March, 2018, Part 3, Political Class Insanity: Reducing our Economic and Personal Freedom and Wasting our Time and Tax Dollars

It is the beginning of another month which means it is again time to review the latest political class insanity from Washington and around the world. Political class insanity takes many forms including the wasting of taxpayer wealth, criminal fraud within government programs, inane and stupid political quotes and actions, the inability to create and implement effective and efficient government programs, stupid and ill performing economic policies and strategies, and other forms of insanity that continue to evolve and surprise and shock us.

Let's get started:

1) As Americans, we like to think that we live in a free country. We know that this is usually a false assumption, given how large and intrusive all level of governments have become in this country especially at the Federal level. We have often made the assertion that personal freedom is tightly tied to economic freedom. If we were allowed to keep more and more of our hard earned wealth, we could:

• Expand our kids’ education options.
• We could start a business that was more in line with our life’s desires and preferences.
• We could contribute more to charitable efforts that we have special feelings for.
• We could spend more money on products and services that satisfy our physical, mental, and emotional needs and wants.

Thus, the more we enjoy economic freedom the more personal freedom will come our way.

Every year the Heritage Foundation does an extensive analysis and develops a single index number that ranks and orders every country according to its economic freedom. Their process combines measurements along numerous dimensions including regulatory burden, taxation levels, property rights, etc.

At one time the United States was ranked as one of the top nations in the world when it came to economic freedom. This was not surprising since living in such a free society and nation helped produce the highest level of wealth for our citizens in the history of the world.

Unfortunately, over time that high ranking has taken a beating as our economic freedom has ebbed which has in turn depressed our personal freedoms:

• While the U.S. was once one of the freest countries in the world from an economic perspective, it now ranks as only the 18th freest economic country in the latest analysis.
• Our index has slipped from an index value of about 81 back in 2007-2009 time period, since then, i.e. during the Obama administration, our freedom index as slipped about 7% to 75.7.
• During that time the world’s total economic freedom index value has risen slightly from 59.5 to 61.1, the opposite trend of what our economic freedom index has been.
• If the U.S. had just maintained its index level of 81 or so it would be ranked about the 4th or 5th most free country in the world today, a level that would have vastly improved our economic and personal freedom.
• We are less free from the index’s perspective than two former parts of the Soviet Union, Georgia and Estonia.
• We are less free from the index’s perspective than two Scandinavian countries, Sweden and Denmark, two countries that we usually associate with socialist countries, i.e. countries with suppressive economies and governments.

In other words, the Washington political class in general and the Obama Presidency specifically have repressed both our economic freedom and personal freedom over the past eight years or so, resulting in lower standards of living and freedom for us all.

2) It is not only the Federal government that does insane things and places restrictions on our freedoms and violates common sense. Often it is more local levels of government and politicians that just do stupid things, wasting our time, freedom, and wealth in the process. Consider some recent examples from Reason magazine:

