often no more than highway robbery.

1) Consider what some of your tax payments bought for you and the country last year, as documented by the Watchdog.org organization:

• An $876,752 study on snail sex - A University of Iowa study is trying to figure out if it’s better for snails to reproduce sexually or asexually. Finally, an answer to the question everyone has been asking, a question that has absolutely no bearing on the lives of 99.99999999% of Americans.
• A $16 million tropical vacation - That was the final price tag on President Obama’s most recent holiday vacations to Hawaii and Africa.
• A $750,000 study on how kid cartoons contribute to obesity - The National Science Foundation awarded two grants totaling $750,000 to find out if cartoon characters are making children overweight. No, eating too much junk food is making kids fat, not getting enough exercise is making kids fat. I could have answered the question for far less than $750,000.
• A $2.4 million program to develop “origami condoms” - It includes male and female versions and the “first of its kind anal condom.” There is a joke about screwing the taxpayer somewhere in here.
• A $30,410 “beauty salon” in a Federal prison -At least it’s a women’s federal prison.
• Millions in drugs for prisoners -Medicare sent millions in improper payments to incarcerated criminals. In other words, bilking Medicare is so easy even prisoners behind bars can do it and not get caught.
• A $98,670 outhouse -The Federal Bureau of Land Management may have just built the most expensive outhouse ever at the Swede Park Trail Head in Alaska.
• $700 million of Obama Care promotion -Despite President Obama’s claim that the government did not “make a hard sell” for Obama Care, his administration spent nearly $700 million to promote the law. Another Presidential lie.

When you wrote your income tax check to the IRS last week, some of that money you earned went to pay for idiotic programs like these.

2) The best way to grow the economy is for private business owners to expand their operations and grow their businesses. However, any distraction that keeps them from doing that, e.g. filling out tax forms and returns, hinders their ability to do that very important task. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the average small business owner spends 80 hours each year complying with U.S. tax regulations. 80 hours a year, the equivalent of two 40 hour work weeks. 4% of the entire year is spent just on filing small business tax forms on average.

This is time that the average business owner cannot use to look for new markets, develop new products, train his staff, take better care of customers, all activities that would eventually help us all by expanding the economy. Instead, he is sitting down and laboriously trying to stay legal in the face of a Federal tax code that is over 70,000 pages long. 

In light of this oppressive task, the Chamber calculated what one could do if they were given an extra 80 hours a year. Turns out, you could do quite a bit.

• You could complete 17 marathons (if you run the U.S. average pace of 10:34 mile/hour). 
• You could go around the world 1.7 times (on a commercial jet) or twice if you were on a military jet. 
• You could go to the moon 4.8 times (if you traveled on NASA’s New Horizons Pluto mission). 
• You could cook 14.5 perfect 20-pound turkeys (unstuffed, and back-to-back for 5.5 hours each, not simultaneously) 
• You could watch all eight Harry Potter movies four times.
• Or, if you are a small business owner, you could complete your 2013 taxes.

A new survey of small business owners by the National Small Business Association (NSBA) reveals that more than half of small employers say the administrative burdens and paperwork associated with tax season pose the greatest harm to their businesses. One in four business owners surveyed said they spend at least three full weeks on the annual chore. How sad is it when the American political class is the greatest source of harm for American small businesses?

If it is any consolation, a tax analysis by the American Action Forum found that even the Treasury Department and IRS are also buckling under the administrative burdens of tax season:

[T]he Department of Treasury’s paperwork burden is at its highest level in history. At more than 7.8 billion hours, Treasury’s paperwork budget has increased 1.5 billion hours since FY 2010, or 19 percent. Since 1995, the earliest year AAF could compile data, Treasury’s burden has increased 47 percent.

A 19% increase since just four years ago is a great measure of how out of control the tax system is in this country. It is a system that is robbing the economy of vibrancy and wealth and overburdening an already overburdened bureaucracy. In other words everyone, consumers, businesses, IRS are choking on the tax code with no substantial benefits.

The NSBA report also found that a the clear majority of small businesses (67%) polled by NSBA support broad tax reform that will reduce corporate and individual tax rates coupled with reduced deductions. This thought and feeling was recently captured by the Chamber’s Chief economist Marty Regalia: 

Comprehensive pro-growth tax reform is the major key to jump-starting the economy, promoting job creation, and ensuring long-run improvement in productivity, wage growth, and our standard of living. It can help us maintain our competitive edge in the global economy and address some of the problems in income and wealth distribution. Moreover, it is an absolutely necessary component to getting our fiscal house in order.

