The Onrushing State Government Pension Fiscal Crisis and Tsunami

Several days ago we posted a post that discussed the impending fiscal collapse of the state governments in New Jersey and California. These impending collapses are due to the reality that state politicians in those states continued to cater to state government union members in order to get their votes at election time. As a result, we have a system in many states that has a ton of unfunded liabilities based on the promises of robust retirement pensions and health care for retired state government employees and union members. That post can be accessed at:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/01/california-and-new-jerseys-impending.html

But according to a National Review article by Lewis M. Andrews on January 26, 2018, these two states are not the only states that have been led to the brink of insolvency by state politicians and that brink is not that far away:

• In Illinois, a recent law went into effect that allows the state Comptroller to seize any Illinois town or country’s share of sales, excise, or other taxes if that town or county does not keep up its pensions payments and contributions.
• This obviously will result in other budget lines of a town or county to go down which will result in less government services to those citizens in those towns and counties.
• For example, Mattoon city officials have already said that they will get rid of ambulance services in order to make up for the lost tax revenue going into pension funding, funding that is half a million dollars more this year than last year.
• Normal, Illinois is going to raise property taxes to make up its pension contribution shortfall.
• East St. Louis, Illinois may see its ENTIRE tax money confiscated by the state to fulfill its pension requirements, leaving it nothing at all for ANY other government service, police, fire, ambulance, schools, etc.
• But the problem of unfunded pension and retirement liabilities, estimated by some to be as high as $6 TRILLION, is not restricted to Illinois, New Jersey and California.
• Florida towns and cities will have to pony up an incremental $178.5 million in the their upcoming budgets to cover their pension liabilities for government retirees.
• The San Diego school district is asking parents of its kids which services they would prefer to get cut in order to make up their contributions to California’s deeply indebted pension system.
• Fulton, Kentucky has already cut back its hospital and ambulance services and still faces an annual $114,000 annual pension shortfall.
• To cover the current deficits, Connecticut would have to raise overall taxes by 14% and New Jersey would have to raise taxes a whopping 26%.

Seriously bad financial conditions and yet rather than fix the root causes of the pension problem, as always, politicians have resorted to tricks, gimmicks, and lies to cover up the impending disasters:

• In 2016, San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) subway system sought voter approval to bond $3.5 billion in infrastructure improvements even though the needed upgrade was already covered by an ongoing capital fund, causing speculation that the $3.5 billion would be secretly diverted to cover pension expenses.
• Former New Jersey Governor Christie Christie and General Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto agreed to a shell game that made the state lottery an asset of the pension fund which, while it would help reduce the pension fund deficit, it would rob other state government functions of the funds it currently gets from lottery proceeds.
• California Sonoma County voters recently shot down a proposal to increase the sales tax increase because it was suspected the increase would be only funneled into the local pension fund deficit.

And keep in mind these deficits and funding shortfalls have occurred during a record stretch of positive economic results, we have not had a recession in almost ten years. You can imagine what is going to happen when the economy eventually dips into a recession.

Politicians making bad promises that they cannot fulfill just to ensure their careers and cushy pay checks, pensions and benefits are protected and prolonged. It is going to be a rocky ride, probably sooner than later, when it comes to government's reckoning of its fiscal condition and insanity. And not a politician, or leader, in sight, who has the gumption and courage to do the right thing. 

Term limits anyone?

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

March, 2015, Part 2, Political Class Insanity: When NASCAR and Pigs Are More Important Than Citizens, Getting Drunk at the State Of The Union, and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time once again to review the latest insanity and ineptness from the American political class. We do this review every month to prove our hypothesis that we are currently being served by the worst set of politicians in the history of our country. 

They waste hundreds of billions of dollars of our wealth every year, they never resolve any of the major issues facing Americans today, they continually put their foot in their mouth with their idiotic statements and positions, and they operate government functions that are bloated and ineffective in delivering quality service to taxpayers. And worse of all, they have rigged the country’s elections processes so that their election and subsequent re-elections are almost guaranteed to ensure their mediocrity continues. 

To review the past examples of political class insanity just type in “political class insanity” in the search box above.

So lets get started on what is likely a multi-day review of their latest incompetence and insanity, with the first post in this series appearing yesterday:

1) It is no secret that the Obama administration has added more to the national debt than every other Presidential administration that came before it. Of the more than $18 TRILLION in debt that the country now owes, $8 TRILLION of that came just from the Obama administration. This $8 TRILLION comes out to about $67,000 for every American family in the country.

The Obama administration and the current Washington political class has added so much debt that the Obama White House now estimates that by 2021, the country will be spending more on interest from the national debt than on the entire Defense Department budget. Given that the current annual Defense Department budget is about half a TRILLION dollars a year, by 2021, on average, every American family will be spending over $4,000 a year in taxes just on interest payments alone. Insanity.

2) According to an article in the December 12, 2014 issue of The Week magazine, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie recently vetoed a piece of legislation that would have banned the use of restrictive gestation crates for breeding pigs that affect about 9,000 pigs in the state. As a former resident of New Jersey I do not have a position on whether this is a humane thing to do or not.

But as a former resident of New Jersey, I know there are far bigger issues that state politicians should be worried about and focused on than the comfort of 9,000 pigs:

• The state’s unemployment level continues to run higher than the rest of the country.
• The state’s long term unemployment rate continues to be one of the worst in the country.
• The state’s cost of living and tax burden continues to be one of the highest in the country.
• The state spends more and gets relatively less bang for its investment in education relative to many other states in the country.

But why focus your legislative efforts on issues that affect most of the state’s residents when you can develop and pass legislation that focuses on 9,000 pigs. Horrible, horrible political priorities.

