Political Class Insanity Canine Style

In several past posts we reviewed some political class silliness that some current members of Congress were undertaking. A Congresswoman and her staff were working diligently on developing legislation that would regulate the sound volume on television commercials. A Congressman was working diligently on legislation that would ban the airing of erectile dysfunction TV commercials. Never mind that Congress and the political class have not yet solved the Iranian nuclear crisis, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, drug addiction, failing public schools, soaring deficits, high unemployment, high energy costs, etc. TV commercials are obviously much more important.

And tonight, we had another chapter of political silliness. According to a November 30, 2009 article in Parade magazine, Congressman Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan is developing Federal legislation, The Humanity and Pets Partnered Through the Years (HAPPY) Act, that would allow pet owners to deduct the cost of food, vet care, and other pet-related costs from their tax returns, up to $3500 a year. His theory is that with the economy in such bad shape, many people have had to give up their pets to save expenses. According to the Congressman: "If Americans are happy (since they kept their pets) and emotionally stable, they are going to be more productive and that helps the economy."

Okay, lets rip this effort apart like we tore open the two TV commercials efforts listed above (complete disclosure: I love my dog and would do anything possible and reasonable to keep her happy and safe):

• Obviously, the other pressing national issues should take second place to this situation. Better to get Fido back into the house than to bring our troops home. Any energy spent by the Congressman and his staff on this legislation is time they cannot spend on real issues.
• According to quotes in this article, this bill would apply to ALL Americans, even those that are not unemployed or having financial troubles. Theoretically, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Donald Trump could deduct the costs of pet care under this bill.
• The maximum deduction is $3,500 a year or almost $300 a month. I do not know about other pet owners but I spend nowhere near $300 a month on my dog. Who and how did they come up with such a large number? However, depending on the documentation requirements, I may all of a sudden start spending almost $300 a month. I am sure there are some dishonest vets who are willing to scam the system with bogus treatment receipts. This bill is probably unenforceable and subject to incredible fraud.
• Is it fair for pet owners to receive such a large deduction and have that deduction indirectly funded by non-pet owners?
• Would it not be better to work on ways to keep grandma and grandpa rather than Fido in their house in order to reduce the high health care costs in this country?
• The Federal deficit is soaring and this bill wants to increase that deficit by giving a pet deduction gift to tens of millions of Americans who do not need it?
• Finally, did anyone get hurt trying to come up with this convoluted acronym for the legislation?

Bottom line is that this is just another example of wasted taxpayer dollars. It also seriously damages the credibility of politicians by giving the impression that they are incapable of solving the most important economic, domestic, and foreign issues facing us today. Instead, they scratch around for insignificant non-problems like TV commercials and pet care deductions to convince themselves and their constituents that they are working on important stuff. Their priorities are screwed up because 1) they do not know what the real issues are or 2) they do not know how to fix the real issues. In either case, they come off as incompetent, trivial and pathetic.

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

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Political Class Silly Season

A major action item under Step 1 in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government", is to do a Federal government-wide zero based budget program and activity analysis. In this process, we would ask ourselves the question, "Would we do this activity/program if we had limited resources and we were starting a government from scratch?" Hopefully, this approach would get rid of a lot of silly, stupid, and useless things that the political class has instituted, resulting in more freedom and lower tax burdens. I would suggest that the following efforts might be early casualties of our analysis:

• In a previous post we reviewed how a Congresswoman was using government resources to write legislation that would regulate the sound volume of television commercials. Let's put Iraq, Afghanistan, failing public schools, escalating health care costs, rising unemployment levels, and a myriad of other problems on the back burner and attack the TV commercial volume control issue. I would hope this would be one of the first efforts cancelled during our review.
• Also in a previous post we discussed how a Congressman was using government resources to write legislation that would prohibit the televising of erectile dysfunction TV commercials. Hopefully, this would be the second effort eliminated after review.
• Dropping down to the local political class level, New York City, and possibly the U.S. Senate in the future, requires all fast-food restaurants to publish calorie counts for all of its offerings. This would, theoretically, allow customers to understand what they are putting into their bodies and make a healthier diet choice. Unfortunately, according to an article in the October 23, 2009 issue of The Week magazine, a recent study has shown that the posting of this information has had absolutely no effect on the buying and eating habits of those dining in fast food restaurants. Think about all of the waste in this program: politicians dreaming up and writing the legislation, government staffs drawing up the enforcement guidelines, restaurants putting forth expenses to develop, print, and post the information and law enforcement looking for violators. All for nothing. I am pretty sure there are similar projects everywhere in government, program that are either now useless or were never useful but which absorb mega taxpayer dollars and inconveniences for no positive return.
• Going international, you have to hand it to Russia for silly season activities. In an article from Moskovsky Komsomolets that was summarized in The Week issue of November 6, 2009, Putin's pro-Kremlin United Russia party usually rigs most elections so that their candidates win. However, they got a little silly in one district where the leader of an opposition party did not get a single vote in the election even though the leader claimed he had voted in the election. Thus, not only did he not vote for himself, but no member of his family, his friends, or his party voted for him. Even American politicians have gotten this silly yet.
• Staying international, in the same issue of The Week, a summarization of an article from The Globe And Mail discussed how many Canadian provinces had instituted strict bans on cigarette smoking in both public and private places. However, in at least province you can smoke cigarettes if you are a crack addict. Please explain the silliness rationale for this one.
• Back in the USA, and using another article from The Week magazine, their October 9, 2009 issue reviewed how the Obama administration is committing tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to a program to help public housing agencies provide mortgages to middle and low income families. Does this sound familiar? Remember how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did similar things, i.e. back subprime mortgages to consumers with less than stellar credit and ability to pay back those mortgages? Did these similar actions not lead to the worst recession since the Great Depression? Sounds pretty silly to do the same thing twice.

Silly or not, these and other similar programs are wasteful, useless and, unfortunately, expense from a taxpayer perspective. The only way to get rid of them is a zero-based approach with limited resources or the silly season will continue to be a year round event.

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

And Now A Word From Our (Loud) Sponsors

One of the big objectives of "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" is to reduce the size of government so that politicians can focus on a much smaller set of problems and hopefully, finally accomplish something. Although I need no convincing that this is a noble objective, it is nice when a member of the political class comes along and proves again that they have no clue on how to fix the problems confronting the country.

Anna Eshoo, a Democratic Congresswoman from California's 14th district, has written legislation that would force advertisers to reduce the sound of commercials during television broadcasts. I'll let that sink in for a few seconds..... Let's see, we have wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, failing public schools, unemployment going through the roof, skyrocketing deficits, illegal immigrants all over the place, Social Security and Medicare heading for bankruptcy, no national energy program, Iran getting ready to nuke somebody, no victory in sight in the war on drugs and the Congresswoman decides she should use staff time and resources to draft a law to get TV advertisers to reduce the sound of their commercials. Never mind that many people ignore commercials, leave the room during commercials or TIVO through commercials, she thinks it is an important enough issue for Congress to address. If Gallup ran a poll on Americans' top worries, where do we think that the sound of TV commercials would fall? Would it make the top 200 issues?

It is unbelievable we are even talking about this. It is like being on the Titanic. The political class does not know how to save the ship from sinking so they worry about the deck chairs (or the sound volume of TV commercials). It is similar to the Congress that was in session in 2003, as referenced in the book, a Congress that passed 260 laws and 28% of them had to do with renaming Post Office locations. Bottom line: politicians today do not know how to solve anything and need have their responsibilities and budgets significantly reduced to reflect this incompetence, returning our tax dollars back to us.