• In 2017 in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, a government probation officer ripped a pair of pants chasing a perp. He asked his department to pay to replace those pants that were damaged while he was performing his government job, a cost to the county of about $60. When the county refused to pony up the $60, he took his case to court where a judge ordered the county to pay the $60 but only after the county government spent and wasted $4,285 of taxpayer wealth fighting the issue.
• In theory, government is supposed to help its citizens. But apparently that is not the case with government and politicians in the city of Malibu, California. There town officials are pressuring a local United Methodist church to stop its twice weekly free meal program for homeless people since it thinks that such a program will attract more homeless Americans to the city. Guess it is better to let the local homeless go hungry than to alleviate at least some of the despair in their lives.
• Crime has gotten so bad in some Philadelphia neighborhoods that local store owners have been putting up bullet proof glass between their cashiers and customers to protect their employees from criminal violence. Rather than address the underlying causes of the criminal violence in the city, Councilwoman Cindy Bass is ticked off at the business owners who are just protecting themselves and their employees,claiming that the glass is an insult to the local residents. She is so upset she is sponsoring a law that would prohibit store owners from protecting their assets via bulletproof glass while not addressing the root causes of the bulletproof glass. In her mind it is better to place local residents in danger of violence in their jobs than possibly hurt a local resident’s feelings.
• We have often written about how badly the Veterans Administration serves veterans. There have been numerous confirmed instances where the long waiting lines and poor medical support of our veterans probably contributed to their early deaths. Well, apparently the VA, according to USA Today, has repeatedly hired healthcare workers who have lost malpractice claims, indicating that possibly many doctors within the VA would not be allowed to practice medicine anywhere else as a result of incompetence but are welcomed at the VA. This practice that not only endangers veterans’ health but is also a violation of existing Federal law.
• Americans spent a lot of taxpayer money to help Puerto Rico get back on its feet after being devastated by a hurricane. But apparently the local political class and government bureaucracy is so corrupt on the island that armed Federal agents found it necessary to raid a local warehouse. There they found taxpayer funded materials and equipment that was meant to restore power throughout the island but instead was being hoarded by the local Puerto Rico Electric Power authority.
• Sometimes government gets so big and so incompetent that it cannot get out of its own way. A bicycle owner in Clearwater, Florida was cited and fined for installing an illegal bike rack outside of his bicycle shop. The sad thing is that the very government that cited him for this violation was the actual entity that had installed the bike rack to begin with, the local store owner had nothing to do with it’s installation.
• Up in Vermont, the Green Mountain Care Board, which I am assuming is some type of government entity, ordered the Copley Hospital’s orthopedic division to stop doing so many surgeries since it does too many operations and generates too much revenue. Apparently there was no issue with the quality of the operations or the necessity of the operations, it is just that some government agency arbitrarily decided that a private business was too successful and in this case, relieving the pain and agony of too many patients, and had to stop the two grievous acts of helping people in need and making money in the process. Horrors.

Restricting our economic freedom and personal freedom, wasting our taxpayer dollars, and doing just stupid stuff to the people it is supposed to serve. Yep, just another day of political class ineptness and shenanigans. More to follow.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


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

February, 2016, Part 6, Political Class Insanity: Hillary Lies, Economic Freedom Tanks, Protect Yourself, and More

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

So let’s get started with the latest insanity:

1) Our history, our people, our Constitution, and our freedoms allowed the United States to build the most powerful and largest economy in the history of the world. It created living standards for its citizens that have never come close to being matched. But the ineptness of America’s political class is threatening to destroy that capability that for so long left every American generation in better financial shape than its previous ones.

One measure of how well the country is doing economically is an index created annually by the Heritage Foundation, its 2016 Index Of Economic Freedom. This measure rank orders how free each country’s economic structure is with the assumption being that the freer an economic structure is the better it is at creating economic benefits.

According to their 2016 analysis, America’s economic freedom continues to drop like a rock. It has dropped in eight of the past nine years and is now tied with its worst score ever. Details of this fall include:

- The U.S. has fallen from the sixth freest economy in the world when Obama took office to 11th place in 2016.

- Possible reasons for this fall could be any of the following American political class actions:

• Government spending has exploded, amounting to $29,867 per household in 2015.
• The national debt has risen to $125,000 for every tax-filing household in America, total over $19 trillion.
• Obama Care is raising prices, disrupting markets, over regulating a major industry in this country and adding massive amounts of debt to the national debt.
• Bailouts and a massive number of new government regulations have increased uncertainty, stifling investment, and job creation.
• The U.S. has the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world which drives any investment to other countries where jobs are created there and not domestically.
• The annual cost of meeting governments’ regulatory requirements has increased by over $80 billion a year, meaning there is less wealth to pay workers and invest in new or expanding businesses.
• The World Bank ranks the U.S. as 49th relative to the ease of starting a new business, trailing such lesser economies as Lithuania, Malaysia, and Georgia in this area.