3) But New Jersey is not alone in state politicians that are focusing on the wrong priorities. The city of Charlotte, North Carolina invested over a $100 million of taxpayer funds to help build the NASCAR Hall of Fame in the city. Unfortunately, this investment is not paying off since only 400,000 people are visiting the Hall Of Fame each year while the city planners expected over 800,000 to show up annually. 

This 50% attendance shortfall has resulted in the city having to put up another $5 million of taxpayer funds to pay off some of the debts that the Hall Of Fame has incurred in addition to the $137 million in debt it incurred to build the Hall. Additionally, banks who invested in the project will get back about a third of which they invested and royalties to NASCAR have been suspended for the near future.

As with New Jersey, I am sure there are far better needs and issues that city lawmakers and politicians should have been spending their time on than building a white elephant of a hall of fame. Bad priorities.

4) According to a recent article written by Tyler Durden that appeared on the www.zerohedge.com website, the United States and the inferior lawmaking ability of the nation's politicians have resulting in two depressing facts:

• The United States has the highest prison and jail incarceration rate of any country in the world.
• This high incarceration rate has greatly diminished the punitive and preventive effective of crime and criminals.

Just another example of politicians coming up with a solution that makes the original problem even worse. Details of these conclusions include the following facts and realities:

• There are about 2.3 million Americans in prison or jail. 15 states have total populations less than 2.3 million.
• There are more Americans in prison than the combined populations of Alaska, Vermont, and Wyoming.
• The U.S. has 5% of the world’s population by 25% of its prisoners.
• One out of every three black men will spend time in prison or jail.
• 2.7 million kids across the country have a parent who is jail or prison.
• The U.S. imprisonment rate has grown by 400% since 1970.

Despite the every increasing incarceration rate, a recent study and research effort from the Brennan Center For Justice at the NYU School of law found that this increased incarceration rate has had a limited effect on crime rates over the past two and a half decades. One reason driving this diminished effect on crime is that a lot of those currently wasting away in prisons and jails are there for non-violent and victimless crimes such as illegal drug use. 

Author Durden writes: “America’s incarceration rate has become so saturated that it has absolutely no meaningful impact in lowering crimes rates anyway. The time for prison reform and the elimination of mandatory minimum sentences is long overdue.”

Thus, politicians’ efforts to make us safer are not having any real effect any longer while costing billions of dollars in taxpayer wealth to make us the most imprisoned planet in the world. Something is worn here, something is insane here.

U.S. imprisonment rate per 100,000 people since 1880:



5) It is not uncommon in life for a person to turn to alcohol when they are really depressed or really bored. Not sure what the reasons were for Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg getting a little unsober at the recent Obama state of the union speech but who can blame her? She had to sit still for a long time while listening to empty promises and arrogance from the President of the U.S.Justice Ginsburg had drunk so much pre-speech wine that she actually nodded off in the middle of the state of the union proceeding. She apparently was unaware that she passed out during the speech until she returned home and got a call from her granddaughter saying, “Bubbe, you were sleeping at the State of the Union.”But the Justice had enough integrity to admit she was not sleeping: “The audience — for the most part — is awake because they’re bobbing up and down all the time and we sit there, stone-faced, sober judges. At least I wasn’t 100 percent sober because before we went to the State of the Union we had dinner. Justice Kennedy brought in … it was an Opus something or other, very fine California wine that Justice Kennedy brought, and I vowed this year just sparkling water, stay away from the wine. But in the end, the dinner was so delicious, it needed wine to accompany it.”Again, who can blame her? This President has made more promises that never got fulfilled, has spent more tax money that has resulted in minimal improvement in Americans’ lives, has violated more laws and Constitutional tenets than any other President, and continues to shower himself and his family with golf rounds, international vacations, and privileges of royalty to the extent that no other President would have dared to do. At least viewers at home could turn off the President and go to another TV channel. Justice Ginsburg had no other option than to overdrink and pass out to escape the depression and boredom that is the Washington political class on display at the state of the union message. So what did we learn to today from the political class insanity we reviewed:

• Obama’s budgets will eventually crush the country and its economy.
• New Jersey politicians worry more about pigs than citizens.
• North Carolina city politicians worry more about NASCAR than citizens.
• We are the kings of incarceration relative to the rest of the world.
• Even Supreme Court Justices are being driven to drink by the Washington political class.

More reasons to drink due to politicians’ ineptness 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.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

August, 2014 Will The Center Hold Update, Part 2: Marijuana, Common Core, and Other Push Backs Against Federal Tyranny

On a periodic basis we have been examining a unique phenomena in this country, namely the fact that state and local governments and individual citizens are standing up against the overreach and tyranny of the Federal government and the Washington political class. Under the hypothesis, “Will the Center Hold?”, we have examined the rather radical but growing possibility that very soon Washington and the Federal government will enact a law, an executive order, some type of regulation, etc. and the rest of the country will simply ignore the action.

And what happens if that should come to pass? Will we continue to be a republic with a central Federal government or does the whole shebang start to come apart with states and others doing as they please and treating anything out of Washington as merely a suggestion and not a requirement?

Issues that have been discussed where states and individuals have pushed back against the Feds include gun control, Common Core education standards, Obama Care regulations and requirements, Federal program enrollment such as Medicaid, and other large issues. To review past discussion on this topic, just enter the search term, ‘will the center hold” in the above search box to see how widespread but underreported this push back against federal tyranny and oppression has become.

Today is a continuation of the discussion we started yesterday on the latest push backs against the Federal government that are happening around the country as we continue to give examples on how the center might not hold in the face of an overreaching, ineffective, and inefficient Federal government and bureaucracy.