Now, all we need to do is educate the American people, elect a Congress that can work together for the common good, adopt a common goal, and convince the president that leadership sometimes requires the courage to get out and stay out in front.

Work together, common good, common goal, leadership, courage. Good luck with getting those attributes from the current set of politicians in Washington. These are the same people who gave us a tax code with over 70,000 pages in the first place.

3) We have been discussing how we get very little back in quality services from the Washington political class despite being placed under oppressive taxation. But sometimes we get absolutely nothing back for the tax check we wrote last week as shown by the fact that the State Department has allocated $1.5 million of our tax money for job development programs in distressed neighborhoods….in Belize. 

We are not going to spend money to help the over 20 million Americans who are either underemployed or unemployed. We are not going to help the hundreds and hundreds of distressed neighborhoods in the U.S. We are going to help distressed neighborhoods and unemployed people in Belize. I challenge anyone to find Belize on the map, never mind sending them $1.5 million an amount that probably will not make any difference anyway, given it is so small.

Specifically, the State Department Belize program has the following objectives:

1. “The proposal will confront the root causes of violence and crime in a creative and effective way and seek to create positive cultural and social conditions, which are the foundations of a peaceful and orderly society.” Sounds like BS and even if this was achievable, wouldn’t starting in U.S. cities like Detroit or Camden be a far better return on American taxpayer dollars? They certainly need the foundations of a peaceful and orderly society to be created in these decaying American cities.
2. “Root causes in Belize include, but are not limited to, the lack of economic development, the lack of skills and/or tradecraft, the lack of conflict resolution skills, and/or the lack of opportunity for youth.” Again, substitute Detroit, Camden or a hundred other American towns and cities for the word Belize and the statement would hold true except that it would intend to help Americans who are suffering.
3. “Marginalized youth are empowered when given a voice and opportunities. Equipping marginalized youth and their communities with economic opportunities and/or business training can help them reach their true potential as entrepreneurs and improve citizen security.” The current unemployment rate for American youth is almost 21%. Shouldn’t they get first crack at reaching their true potential?

Thus, you can rest assured that your tax money and belated Tax Freedom Day are helping out needy people in Belize, where ever that is.

So let’s review. Your hard earned money and ever growing Tax Freedom Day pays for such vital services as origami condoms and the intimate sex knowledge and lives of snails, it hinders small businesses from growing their businesses and economy as result of an onerous task of just completing the marathon tax forms and understanding a voluminous tax code, and it sends the money collected during tax seasons to far away places like Belize, not even trying to deliver quality government services and support to the very people who paid for it in the first place.

You cannot make this idiocy up and the sad part, we still need another day to complete the tax season shuffle of insanity tomorrow.

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

Part 2, August, 2013 Political Class Insanity: Jay Carney Defies The Law Of Supply and Demand, Training Haitian Prisoners With U.S. Tax Dollars, Building An Army Base That Is Never Used, And More

Yesterday, was our first post of what is likely to be many this month regarding the monthly report on political class insanity in America. Last month we set the record, needing eight days of posts to get in all of the idiocy that the politicians in this country constantly rain down on us. It is a got bet that eights days will not be enough this month as the insanity is growing exponentially month over month.

Yesterday we talked about how U.S. taxpayer month is being used to create youth job programs, not in Chicago or Detroit, but in Belize. We talked about how two members of Congress want to create a new national park, not any park where any American could go and visit, a national park on the moon. We talked about how over $30,000 in taxpayer wealth was being wasted to paint an original oil portrait of former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. And finally, we learned that roller coaster safety was a hot topic for one Congressman, high unemployment, trillion dollar deficits, failing public schools, and other trivial issues be damned.

Well, it just gets worse today:

1) One thing I always loved about politicians is that they have the lousiest understanding about basic economic theory and reality. Jay Carney, President Obama’s head press secretary reinforced that notion recently when he made the claim that Obama’s vision of immigration reform would raise wages of American workers. Somehow, allowing many more immigrant workers into this country will raise the wages of every worker.