As a result of this lessening economic freedom and growing intervention of the government and political class into our lives and our businesses, we currently:

• Have 45 million people receiving Federal food assistance every month.
• Have over 14 million people who are either unemployed or underemployed because they cannot find a full time job.
• Have household wages and earnings that have stagnated since Obama took office.
• Have a labor participation rate that borders on the all time low, comparable to the stagflation years of the Carter administration.
• The Wall Street Journal recently correctly observed that Obama is “a champion when it comes to limiting economic freedom, and American workers have the slow growth in jobs and wages to prove it.”

As government has become more and more, our freedom and economic opportunities have become less and less, the numbers do not lie.
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2) One way to get government and our politicians out of our lives would be to reduce the size of government. As more and more people go to work for government, more and more realize that there is not enough work to go around for all of them so they start creating work to justify their existence. They create more regulations, more laws, and more taxes and fees that reduce our political, personal choice, and economic freedom.

An insane way to reduce the size of government was recently discussed in an article on the Federalist Papers website, an article that was written by Robert Gehl. A recent survey of Federal employees by GovExec.com found that 25% of Federal employees said that they would consider leaving their government jobs if Donald Trump was elected President. 14% of those surveyed said they would definitely leave their jobs and 11% said they would consider leaving their Federal jobs. 

According to Mr. Gehl’s article, this would wipe out about 700,000 Federal employees and save the American taxpayer $65 billion every year. In theory, this would put over $600 into every household budget across the country, certainly a better use of the money than leaving it with the Federal bureaucracy. And I would bet that the average American would not be adversely affected if those 700,000 Federal employees simply vanished.

This alone might be a reason to vote for Trump, it would do more to reduce the size of government and the runaway growth of the national debt than anything else any previous, current or future elected official would do. I think that this survey shows that even current Federal employees know that many of their jobs are worth nothing when it comes to advancing the the welfare of Americans and would get out be of their government jobs before Trump would fire them.

3) We have always maintained that in a free country the role of government in citizens’ lives should be very limited in order to maximize individual liberty. But one of the few valid functions of even a limited government is to provide for the unbiased safety and protection of citizens. Since we pay such a heavy load of our earnings and wealth for this protection, with the annual Tax Freedom Day usually more than three months into the year, one would hope that the protection we pay to the political class would be impeccable.

And as with most hope when it comes to the political class, that hope would be wrong, at least in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Police Protective League, the labor union of the LA police department (LAPD) recently warned LA citizens that had better “be able to protect themselves” since long police response times might noit be quick enough to protect their lives and property. They blamed the long response times because they believe the LAPD is understaffed.

As an example, the League cited the West LA area where it claims there are only three police cars assigned to cover the 65 square miles of the area which contains 200,000 citizens. The League contends there should be seven cars on duty for West LA. League President Jamie McBride recently told the local LA CBS TV station that: “The citizens need to know they need to be able to protect themselves because if they call 911, we can’t guarantee we’re going to get there in time to help you…West Los Angeles, at the minimum, should have seven patrol units, two-man units working.”

But this is not the first California city to tell their residents in one form or another to find ways to protect themselves since the local government could no longer fulfill that minimal but essential function of government. Several years ago in San Bernardino, city attorney Jim Penman publicly stated in a city council meeting that residents will need to “lock their doors and load their guns” since city government budget cuts would reduce police protection. He also told the Los Angeles CBS TV station: “Let’s be honest, we don’t have enough police officers. We have too many criminals living in this city. We have had 45 murders this year…that’s far too high for a city of this size.”

Unfortunately, the recent terrors attack in San Bernardino showed how correct Mr. Penman’s advice was.

So here is where we are today, at least in two major California cities. A legitimate function of government and the politicians that operate it is protect the physical well being of its citizens. For that protection, we pay high and onerous taxes. And now it appears that even that minimal government function cannot be fulfilled, i.e. protecting the lives and property of citizens. Insane.

4) Let’s finish up today’s insanity with a short video from the website,

www.ihavethetruth.com

We have often pointed out the many lies of Barack Obama, a few of the bigger whopper including:

• If you like your current doctor/hospital/insurance policy you can keep them under Obama Care’s regulations.
• Obama Care will reduce every American family’s annual health insurance cost by up to $2,500 a year.
• The Benghazi incident was caused by a video.
• He would go through the Federal budget line by line to reduce unnecessary government spending.
• He would devote every waking moment of his life to serving the country as President, foregoing vacations and family time to do so.
• He could reduce the annual government spending deficit by half by the end of his first term.
• He would have our military out of Afghanistan by 2014.