1) The following updates come from the Personal Liberty Digest website article that we started to talk about yesterday:

• New York state recently became the 23rd state in the country to legalize marijuana for medical purposes. This is just one of a multitude of state efforts to spit in the eye of Federal laws that prohibit the use of marijuana, considering it a crime in the eyes of the Federal government. 
• In the fall elections, this effort to legalize or decriminalize marijuana independent of the Federal government will expand to the states of Alaska and Oregon, Voters there will have the chance to approve full legalization measures similar to what are already legal in Colorado and Washington. 
• Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley have both recently signed new laws that authorize the growing and production of industrial hemp, a marijuana plant relative, within their States, effectively nullifying and ignoring the Federal ban on the hemp plant.

This issue is probably further along our overriding question: What if the Federal government passed a law and no one obeyed it? Many states are already executing this action by ignoring Federal marijuana laws in favor of what their in state voters want.

2) Other back lash efforts at the state level covered in the Personal Liberty Digest article include:

• A proposed Missouri piece of legislation to withdraw from Common Core was signed into law this month. 
• Arizona voters will soon have a chance to approve a Right to Try measure that would effectively nullify some Federal Food and Drug Administration restrictions. 
• Oklahoma became the second state, after Utah, to take the first step toward actually following the tender requirements of the Constitution and nullifying the Federal Reserve’s near-monopoly on money. 
• A new Georgia law recently went into effect that blocks the implementation of some primary aspects of Obama Care.

Yes, things are bad. We are being served by the worst, most ineffective and most divisive set of politicians in Washington that we have ever had to endure. But the article does offer some hope, for change and a return to fiscal and government sanity, by summarizing the movement of nullification as follows:

When enough people say “No!” to the Federal government and when enough States pass laws backing those people up, there’s not much the politicians in Washington, D.C., can do to force their so-called “laws” or mandates down our throats.

Just saying no to an overreaching Federal government essentially makes them powerless to control our lives, our futures and our liberties and citizens and states across the nation are proving this point everyday.

3) In Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker has now joined other states and governors in calling for a full repeal of the Federal government’s Common Core education standards.

In a prepared, press release statement: 

“Today, I call on the members of the State Legislature to pass a bill in early January to repeal Common Core and replace it with standards set by people in Wisconsin.”

“..with standards set by people in Wisconsin” rather than some politically motivated bureaucrats sitting half a country away in Washington. This is called democracy when people can control the major aspects of their own lives rather than being dictated to by people that are usually clueless of the needs and desires of those they order about.

Walker went on to state that he’d like Wisconsin to have its own unique standards that were higher than what was already established. “I’d like us to be in the position where we can identify our own unique standards that I think in many ways will be higher and more aggressive than the [Common Core] ones they’re talking about.” 

School districts within his state have already moved against Common Core with the Cedarburg School Board voting to ask the state to delay implementing the Common Core Smarter Balanced Assessments two years and the Germantown School District having voted late last year to dump Common Core and develop its own standards instead.

Walker is not alone among the country’s governors who are already killing Common Core within their states or are having serious doubts about its effectiveness and motives:

• Missouri Governor Jay Nixon recently signed legislation that would review and replace the Common Core in his state. 
• North Carolina Governor Pat McCroary has publicly stated that he would sign a repeal and replace bill his state’s legislature passed this week. 
• Utah Governor Gary Hebert announced he wants the Common Core process and content reviewed.
• New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has signed an executive order to create a commission to review the Common Core.
• Iowa Governor Terry Branstad recently called Common Core “radioactive” when talking to reporters at a recent national governors; conference.

Which raises the same question: what happens if the Federal government issues educational standards that most of the states and its citizens simply ignore? 

4) But on some issues, citizens are not waiting for their local and state governments to take action, they are taking to the street themselves and demanding that Washington listen to them. Despite being ignored by the mainstream, Obama leaning media, last weekend hundreds of rallies involving thousands of private citizens took place across the country in opposition to the large flow of immigrants banging up against our southern border.

According to rally organizers, over 300 protests involving at least 12,000 protesters took place over a two day period in locations ranging from state capitals to highway overpasses. These protests were in response to not immediately retuning these immigrants to their home countries, paying to board and feed them across the country with taxpayer money, and the possibility of granting them amnesty and/or citizenship for simply evading our border patrols.

Their views and actions would seem to support the voice of the majority of people in the U.S. since according to a June 20 Gallup poll, 65% of Americans disapprove of President Obama’s handling of the country’s immigration issues.

As you can see over these past two posts that Americans are raging against the machine of the Federal government and bureaucracy. From ignoring marijuana laws to dumping Common Core requirements to a plethora of other actions against an overreaching Federal government, each day we get closer and closer to the ultimate question: What if the Federal government enacted a law that no one obeyed? 

When that day happens, it should not be dreaded but celebrated as the start of the process where Americans began the journey back to independence and freedom. And the good news, is that more rebellion and push backs will be discussed tomorrow. Of particular importance and interest is the Convention of States movement that is moving this process of rage further along strictly according to the tenets of the Constitution, that wonderful document that has lost its place among the Washington political class.

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

Inaugural Monthly Political Class SANITY, September, 2012 - You Cannot Cure Stupid, 911 Good Samaritans, New Jersey Teachers Now Must Actually Teach

Every month since we began this blog over two years ago, we have dedicated time at the beginning of each month to the latest insanity, idiocy, and wasteful ways of the American political class at all levels of government. It has not been a pleasant trip, as we have uncovered and reviewed unbelievable greed, selfishness, and just boneheaded behavior from our politicians.

Their actions have resulted in major unresolved issues that persist over many decades, a crushing $16 TRILLION national debt, declining respect for the nation's political and government processes, a substantial loss of freedom, and a heavy tax burden for nothing in return.

However, there is a glimmer of hope. For the first time in what seems forever, we actually came across some rational, sane, and worthwhile activities and actions of the political class. Be warned: these small positive steps will not solve the issues listed in the previous paragraph. However, as we discussed yesterday, the road to sanity has to start somewhere, so let's begin with these small steps to a rational, minimalistic government operated by dedicated, courageous, and unselfish leaders.