Mr. Carney, did you never take a basic economics course? If you did, they probably covered the elementary reality of “supply and demand.”  If you raise the supply of something without a similar raise in demand, price has to go down, it is a reality of the cosmos. Adding millions of new immigrant workers to the supply of labor in this country will put downward pressure on price, namely wages, because there will be an excess of workers. Given the Obama administration’s inability to manage to a growing economy, it is highly, highly doubtful demand will go up as much as millions of new people into the supply side of the equation.

Mr. Carney’s assertion on higher wages is so inane that many in the press briefing where he stated such started laughing at this ridiculous assertion:

http://www.libertyfirstnews.com/obamas-paid-liar-jay-carney-says-immigration-reform-will-raise-wages-as-press-busts-out-in-laughter/

Unfortunately, Mr. Carney is not alone in his ignorance of basic economics. If this was not the case, our economy would not be trudging along at such an anemic rate. In “Love My Country, Loathe My Government,” we proposed via Step 36 that all members of Congress and the White House take and pass a course on basic economics before allowed to legislate. Unfortunately, that suggestion has not been implemented, as illustrated by  Mr. Carney’s ignorance of the supply and demand theory.

2) Yesterday we reviewed how our political class in Washington was sending half a million dollars to the country of Belize to help create jobs for youth in that country, the high unemployment rate for younger Americans in this country be damned. Well, that is not the only taxpayer funded program that is sending money overseas to train foreign workers.

The Federal government’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs is sending $95K to JAILS IN HAITI to help train prisoners on textile production. As with the Belize disgrace, this money is being sent with the hope these HAITIAN prisoners will be able to learn skills, so when they are released back into HAITIAN society, they can contribute to that society.

One government official defended the HAITIAN program by stating: “Inmates targeted for participation should be convicted prisoners with remaining sentences between 2-5 years, with higher priority on those with less time remaining. This will give the program continuity through prisoners who continue to participate and facilitate training for others, but also in that acquired skills will still be relevant upon prisoners’ release in a medium-term time frame,”

Typical government nonsense talk. How about training some prisoners in the U.S. who have remaining sentences between 2-5 years, how about giving them some skills so that they can succeed when the get out of U.S. prisons. Who comes up with these types of wasteful spending projects …in other countries no less.

3) In a previous series on political class insanity, we reported on how the Forestry Service was embarrassed when they had hundreds of pounds of explosives stolen from one of their so-called storage bunkers. Well, that kind of incompetence is not restricted to that part of the government, as a recent set of news reports tell of another multi-million dollar heist of government equipment, this time from the U.S. Marshalls organization:

• The US Marshals office has lost/had stolen 2,000 encrypted radios worth $6 million dollars.
• This robbery/heist occurred even though in 2011, an internal U.S. Marshall technology office warned that the Marshals Service was not properly tracking their equipment. 
• In a tribute to understatement, a spokesman for the Marshall Service has publicly stated that he believes “this is in large part attributable to poor record keeping .” Ya think?
• As always, worse than the crime was the cover up.
• When news agencies started submitting Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, there was instruction for upper management at the organization to no longer discuss the lost/stolen equipment. 
• Worse than the crime and the cover up is the lie that follows. Several documents obtained through FOIA requests including a note from the agency’s director asking employees to estimate a lower dollar value for the missing equipment to make the screw up not appear as bad as it was. 

But worst than the heist, worst than the cover up, and worse than the lie is the fact that a facet of national security may have been compromised. There is some evidence to indicate that these encrypted radios could have ended up in foreign, possibly hostile hands. In 2012, one of the missing radios showed up on eBay from a seller based in Hong Kong. 

When the Marshal Service spent more taxpayer money to buy  back their own missing radio, they found that the radio had been disassembled and reassembled, which leads to new troubling questions of how vulnerable this makes the Marshals Service.

Incompetence, cover ups, lies, and breeches of national security. This episode of insanity had everything.

4) Many times we have reported on the wasteful and corrupt spending in Afghanistan. We previously discussed how the State department, under Hillary Clinton, ignored its own security guidelines to build an $80 million consulate in Afghanistan and THEN realized that it was not defendable against terrorist attacks, which they would have realized if they had not ignored their own guidelines.

We know that as our part in the conflict winds down, we are going to leave about $7 billion worth of military gear behind after we leave, military gear that I would bet eventually ends up in the hands of the Taliban.