These are just a sample of his lies, deceptions, and failures.

But it appears that we may be in store for more of the same of Hillary Clinton replaces him in the White House. The link below contains just a short compilation of some of HER lies that have been videotaped over the years. The video touches on such topics as:

• In a trip to Bosnia, her party came under sniper fire. It did not.
• She was against gay marriage. Now she supports gay marriage.
• Her grandparents were immigrants to this country. Only one of them were immigrants.
• She only used her private email server in her house for private emails such as sending emails to her husband. Bill Clinton claimed that he has used email only two times in his entire life.
• She was against the passage of the NAFTA free trade treaty. Back when the treaty was passed, she supported NAFTA.

Thus, go to the following link to see Hillary lie in her own words:

http://ihavethetruth.com/2015/12/19/this-video-of-hillary-is-going-viral-when-you-see-it-youll-know-why/

Okay, what insanity did we learn today:

1. Hillary lies.
2. Despite high taxes, government and the politicians that operate it cannot protect our families, and our property.
3. The election of Donald Trump might be the quickest way to get rid of excess Federal government employees and the related expenses.
4. Our economic freedom is in a tailspin and as a result, our economic well being and economic opportunities might be sinking with it.

More insanity tomorrow, if you dare.

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

March, 2015, Political Class Insanity,. Part 1: Falling Freedom Of The Press Grades, Mediocre Presidential Ratings, Too Tight Underwear, 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:

1) Apparently, it is not only us that think our current set of politicians are the worst ever, many scholarly experts agree. According to a recent Washington Examiner article by Paul Bedard, a Brookings Institution survey of American political class scholars, via a survey that was sent to 391 members of the American Political Science Association’s Presidents & Executive Politics section, found that:

• These experts ranked the Obama administration a mediocre 18th in the line of best to worst Presidents.
• The survey respondents put Obama on the worst list, not best list, by a margin of three to one: “Those who view Obama as one of the worst American presidents outnumber those who view him as one of the best by nearly a 3-1 margin.”
• The liberal leaning Brookings organization found that, “nearly twice as many respondents view Obama as overrated than do those who consider him under-rated.”
• Brookings also concluded: “Few think of Obama as an excellent president, while many more rate his presidency quite low, with the bulk of experts appearing to give him a passing grade but not one that would get him on the Dean’s list.”
• Brookings found that he and George W. Bush, the country’s past two Presidents, are the most polarizing of all Presidents and that Obama’s military, legislative, and diplomatic skills never matched the promise of his expected skills.

Polarizing, overrated, worst prevails over best, all adjectives that continue to prove that we are living through the worst set of politicians ever, a view now confirmed by political science experts.

2) Anyone who dares to disagree with anything this President does is often branded a racist for simply disagreeing with current administration policies and actions. But when a member of this administration actually says something racist, it is often ignored or laughed off. 

Consider recent remarks made by Vice President Joe Biden at the White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism. Biden said that he knows a lot of Somalis because an “awful lot of them” drive Delaware (Biden’s native state) cabs: “If you ever come to the train station with me, you’ll notice that I have great relationships with [Somalis] because there’s an awful lot of them driving cabs and are friends of mine. For real”

When you combine this racist generalization with previous statements made by Democrats such as the President and other politicians that illegal immigrants are good for cleaning hotel rooms and picking vegetables, we can add racist remarks and hypocrisy to the negative traits of current American politicians.

3) It is often insightful to look at the behavior of politicians from other countries. In doing so we find that America does not have a monopoly on awful and incompetent politicians. A recent incident in the Canadian parliament is a good illustration.

Apparently, when a vote is taken in their Parliament, every member has to remain in their seat as the vote is being taken in order for his or her vote to count. But a member left his seat and then had to explain why he left during a vote. His reason? His underwear was too tight. You cannot make this stuff up.