1) Like most local governments over the past few years, the town of Milton, Washington has also suffered. According to Reason magazine, the town's tax base has shrunk from $4.9 million in 2010 to an expected $3.9 million this year. Rather than try to do what it did when its revenue base was 33% larger or raise taxes on already overburdened residents (typical political class responses), the politicians in Milton decided to do less, eliminating non-vital government services to meet its tight budget.

Milton cut deals with neighboring towns to share firefighting and library services, it eliminated the position of "activities director,"  and when an insurance consultant pointed out that unenforceable laws are a huge liability risk, the city council repealed many of its unnecessary laws, laws that were vague or unenforceable. One of the laws it repealed was the one that required bike riders to wear helmets.

From a freedom perspective, the reason why they killed the helmet law was very refreshing. The politicians realized that riding a bike without a helmet and doing other dangerous activities could lead to injury but that it was not the duty of the government to intrude on personal decisions.

A council spokesperson summed it up quite nicely: "Of course you should wear a helmet. But this is a parents' issue - parents need to be supervising their children, making sure their children are well dressed and have helmets on. Wearing flip flops and shorts and no helmets on skateboards and bikes is just stupid." And the government, no matter how hard and how expensively it wants to intrude into our daily decisions and freedom, cannot cure stupid.

Better to focus on the most important issues and resolve them than try to enforce many unenforceable rules and laws and get nothing resolved. Kudos to Milton, Washington politicians for recognizing reality: focus on the important issues, get creative with limited resources, and trust citizens to understand what is best for them.

2) Until recently, if two friends were using illegal drugs and one of them overdosed, the other friend faced a tough dilemma: if they called police and EMTs for their overdosing friends, they faced the real possibility of being arrested for illegal drug usage. If they did not call for help, their friend would suffer further damage and possibly death. Just another perverted consequence of our lost war on drugs: citizens die for no reason because of our existing drug laws.

Fortunately, there are some scattered politicians across the country who recognize that protecting the lives of citizens, even if they are using illegal drugs, is more humane and passionate than boosting drug arrest statistics. Starting with New Mexico in 2007, followed by seven other states, a series of 911 Good Samaritan laws were implemented. These laws offer immunity from prosecution laws that arise during emergency response situations.

Thus, in our example above, the non-overdosing friend could feel free to call for help for his endangered friend without worrying about being prosecuted for illegal drug use. Since Reason reports that there are over 40,000 overdose deaths a year, the spread and publicizing of these types of laws would go a long way to reducing the death rate.

This is how politicians and government should work. Rational laws that provide a tangible benefit to its citizens at minimal cost. Kudos to 911 Good Samaritan laws.

3) Earlier in August, the state government of New Jersey enacted a far reaching, positive first step in reforming what ails our failing public education processes in this country despite what had been one of the more stubborn, state wide teacher unions in the country. Politicians dealt a heavy blow to the oldest teacher tenure law in the country:

• Democratic State Senator Teresa Ruiz spent two years drafting a bill to reform the 103-year-old teacher tenure law and tie teacher job security to student performance, legislation that was signed by the state's Republican governor, Chris Christie.
• This cooperation proves that bipartisanship is actually possible in our divided nation.
• Under this legislation, all teachers will have to undergo annual evaluations based primarily on student performance.
• Any teacher who receives two consecutive negative evaluations can lose tenure.
• The hope is that these evaluations and repercussions will not only lead under performing teachers to seek other career options but also encourage talented, tenured teachers to maintain strong teaching performance.
• The legislation also changes the process for gaining tenure. Under the current system, all teachers, regardless of performance and talent, receive tenure after only three years of employment.
• The new law stretches the amount of time teachers must teach beyond three years before being awarded tenure, and teachers must achieve two positive evaluations in their first three years in the classroom to stay in the good graces of the process.

Great first steps to improving public education for the kids of New Jersey. It begins to treat teachers like other workers in other industries: perform your job to at least minimal standards, keep your job.

Now, it does not get rid of the other major stumbling block to improving public education. New Jersey, like most other states, allow their teachers' staffs to function under a seniority process, i.e. first in, last out. When teaching staffs need to be reduced, those teachers with the longest tenure, regardless of how lousy they are at their job, get to keep their jobs vs. younger but possibly better teachers on staff.

But this legislation is a great first step. Kudos to the Democrats, Republicans, and teachers' union in New Jersey who have come up with a rational, logical, and fair solution to a major problem. Rational, logical, fair: three adjectives you rarely associate with any American politician.

Three pieces of good news, politicians delivering value added services with minimal cost. Its a small start towards sanity but it is a start.

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

Why California Is Failing While Wisconsin Is Succeeding

Last week we compared the relative economic situations of three states: Florida, New Jersey, and California (http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/07/state-level-economic-musings-california.html). Florida fared the best in our analysis, with unnecessary government costs being cut, funding for education being increased, no taxes being raised, but essential government functions still operating. This has resulted in Florida making some of the best improvements in its economy and unemployment rate in the country.

We concluded that New jersey Governor Chris Christie was making all of the right moves to get that state economy moving again but was facing a long tradition of the state overspending its tax stream and raising taxes to cover the shortfall. Its economy has been slow to recover but at least the governor is doing the right things.

The basket case of the three was California. Tax shortfalls, underperfoming schools, budget overruns, good sized cities declaring bankruptcy (San Bernadino and Stockton), an out migration of better off citizens and business, a general malaise throughout the state and its population. However, we did present a rather radical plan from famed economist Arthur Laffer to help pull the state's economy and state government out of the ditch. However, it is doubtful the state's political class is willing or able to accomplish such a feat.