The latest corruption apparently wasted $34 million of taxpayer loot for no reason at all:

• When a two-star general recently visited a new 64,000-square-foot US military headquarters building  in southern Afghanistan, he was so impressed that he stated that  “It's "better appointed than any Marine headquarters anywhere in the world.”
• Impressive, except for the fact, as reported by the Washington post, that the facility has never been used and likely will never be used by U.S. troops.
• Much like the never used but very expensive State Department consulate, a top Marine commander had warned the Pentagon brass that the building was unnecessary three years ago but his insightful opinions were ignored. 
• The building was originally commissioned for the 2009 troop surge  but by the time construction began that troop surge was over.
• "This is an example of what is wrong with military construction in general," the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction told Chuck Hagel in a recent letter. Another wonderful understatement.

So between these two disastrous spending, $34 million and $80 million, we have $114 million that went down the drain. $114 million that could have operated White House tours for over 114 years. We could provide combat pay for our military personnel that are serving in dangerous areas but who have had their pay cut. The July 4th celebrations at military bases to celebrate those that serve would not have been postponed.

So many worthwhile uses of over $100 million that had no military or societal benefit.

Another day and we are just getting started. Federal government loses millions of dollars of electronics equipment. Federal government blows over $100 million for nothing. Haiti prisoners are taught skills, U.S. prisoners are not. And economic ignorance I still alive and well in Washington. More bad news tomorrow.

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 

Part 1, August, 2013 Political Class Insanity: Roller Coaster Safety Insanity, A National Park On The Moon, Job Training The Youth...In Belize, and More

It is the beginning of another month, which means it is that time again to review the latest political class insanity from our politicians from all across the country. Each month we pause to take stock of the lunacy, idiocy, stupid statements, ineffectiveness, and wasteful spending of possibly the most inept and ineffective politicians in the history of our country.

The really depressing aspect of these reviews is that each month they get longer and longer in order to document all of the recent insanity. When we first started writing this freedom and liberty blog in 2009, we almost always could get the latest monthly political class shenanigans into a single post. Last month, it took eight days to accomplish the same task. This month, there is an excellent chance we will break that record of eight straight days of insanity, things are getting that bad.

We seem to be living a political nightmare where things get worse and worse at a quickening pace. Unemployment is still rampant, the war on drugs is still a losing proposition, our public schools still under educate our kids, our borders still leak, and our foreign policy is in tatters. All of these crises come together in this blog every month with no solution to anything in sight.

So buckle up, it is going to be a rough couple of weeks.

1) As we just said, lost war on drugs, skyrocketing national debt, chronic unemployment, stagnant economic growth, a disgraceful foreign policy, the Washington political class has screwed up a lot of things. However, have no fear, what is a prominent member of the U.S. Congress interested in working on? 

Congressman Ed Markey has the answer. He has recommended that the Federal Government step in and issue Federal Regulations on one of America’s most pressing issues: Roller coasters. Apparently, a woman recently was not properly secured in a roller coaster and fell to her death.

How big a problem is this? Data is sketchy but I did find a government report from the Consumer Product Safety Commission that found there were 52 deaths tied to amusement rides logged between 1990 and 2004. This comes out to about three and a half deaths a year. But these deaths are from all rides, only some of them are from roller coasters. Thus, we may be looking at only one or two deaths a year from roller coasters. 

Additionally, according to the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions or IAAPA, about 297 million people, both adults and children, safely rode 1.7 billion rides in the U.S. in 2011. The chance of being seriously injured on a ride at a fixed-site park in the U.S. is about 1 in 24 million. 

I feel sorry for anyone who dies while on a roller coaster.  But I also feel sorry for the hundreds of kids that die every year in Chicago from gang violence. I feel sorry for the thousands of kids that are physically and sexually abused every year. I see none of Markey’s enthusiasm in fixing these problems rather than a one in 24 million problem.

Do we really need Federal  government Congressional resources being wasted on such trivial things like roller coasters when there is so many more issues affecting millions of Americans? There are fifty state governments and thousands of local government that can worry about roller coaster safety. Just another insanely bad example of priority setting by a Washington politician.

2) But by no means does Congressman Markey have the market cornered on bad Washington priorities. The Independent Journal Review had an interesting article of political class insanity on July 10, 2013. Two House of Representatives Democrats have proposed legislation that would establish a national historical park on the surface of the moon to commemorate where the Apollo missions landed between 1969 and 1972.