He went on to explain that he purchased underwear on sale at a department store and they were a couple of sizes too small which prevented him from “sitting for long periods.” Does not make you feel real secure and confident when a politician does not have enough smarts to 1) buy the right size underwear for himself and 2) have enough sense to take the underwear off when he first puts it on at home and finds it too small. 

Go to the following link where the politician actually admits he is wearing too tight underwear at a full meeting of Parliament:

http://www.headlinepolitics.com/watch-member-parliament-skips-vote-underpants-tight/

4) But politicians are not the only public figures you are condescending to others, like Biden was to Somalia taxi drivers. Consider a recent comment made by MSNBC newsman Chris Matthews who referred to Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey as "the fat guy from New Jersey." 

It is bad enough that Matthews shows his prejudices as a supposed unbiased news reporter but no one in the political class called him out for this obnoxious remark. How do we expect to come together as nation and finally get issues resolved when political language like this is not only tolerated but encouraged by all politicians to help their political and personal goals rather than fix what ails the nation.

The video of this slur can be accessed at:

http://www.mrctv.org/videos/chris-matthews-calls-christie-fat-guy-new-jersey

5) One last piece of insanity for today. We have previously discussed how the United States used to be the most economically free country in the world. That was a good status to have as it resulted in the largest and most vibrant economy in the history of mankind.

However, as our economic freedom has eroded over time from higher and higher taxes, more and more regulations, and other insanity imposed on us by the American political class that has no economic understanding or smarts, the country’s economic performance has also suffered:

• We are living through the worst economic recovery in the history of the country.
• Over ten million Americans are unemployed or underemployed with long term unemployment setting all kinds of records for duration.
• Well over 40 million Americans required Federal food assistance every month, about fifty percent higher than the level six years ago.
• While job creation has been growing, many of those jobs are either lower paying or part time jobs.
• As a result, any measure of our economic freedom has declined substantially over the past six years.

But our economic freedom is not the only thing being destroyed by American politicians. According to a recent CNN report:

• According to the annual Reporters Without Borders press freedom report, the United States now ranks a horrific 49th out of 180 countries relative to press freedom.
• This is a remarkable and depressing drop of 29 places in just five years, all of which happened during the Obama administration.
• From a freedom of the press perspective we are now rated about equal to Niger, Malta, and Romania.
• This decline has been driven by the Obama administration’s prosecution of whistle blowers, according to Delphine Halgan, the group’s U.S. director: "We consider that the Obama administration has launched a war against whistle blowers. This year is a continuation of the concern we already expressed that national security protection has been more and more threatening freedom of information in the U.S."
• Apparently, the Obama administration has prosecuted eight alleged whistle blowers under the Espionage Act, more than all previous presidential administrations combined.
• This excessive prosecution effort has happened in spite of Obama’s promise to operate one of the most transparent Presidential administrations in history. 
• A lot of the more recent drop in freedom of the press ratings was driven by the "judicial harassment" of James Risen, a New York Times reporter who last year battled Federal prosecutors who wanted the identity of an anonymous source.
• The Reporters Without Borders analysis also cited the Ferguson protests, where it says at least 15 journalists were arrested.
• Countries with better freedom of the press ratings included top rated Finland, 8th ranked Canada, and the United Kingdom and France, which came in 34th and 38th, respectively.

So not only is our economic freedom dropping quickly, our freedom of the press right is also getting slammed by this administration and the current crop of American politicians.

Enough insanity for today. Failing grades for press freedom, uncalled for and racist profiling by political figures, name calling, tight underwear, and mediocre Presidential ratings, political class insanity comes in all shapes and sizes.

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.loathemygovernmobama,washington post,politifactent.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

Janaury, 2014 Political Class Insanity, Part 3: Failure In Economics, Failure In World Peace, Failure In Tax Policy and More

This is our third post this month that will be covering yet more political class insanity, idiocy, and ineptness. It is a shame that these people do not work in the private sector because if they did, they would have been jobless long ago. But alas, they work for the government, where failure is accepted, tolerated, and often rewarded at the expense of our wealth and liberty.