If we had waited a few days, we could have included some other worthwhile advice on how to fix this broken state, courtesy of an article and analysis in the L.A. Times:

 (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-malanga-wisconsin-california-bankruptcies-20120717,0,5879241.story).

It has been my experience that the L.A. Times is a left leaning, Democratic Party preferring publication. So when it sings high praise for the economic progress and approach of a REPUBLICAN governor from another state, I sit up and take notice since complimenting a Republican anything is rather rare in a main stream media publication like the Times.

The Republican being complimented is Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin. As you may know, Walker just prevailed in a bitter recall election that was headed by state government unions in the state. The unions were against many of the changes that Walker had pushed through the state legislature that would have reduced the power of state government workers in the state.

The Times article, "California, Look To Wisconsin," made the following points:

• Walker argued that the biggest beneficiaries of his budget reform plans would be cities, towns and school districts, which would gain the ability to cut costs without having to negotiate every change in compensation or work rules with local unions.
• This legislation specifically eliminated collective bargaining by government workers for benefits and required greater contributions from them towards their pensions.
• Once his plan was enacted into law, Wisconsin citizens quickly found out that state employee unions had used its power to force local school districts to provide health care insurance coverage only through a nonprofit insurer affiliated with the union.
• Once the state allowed bargaining on health care contracts, school boards began competitively bidding out their health insurance, which hopefully would reduce costs.
• According to the Times' article, just two months after Walker's reforms took effect, 23 Wisconsin school districts had redone their insurance contracts, saving $16 million, or an average of $211 per student.
• The MacIver Institute in Wisconsin estimated that if all the state's districts were able to negotiate similar deals once their contracts with the union-affiliated insurer expired, schools, and Wisconsin taxpayers, could save $186 million.
• The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the city of Milwaukee would save as much as $36 million in its next budget by using the new bargaining leverage the Walker reforms provided.
• This flexibility allowed the city to avoid having to implement layoffs of city workers.
• However, the Milwaukee school system was not so lucky since it had agreed to a contract with its teachers' union just before the reforms took effect and thus, were locked into an existing contract. The school board asked for concessions from the union, the union refused, and the school board was forced to layoff 519 people which included 334 teachers. The Times article estimates that if the union had made the concessions, 200 teacher jobs could have been saved.

Great success story. Government employees still get a robust set of benefits, state and local governments and school districts get financial relief, teachers stay on the job, and the strain of ever increasing taxes on residents is eased. Walker has successfully bent the so-called "cost curve" downward with minimal pain and maximum benefits to a wide range of constituencies.

California, not so much. According to the Times' article:

• Average annual pay for a California local government employee rose 60% between 1999 and 2008, far higher than the inflation rate over that time.
• For a perspective, that rise is about 70% more than the increase in private sector pay levels in California over the same frame.
• The annual cost of funding pensions in California's 20 largest cities has gone from $1.3 billion in 1999 to $5.1 billion 2011, according to a study by Stanford University professor Joe Nathan, an annual growth rate of more than 11%.
• No city government's revenue stream is increasing anywhere near that much, meaning that at some point something in the current process has to snap.
• The article points out that cities like San Jose, California do not have the flexibility that Wisconsin local governments have. In San Jose, the average annual cost of employing a city worker, including benefits, has risen to an unbelievable cost of $142,000, resulting in San Jose laying off 2,000 employees and cutting back on parks, libraries and other services over the past three years.
• The city of Stockton, California has already declared bankruptcy, driven by the fact that for every wage dollar it spends, it now has to spend another dollar to cover city employee benefits. This has required the city to layoff 25% of its fire and police force over the past few years but even that was not enough to avoid going bankrupt.

The Times article concludes with this appraisal of California's budget problem: "Without pension reform in Sacramento, and with local contracts that make it impossible to cut costs without concessions from unions, cities and school districts in the Golden State are left with few good choices to balance their budgets." Not a good situation to be in because at some point, California local and city governments end up being little more than collection agencies for bad union contracts while schools, teachers, parks, and other important government functions get emasculated.


Florida figured it out, Wisconsin figured it out. Any human organization, whether it is a nonprofit, a small business, an international conglomerate, a family household, or a government entity, has to live within its budget and available resources. If it does not, the ever escalating cost curve and ever present economic reality and limits will eventually lead to the collapse of that human organization.


How soon will it take California, and more importantly Washington D.C., to understand that "economies cannot tax themselves to prosperity." At some point, and hopefully before it is too late, both California and Washington need to wake up to the fact that spending has to match up with revenue, that is simply a fact of life.




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 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/

State Level Economic Musings - California Vs. Florida Vs.New Jersey

I am a Florida resident, having moved to the Tampa Bay area from New Jersey in late 2005. My reasons for moving were varied but economic reasons were a driving force:

• In 2005, I was paying over $12,000 in New Jersey property taxes a year for a typical northeastern suburban house, or about $4.00 per square foot. I had a volunteer fire department, no local police coverage (state police covered our area), no municipal garbage pick up, and no local library.
• In 2012, I am paying about $3,600 in Florida property taxes a year for a typical southern suburban home, or about $1.80 per square foot. An absolute difference in dollars of at least $8,400 a year or about $700 a month vs. New Jersey. For those dollars I get county police coverage, full time fire protection and numerous local libraries.
• Since 2005, the property tax bill for that New Jersey house has probably gone up dramatically, far exceeding the ridiculously high $4.00 per square foot I was paying in 2005.
• Since moving to Florida in 2005, my annual property taxes have actually gone down every year and future property tax increases, if and when they come, are capped at no more than 3%.
• New Jersey politicians tried to tell us that our property tax rates were so high because the state invested so much money in  the public school system in order to create outstanding  schools. However, according to the latest Newsweek annual analysis of the top 100 high schools in the country, 13 were from the state of Florida and only one was from the state of New Jersey.
• New Jersey has six state income tax rates with the top rate being a very high 8.97%.
• Florida has only a single income tax rate, 0%, for all levels of income.