The proposed legislation from Congresswoman  Donna Edwards  and Congressman Eddie Bernice Johnson would create the Apollo Lunar Landing Sites National Historical Park. The park would be comprised of all artifacts left on the surface of the moon from the Apollo 11 through 17 missions. The bill says these sites need to be protected because of the anticipated increase in commercial moon landings in the future.

A national park on the moon. Really? We have solved all of the nation’s problems and there is nothing left to do but use Federal government resources and taxpayer money to establish a park on the surface of the moon, a park that every American living today and in the future is highly unlikely to ever visit. Beyond insanity, pure stupidity.

The Independent Journal Review article went onto do a nice comparison of priorities between putting a park on the moon and other, more pressing issues facing Americans:

1. ObamaCare: A national park on the Moon won’t protect Americans from ObamaCare or address any of the law’s failures.

2. Improve the Economy: A park on the Moon does not create jobs and improve education performance for Americans. 

3. Student Loans: How will a national Moon park prevent students loan rates from doubling?

4. IRS: Establishing a national Moon park won’t provide any oversight of the out-of-control and criminal IRS.

5. Energy: A Moon park won’t lower energy costs for Americans or help develop energy independence.

So many issues and these clowns are worried about and planning for a lunar park. Words fail me in these instance of lunacy.

3) The Federal government recently announced a half a million dollar program to help create jobs for young people. The grant announcement of the program included the following justification for the spending: “Marginalized youth are empowered when given a voice and opportunities. Equipping marginalized youth and their communities with economic opportunities and/or business training can help them reach their true potential as entrepreneurs and improve citizen security.”

Great idea. Unemployment rates for younger Americans, particularly African Americans, is much higher than the overall U.S. unemployment rate. Thus, this could be a good program for the youth in our country.

Oh, wait a minute. This $500,000 of American taxpayer is not intended for America’s unemployed youth. It is a State Department grant that is going to help the underemployed and unemployed youth in…. wait for it… in Belize. Why we would ship half a million dollars to a foreign country to help the employment opportunities of their youth when our youth are suffering so when it comes to jobs is way beyond me. 

Can anyone tell me where Belize is actually located? Can someone tell me if there are strategic, economic, or homeland security reasons for these expenses? I doubt it and I bet no one in the Federal government can either besides keeping their jobs doing dumb stuff and dumber spending like this.

4) The Weekly Standard on July 22, 2013 had another article on government waste. This article was for only $31,000 of wasteful spending but $31,000 might have been used to hire a teacher or teacher’s aide somewhere in America to start the job of fixing what is broken in our education system. 

Plus, as you will see, while this example is for “only“ $31,000, it is repeated very often, every time a high ranking government official retires or leaves office. Thus, $31,000 expenses are repeated over and over with no benefit to any American taxpayer.

The latest to waste $31,000 is former Secretary Of Defense, Leon Panetta. According to the article, $31,000 is being spent to paint an original oil portrait of Panetta that will hang in the Pentagon next to other former heads of the Defense Department. In my view, a totally unnecessary expense in times of trillion dollar annual deficits. The vast majority of Americans will never see Panetta’s portrait, much like they will never see the over priced portraits of many other unnotable or unworthy Washington bureaucrats.

Let’s change this process from a blank check where the taxpayer pays to the following:

• Given the Statue Of Liberty used no taxpayer dollars when it was fully refurbished several decades ago, let’s use that same logic and say no taxpayer dollar swill be used for any Washington bureaucrat portrait, all of whom had less impact on America than the statue of liberty.
• If a former bureaucrat wants his oil portrait done and hung, he could pay for it himself or do a fund raising campaign to get his or her “fans” to donate, much like fans of the Statue Of Liberty did for her refurbishment.
• I would bet that you cold get a quality job done for a lot less than $31,000 if the bureaucrat had to fund the portrait themselves,, saving the taxpayer a lot of money over time.

Okay, that will do it for today. We are just getting warmed up with the latest insanity from the political class. But as you can see from today’s wackiness, national parks on the moon, job development programs for Belize’s youth, roller coaster regulation and more, it will be a long haul to cut through the insanity that the politicians have wrought in just the past 30 days or so.

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