1) The first piece of insanity if both as good news and bad news story. Good news in that the Washington political class has finally gotten around to terminating a number of stupid, special interest tax breaks and credits. The bad news is twofold: why were these tax breaks ever created in the first place and why were they allowed to go on so long?

The following idiotic, wasteful spending examples that have finally expired come from the January 5, 2013 issue of the Tampa Bay Times:

• At an annual taxpayer cost of $50 million, the first tax break, labeled the NASCAR loophole, allowed anyone who builds a racetrack to receive a tax benefit through accelerated depreciation. Supposedly it was put into place to give NASCAR a better chance of competing with theme parks. But why should NASCAR get a tax break and theme parks not get the benefit at the expense of the American taxpayer? Stupid, narrow, and unneeded tax stupidity, given the billions and billions of dollars NASCAR generates by itself.
• At an annual taxpayer cost of $75 million, Hollywood studios will longer be able to deduct up to a whopping $15 million of their movie production if more than 75% of the movie’s production work took place in the United States. They could get 80% of they produced the film in low income communities.
• At an annual cost of $9 billion, large banks and other financial giants will longer be able to take advantage of a tax break called the “Active Financing Exception To Subpart F.” This tax break, in effect since 1997, allowed companies to defer taxes on overseas income when they use special types of financing. Critics of the tax break probably are correct when they point out that this tax break actually encouraged U.S. companies to invest overseas rather than domestically. Still, the banking and financial giants are howling about losing the tax break, claiming it allowed them to better compete overseas. As an American taxpayer, I would suggest they take that tax break money form their shareholders, the ones that truly benefit form competing overseas, not the American taxpayer.. At $9 billion a year over 17 years, we are probably looking at a ghastly $150 billion that the American taxpayers used to subsidize companies like JP Morgan, General Electric, and others.
• At an annual taxpayer cost of $240 million, American rum drinkers will no longer have to pay for the $13.50 Federal tax per gallon that was levied on all rum made in or imported into the country. That tax money was then given to the rum companies in Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands to support their competitiveness. This tax has been hassling rum drinkers since 1917, meaning that it probably cost American citizens billions of dollars in corporate welfare over the past 97 years it was in effect.

A few other tax beaks expired but these above are the most inane. Why American citizens should have to subsidize banks, financial institutions, NASCAR racetracks, rum producers, etc. is idiotic. In a capitalistic society, these companies should survive, thrive, or die on the merits of their own intelligence, work ethics, and business decisions. Taxpayers should not be responsible for their success.

Unfortunately, there are probably thousands of other such corporate welfare programs and tax breaks that still exist, mostly as a result of campaign donations to incumbent politicians.

2) We already have reported that the Federal government has spent upwards of a billions on a substandard website for Obama Care. We have already reported that well over 90% of large Federal government information systems efforts over the past few years have either collapsed under their own failure or came nowhere close to fulfilling their initial objectives. 

Thus, given this heritage of massive spending for minimal results as it relates to data systems management and development, it should come as no surprise that the Department of Justice is about to spend well over half a million dollars to enhance its brand image and positioning on the Linkedin business networking system. This outrageous expense was reported on January 2, 3014 by the Washington Free Beacon.

And this expense is not even for the whole Justice Department, if for only the criminal division which has less than one thousand employees. Supposedly this expense will help the division recruit highly talented professionals and interns.

The actual development cost of the Linkedin presence is $544,388 but there is also an monthly, ongoing cost of $719.95 a month. Doing some math, over the first five years, the cost of the presence would be about $587,000. If the division hired 100 people over that timeframe, not unreasonable since the Federal government sees very little turnover in their employee base, each one of those hire would have cost at least $58,700 each just to cover the Linkedin expense. Does not seem like a very efficient way to get candidates for a very small division within the Federal government.

And given the history of Federal government systems management, want to bet those costs go much higher before all is said and done? Remembers, user access to Linkedin is free, why the government has to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to access a free site is certainly questionable.