I talk about these two states because I have first hand economic experiences in both. With a fraction of the cost of property tax and no income tax, my family can live a great life in Florida just about on our tax savings alone. Year round golf, fishing, beaches, Disney World, and sunshine are not too bad either.

This is another way of stating that people are not stupid and will look for ways to maximize their life's experiences, which many times means optimizing their financial status. Based on the 2010 Census, we now know that the population of New Jersey grew about 4.5% over the past ten years. This is a growth rate that is only about half of the national growth rate and is so slow that the state will be losing a Congressional seat in the next election.

Based on the 2010 Census, the state of Florida's population grew 17.6% over the past ten years and will be gaining Congressional representation in the next Congress. This population growth rate is almost double the national population growth rate over the past ten years. I have to think that lower government cost of living, via lower property taxes, no income taxes, and a cap to future property tax increases has a lot to do with these numbers.

Florida recently closed a major state government budget gap by cutting unnecessary state government costs and NOT raising taxes, while still adding about $1 billion to the education systems throughout the state. Pretty impressive. We still have police protection, fire protection, the libraries are still open, and the roads are still in good shape, all of the major functions you want an efficient government to provide in a cost effective manner. Not sure New Jersey can make those same claims.

Now, it is not a secret that Florida got hit hard by the recession. It went from a low unemployment rate of 3.3% in August of 2006 to a high of 11.4% in February, 2010, a more than threefold increase. This disaster was mostly the result of a collapsing real estate market and a drop in tourism as a result of the recession, the two main industries in the state.

However, since February, 2010, the unemployment rate has dropped 2.8 percentage points from 11.4% to 8.6% (about a 25% decrease). The unemployment rate in New Jersey has come down only .5 percentage points from its high of 9.7% in April, 2010 to its current 9.2% (about a 5% decrease). Florida's economic improvement, without raising taxes but cutting unnecessary government costs, has also dramatically beaten the national economic picture which has seen the national unemployment rate drop only 1.8 percentage points, from 10.0% to 8.2% (about an 18% decrease).

I know these are a lot of numbers but the approach that the Florida political class has taken, to their credit, seems to be working quite well: cut unnecessary government spending, do not cover up wasteful spending with higher taxes, invest in education, and simplify government's involvement in citizens' lives. It seems to be working quite well, based on the  results cited above, numbers that will get considerably better when the real estate market turns around, a bread and butter staple of the Florida economy.

I have a high degree of respect for what New Jersey governor Chris Christie is trying to do in New Jersey. He gets it: minimize tax increases while reducing excessive and wasteful government spending. But he is battling decades of old political thinking where unnecessary, criminal, and wasteful government spending could always be covered up with higher and higher taxes. The fact that the state's unemployment rate has only come down half a percentage point relative to the nation and to states like Florida shows he has a long way to go.

At least he gets it. I am not sure if the political class in California gets it, based on some really sour economic data that has been coming out of that state over the past few months:

- According to a Bloomberg News report from May 12, 2012:

• The California budget deficit is worst than originally forecasted, expected then to be $16 billion.
• The original deficit was expected to be about 40% lower or $9.2 billion, an estimate from January, 2012.
• This new budget deficit is almost a full 20% of the proposed state government budget, indicating there will have to be a lot of action to close such a large gap.
• One of those actions is to place a tax question on the next ballot that would temporarily raise the state sales tax, already the highest in the U.S., to 7.5% from 7.25% and would also boost income tax rates on income starting at $250,000. The 10.3% levy on those making $1 million or more would rise to 13.3%, the most of any state.
• If the tax ballot initiative does not pass, the state will have to cut $4.8  billion more from state school budgets. 

Do we really think that raising already high tax rates will work in these hard economic times? I doubt it.

(Note: the Associated Press reported on June 15, 2012 that the state government legislature did eventually pass a budget of about $92 billion but did not include any plans on how to actually attain that budget number and their budget relies heavily on voters approving the mentioned tax hikes in November.)

- According to an article in the Orange County Register from May 10, 2012, only about 22% of California's eighth-graders tested on a national science test passed, ranking it among the worst states in the nation. California, home to Silicon Valley, tested better than only Alabama, Mississippi, and the District of Columbia. How embarrassing, such a low score but the one of the highest tax burdens in the ocuntry, and imagine how much worse it will get if another $4.8 billion comes out of the state government education budget.

-  According to a June 9, 2012 Associated Press article, voters in San Diego and San Jose, the eighth and tenth largest metro areas in the country, overwhelmingly voted to reduce benefits currently given to both retired and current municipal employees simply because these cities can no longer afford the burden.

In San Diego, the city's payments to its employees' retirement fund went from $43 million in 1999 to $231.2 million this year, almost a fourfold increase and equal to 20 percent of the city's operating budget. Concurrently, the 1.3 million San Diego residents have seen roads deteriorate and libraries reduce hours. For a while, fire stations had to share engines and trucks. The city has reduced its workforce 14% since 2005.

San Jose is not in much better shape. Its pension payments jumped from $73 million in 2001 to $245 million this year, or 27% of its operating budget. Four libraries and a police station that were built over the past decade have never even opened because the city cannot afford to operate them. The city of 960,000 reduced its workforce 27% percent over the past 10 years.

These growth rates in pension and benefit payments are unsustainable, at some point you either go bankrupt as a city or you end up just being a collection agency for government employee benefit programs as you cut other vital government services due to lack of funding. Something has to give at some point.

- Something did give in Stockton, California where they already have or are about declare bankruptcy. Their expenses have gotten so out of control that bankruptcy may be the only alternative to fix the situation.

- An Associated Press report from July 12, 2012 indicates that San Bernadino, California is also about to declare bankruptcy, having less than $200,000 cash on hand to cover millions of dollars of pending expenses and costs.

- A comprehensive study by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University measured the degree of personal and economic freedom state-by-state along a whole host of variables and measurements. California ranked 48th worst in the latest edition of the study (New Jersey was 49th) while Florida was 11th. Given these three state options, where will freedom loving and tax averse people be most likely to want to live, on average, in the long term? 

- A survey study by the Chief Executive Group found similar results when it asked chief executives which states had the best environment for business. California ranked 50th, New Jersey ranked 49th, while Florida ranked 11th. Most of the states that were viewed favorably in the survey cited low state tax levels and friendly business regulation environments (i.e. the government and political class get out of the way of business operations and growth) for their high ranking of the winning states.

Again, similar question: where will freedom loving businesses and tax averse people be most likely to locate their businesses in the long term?

The study results were especially critical of the politicians running California:

"California, once a business friendly state, continues to conduct a war on its own economy. According to the Pacific Research Institute, it has the fourth largest government of all U.S. states, with spending equal to 18.3 percent of GDP. The comparable figure for Texas is 12.1 percent. Survey respondents uniformly say the state’s regulators are hostile. “No one in his right mind would start a new manufacturing concern here,” said one California CEO.

Although California is not unique in pursuing policies that prompt wealth and job creators to expand elsewhere, (New York being a good example), the Golden State seems uniquely oblivious to the effect its labor and other regulations are having on its innovative and growth-oriented Silicon Valley. Job growth in the Valley has flatlined. Firms keep their HQs there, but pursue growth in friendlier states. Google, Intel, Cisco and other companies locate new plants in states such as Arizona, Utah, Texas, Virginia or North Dakota.

Sacramento seems to take perverse delight in job-killing legislation, of which the pair of bills known as California’s “Green Chemistry Initiative” that former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law in September 2008 serve as an example. The regulations mandated that “manufacturers seek safer alternatives to toxic chemicals in their products, and create tough governmental responses for lack of compliance.” When the 92-page final set of commands was issued, the “green community” demanded a rewrite with even tougher requirements. Writing in the Washington Examiner, Chapman University Law professor Hugh Hewitt said that the new rules will mandate testing and labeling changes on tens of thousands of products, likely triggering product recalls. “Take whatever you think is the worst regulatory regime out there, and expand it exponentially.”

Then there is the state’s carbon emission law (AB 32), which the Small Business Roundtable and PRI say will cost half a million in foregone jobs in 2011 and up to 1.3 million jobs by 2020. What’s more, it is by no means certain the law will reduce carbon emissions since it only applies to California."

Is it any surprise that people and businesses are leaving states where it is so difficult to do business.

- Consider some insights from Eric Laffer, author of the book, "Eureka! How To Fix California:"

"Firms, people, investments, and tax revenues are fleeing California, repelled by the most onerous antigrowth business environment in the United States. California’s after-tax rate of return for doing business lags so far behind other states’ (especially zero-income-tax competitors such as Texas, Tennessee, and Florida) that the exodus shouldn’t surprise anyone. Yet the state’s Democratic leadership is pushing a November ballot measure aimed at raising income and sales taxes in order to make up for lost revenue. Tax hikes, especially during trying economic times like these, make no sense. Economies don’t tax themselves into prosperity."

In the article I read online (http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_2_california-taxes.html), Laffer explains in his book how the California political class can save their state by simplifying everything they do, from their tax code to business regulations to streamlining government.

I particularly love his line, "Economies don't tax themselves into prosperity." This is true at the state and national level. At the state level, people move, taking their wealth, families, and businesses with them to seek out the best financial and economic conditions, conditions that usually include minimal taxation and minimal intrusive government regulation. Usually, those moving are the wealthier families and the better run businesses.

At the national level, the Obama administration has added thousands of regulations to the U.S. business environment since it took office. It has come up with dozens of new taxes for both businesses and families. National economies also don't tax themselves into prosperity.

Maybe that is why the unemployment rate has been over 8% for a record 40 straight months, maybe that is why over 35,000 small businesses shut down last year, maybe that is why we have suffered our first national debt credit downgrade ever.

The California migration trend, leaving the state for a better live, may be starting to find its way into a broader United States migration trend. According to recent IRS reports:

• Last year, 1,800 Americans renounced their citizenship and moved out of the country.
• That's a record number since the Internal Revenue Service began publishing a list of those who renounced in 1998.
• It's also almost eight times more than the number of citizens who renounced in 2008 and more than the total for 2007, 2008 and 2009 combined.

Not a good sign. High taxes and unnecessary and burdensome government intrusions and regulations have no place in a democracy. New Jersey and California are finding out the hard way. Florida already gets it. Will the Washington political class get it before our best citizens, our most promising entrepreneurs, and other successful U.S. businesses decide that elsewhere is better? Muse on that for a while.




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/

California Mass Transit and Politicians' Deficient Math Skills

We have discussed the severe math deficiencies of our politicians many times in this blog:

- When the Federal government offered the state of New Jersey several billion dollars to build a new mass transit rail tunnel from New Jersey to Manhattan, the deal looked too good to be true. The construction of such a tunnel would create many short term construction jobs, long term tunnel-related jobs, and facilitate the local New York/New Jersey economy. Since the original cost of the entire construction job was only about $5 billion, with more than half of that being paid for by all American taxpayers via the Federal government, it looked like a great opportunity.

However, very shortly, that $5 billion estimate became an $8 billion estimate. That $8 billion estimate shortly became a $10 billion estimate. The current governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, then pulled the plug on the project when his staff estimated the cost could be between $11 billion and $14 billion, with all of that expanded cost being picked up by the New Jersey taxpayer. Given that New Jersey has been hard hit by the recession, like most of the rest of the county, the Governor correctly realized that limited state funding should not be wasted on a tunnel whose cost continued to escalate, even before significant construction had begun.