3) An interesting economic study was recently reported by Dean Stansel, a professor at Florida Gulf Coast University, and Fred McMahon of the Fraser Institute. They conducted an analysis where they measured a variety of components to determine economic freedom levels by North American jurisdiction.

These components included the size of government, discriminatory taxation, regulation, the legal system and property rights, sound money policy, and freedom to trade internationally. They found via their methodology that the province of Alberta, Canada, ranks highest for economic freedom, followed by the province of Saskatchewan iin North America. The state of Delaware is third, followed by Texas and Nevada. Other U.S. states in the top 10 states and provinces are Wyoming, South Dakota, and Colorado. 

New Mexico was determined to be least economically free entity, followed by West Virginia. Other U.S states in the bottom 10 are Mississippi, Vermont, Maine, Kentucky, Montana, Arkansas, Hawaii, and Rhode Island. 

But what is really the big news from their study is that these ten states, the ones with the lowest economic freedom, have an average per-capita GDP of $40,014. That GDP measure is nearly $10,000 less than the other 40 states: $40,014 compared to $49,355. Imagine how much lower it would be if compared just to the top states that are the most economically free such as Delaware, Texas, Nevada, etc. The GDP gap would be much wider.

Conclusion: the less taxes, the fewer regulations, the least government interference in citizens' economic freedom results in greater prosperity for those citizens. However, the Washington political class seem to think and act just the opposite, especially those within the Obama White House since their actions lead to more taxation, more regulations, more interference and as we have seen, less and less prosperity for all Americans. Insanity.

4) There was great hope for world peace when President Obama took office. He had a sky high approval rating both domestically and across the world. He gave a hopeful, peace themed speech to university students in Cairo. His brand was “hope and change.” He won a Nobel Peace prize for simply breathing. He was going to be the breakout world leader who settled things down and brought peace in our time.

Five years later, not so much. Maybe it was his inability to wind down the Afghanistan war. Maybe it was his indiscriminate killing of civilians, adults and children with drone attacks in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere. Maybe it was his assertion that he could assassinate American citizens without putting them on trial first. Maybe it was his dangerous and stupid intervention in the Libyan civil war. Maybe it was his threat to send armed forces into Syria as a result of a purported chemical attack by government forces. Maybe it was his alleged assertion that he “was very good at killing people.” Maybe it was his stationing of U.S. Marines in Australia.

Whatever the reasons or reasons, a recent survey by pollster Win/Gallup International across 65 nations found that the United States was viewed as the most dangerous nation the face of the earth. Not China, not Russia, not Iran, not North Korea, the United States. Detailed results from the survey include the following depressing findings:

• The U.S. topped the list of the most dangerous country in the world with an aggregate of 24% of respondents.
• The runner-up threat country, Pakistan, was way behind at eight percent, one third the perceived threat as the U.S., China was third at six percent, followed by North Korea, Iran and Israel at five percent each.
• In Russia, 54% of respondents said the U.S. was the greatest threat to peace and in China 49% of respondents said the U.S. was the greatest threat to peace.
• But our allies were not quite happy with us either since NATO partners Greece and Turkey (45% each), and Pakistan (44%), which is also a top recipient of U.S. aid were also sure that we were the top threat to world peace.
• In Latin America, Argentina (46%), Mexico (37%), Brazil (26 percent) and Peru (24%) also viewed the U.S. as the top threat to world peace.

The list and findings go on but you get the idea. The Obama administration has failed miserably in actions, words and promises to bring about a world political and military environment that is compatible for world peace. In fact, we are still viewed as the biggest threat to world peace. 

So much for hope and change on the international front from this version of the Washington political class. Maybe the fact that we have hundreds of thousands of troops stationed around the world and spend more on military forces than the rest of the world combined might also have a bearing on the hostility towards us.

Whatever the reason, certainly a failure of leadership from Washington in general and the White Hose specifically.

Failure on the world stage, failure to rein in stupid tax breaks, failure to efficiently spend information systems dollars, and failure to understand economic freedom concepts. Sounds about right for this set of political class members. More buffoonery tomorrow.

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