Obviously, someone in the Federal political class and the government the political class operates had some pretty poor math skills if the original estimate was off by an order of magnitude between two and three times as much within five short years, going from $5 billion to over $10 billion.

- Governor Christie may have been drawing on the horrendous experiences of the Boston and Massachusetts taxpayers relative to the infamous "Big Dig" tunnel program in Boston. The objective of the Big Dig was to take down an ugly elevated highway through the center of Boston and reroute the roadway under the city via the digging of traffic tunnels.

The original cost estimate was supposed to be around $2 billion if my memory is correct. However, many years past the deadline, the final cost was well over $20 billion, for an end piece of construction that is shoddy and fatal, given the infamous event when one of the faulty ceiling panels came lose and crushed a passing motorist to death.

In this case, the political class's original math estimate was off by a factor of tenfold relative to the final cost. You wonder if the voters in Massachusetts would have tolerated a $20 billion construction burden if the politicians' math skills had been a little sharper at the start of the project?

- Two years ago, the political class, namely the Democrats and President Obama, told us that the gross cost of Obama Care in the first ten years would be $940 billion, no Americans would lose their current health care insurance from their employer if they chose not to, and the national debt would be reduced by about $130 billion in the first ten years.

Last week, we found out the the ten year gross cost is really closer to $1.76 TRILLION (about double what the estimate was just two years ago), between three and five million Americans will likely lose their current health care insurance from their employer (about three to five million more than the zero estimate from just two years ago), and that Obama Care will likely increase the national debt by over $300 billion in the first ten years (versus reducing it by about $130 billion, a missed forecast of $430 billion, about $4,000 more for every American household).

Talk about bad math skills. From $940 billion to $1.76 TRILLION in just two years. From zero to possibly five million in just two years. From a gain of $130 billion to a loss of over $300 billion in just two years. Bad political class math skills do not get any worse than this.

- A couple of years ago,  Hillsborough County and its Tampa metro area were considering putting in a light rail system to serve the area. Such a system would require additional taxation and voter approval. It was looking like it might get approved under the original estimate which said it would cost about $70 million a mile to construct the rail line. However, as the vote got closer, the original estimate was revised upwards to $85 to $120 million per mile, a 21% to 72% potential increase in cost.

Fortunately, for the Tampa area voters, unlike the Boston and Massachusetts voters, this bad political class estimation process was brought forth before the vote, which was defeated in light of the more realistic math estimates.

Which brings us to the latest example of politicians' bad math skills, which in this case, is combined with pure stubbornness. A short article in the latest edition of Reason magazine, lays out the problems that the California High Speed Rail Authority is having, of which bad math is a major part:

• California is rushing to start building in-state high speed rail route in order to qualify for Federal funding to support the construction.
• In January, 2012, its CEO resigned.
• Then the Chairman of the Board resigned.
• The local newspapers are calling the project the "train to nowhere."
• The California state government auditor and the Authority's own inspector general have concluded that the project has unrealistic cost estimates (sound familiar?), has a lack of oversight, and inadequate research on eventual ridership, i.e. they really do not know how many people would actually ride this train to nowhere.
• All of the analyses from the state and the Authority recommended that the project not go forward until it was substantially revised.
• What has already been substantially revised is the original cost estimate of $40 billion, which is now obsolete with current cost estimates ranging between $98 billion and $118 billion (i.e. off by a factor of up to three times as much).
• A recent opinion poll showed that 64% of Californians would vote against the project now, probably given it out of control costs, 11 percentage point higher than the number of citizens that voted for the project just four years ago.

But this is where bad math and stubbornness get really dangerous. Governor Jerry Brown wants to forge ahead with a project that is behind schedule, poorly managed, without veteran leadership, and most importantly, has a set of underlying math that is slippery at best, deceitful at worst.

An interesting, philosophical question that should be answered is: "Are the math skills of the political class and those in government really that bad that they can be off a factor of two, three, or ten in their original estimates vs. the final costs or is there some deliberate deceit going on in their dealing with us, the American taxpayer?"

If they are really that bad in math, they should not be in office. The inability to develop credible and realistic estimates of any government project should be a prerequisite for being in office. Otherwise, the taxpayer gets screwed for actually believing in politicians' math skills, we never get the value for the money that was promised, and we end up with over $15 TRILLION worth of national debt.

If the answer to the philosophical question is that they are good at math but intentionally lie to get their ways and get their favorite projects approved, than they should not be in office either. Lying to one's constituents should not be a prerequisite or a characteristic of holding elected office. It is destructive to taxpayer wealth and weakens the foundations of our democracy when the leadership of our government becomes a lying sham.

Three steps form "Love my Country, Loathe My Government," would help address this bad math syndrome, whatever the underlying causes are (i.e. they are actually bad at math or they lie):

• Step 34 would hold members of Congressional committees accountable for their math estimates and performance, removing them from their committee posts for bad math skills. For example, any Congressional member who sat on the committees and subcommittees that developed and approved the Obama Care numbers would be removed from those committee posts for incompetence. You cannot say you are doing your job when your math estimates are so wrong so soon after you espoused them.
• Step 38 would require all elected officials to sign a shared values oath every year of which integrity was a primary part of that oath. At least if they have to think of the word "integrity" every year they might finally have some in their math skills and estimates.
• Step 39 would impose term limits on all politicians so that the focus is only on finally getting good, high potential problem solvers in office that will develop some long term strategies with solid math underpinnings rather than short term vanity projects with no math underpinnings.

Without these steps, the bad political math and the heavy waste of taxpayer wealth will continue. Its as simple as 1-2-3.




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/