August, 2015, Part 4, Political Class Insanity: Death Of The Export-Import Bank,CIA Spies On Congress and More

At the beginning of each month we take a week or so to review the latest insanity from the American political class. Insanity from them includes a wide range of very depressing actions which can include wasteful spending, idiotic quotes, an inefficient and ineffective government bureaucracy, failed economic policies, etc. Every month we continue to prove that we are being served by the worst set of politicians ever.

And as you will see, this month’s review and discussions do nothing to prove that this thesis is wrong in any way:

1) In past posts we have always supported the termination of the Export-Import Bank. This is a Federal government entity that takes American taxpayer money and gives it out as loans to foreigners to purchase American made products. There are a number of things wrong with this type of government operation:

• Why are we giving and risking taxpayer wealth with foreign companies, let them buy American goods with their own money or their governments’ own money.
• Contrary to what Export-Import fans say, most of the money and loans go to supporting very large American companies such a GE, Boeing, etc. We should let those companies’ stockholders finance purchases of their companies' products, not taxpayers since it is the stockholders that will see any advantage of doing so, not the taxpayer.
• Giving U.S. taxpayer-backed loans to foreign companies to purchase American products disadvantages American companies that compete with those foreign companies since domestic companies cannot get Export-Import loans.

Fortunately, the bank's charter recently expired and hopefully it will stay dead in future Congressional sessions. As an example of why it should stay dead, consider the highlights from the following Washington Examiner story by Timothy Carney from June 18, 2015:

• Apparently, the bank has given a $650 million, U.S. taxpayer backed loan to the richest woman in Australia.
• Gina Rinehart owns Roy HIll mining in Australia and is also the richest woman in that country. Despite that wealth status, the Export-Import bank loaned her company $650 million to purchase equipment made by GE and Caterpillar.
• But a U.S.mining company, Cliff’s Natural Resources, an American company that competes with Roy HIll, does not get any financial support and taxpayer backed plans from the Export-Import bank, putting it at a competitive disadvantage.
• The loan also disadvantages the U.S. domestic steel industry since Roy HIll sends a lot of its mined ore to China which turns it into steel which impacts worod wide steel prices. 

How perverted has Washington become where we send U.S. taxpayer money half way around the world to support foreign companies owned by very rich people but do not extend that opportunity to domestic companies? If selling equipment to Roy Hill is so important, than let the stockholders at Caterpillar and GE finance the purchases.

Hopefully, with the recent death of the program, this type of financial insanity will stop and that the Export-Import Bank will not rise from the dead. But zombie people do rise fom the dead as do zombie govenrment programs so who knows.

2) Recently released CIA reports from the CIA inspector general now show that the White House is possibly involved with the CIA’s spying on personnel in the U.S. Senate. The reports show that CIA Director John Brennan met with White House chief of staff Denis McDonough and discussed the intention to search the computers being used by Senate staffers working for Senator Dianne Feinstein to investigate the use of torture by the CIA on suspected terrorists.

The report said that Brennan had ordered CIA investigators to use “whatever means necessary” to ascertain how Senate investigators had obtained “certain sensitive internal documents.” At that time, Feinstein’s Senate committee was conducting its own investigation into the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.

While the CIA spying on Congress is bad enough, the inspector general analysis shows that White House personnel knew that the spying was going on and did nothing to stop it. Obviously, if this is true, than Feinstein’s argument that the CIA had “likely violated the constitutional separation of powers,” is a very valid and very serious Constitutional violation, a violation that the White House might also be guilty of.

The inspector general concluded that the five CIA employees who conducted the search had “engaged in wrongdoing,” according to the Huffington Post, but, as always with government lawbreakers, that their actions were not punishable. At about the same time the inspector general report was made public, a CIA Accountability Review Board report asserted that Brennan, who denied telling CIA employees to use “whatever means necessary,” failed to “appreciate what forensic techniques were necessary to answer his questions.”

Violate the Constitution, very bad, but no punishment. Smoke a cigarette in your own home in NYC, and you could soon be a criminal. Down the rabbit hole of political class insanity we fall.

3) The Government Accountability Office is kind of like the Federal government’s auditor function, going around and identifying and fixing what is wrong with government functions. Someone in that entity was recently caught doing their job well when they identified thousands of Medicaid beneficiaries and hundreds of medical providers that were involved in ripping off the American taxpayer during 2012, the last year complete data is available:

• The ripoffs included receiving improper and fraudulent payments.
• The fraud amounted to $18.3 million in just four states, New Jersey, Michigan, Florida, and Arizona.
• About 8,600 Medicaid beneficiaries had improperly collected benefits from more than one state.
• 200 dead Medicaid beneficiaries had received upwards of $9.6 million AFTER they had died.

Makes you wonder who is watching the taxpayer money since in just a few paragraphs we saw that the Federal government is sending hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer wealth to the richest woman in Australia, millions of taxpayer dollars to dead people, and millions of dollars to live people who are double dipping. Pathetic fiscal management.

4) But it is not just the Federal government that gives taxpayer money to rich people. Wisconsin Governor and Republican candidate for President, Scott Walker, wants to give some Wisconsin state taxpayer money to rich, billionaire basketball team owners. Apparently, according to a recent Washington Examiner article, Walker and other state politicians want to give a quarter-billion dollars in taxpayer money to the billionaire owners of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks, who are threatening to leave Wisconsin unless they get a new, subsidized basketball arena.

According to the article, the owners do not even live in the state but state politicians have negotiated a financial deal where state and local taxpayers would pay for half the cost of a new $500 million arena for the NBA team. The state would borrow $55 million to fund the arena, costing the state taxpayers $80 million over 20 years when interest is included. City and county governments would cover the rest.

Walker is claiming that this is a good $250 million investment and good use of taxpayer money for the local and state economies. But the article points out that it is nearly unanimous among economists that stadium subsidies do not pay for themselves, and the research suggests that losing a sports team doesn't hurt a city's economy:

• Economists Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys: "Our conclusion, and that of nearly all academic economists studying this issue, is that professional sports generally have little, if any, positive effect on a city's economy."
• Economist Ray Keating: "The lone beneficiaries of sports subsidies are team owners and players."
• Examiner article: “One reason is the substitution effect: Milwaukeeans who have a basketball team will spend less money on other types of leisure. The money spent in and around the fancy new arena wouldn't have just sat under mattresses.”

If it is one thing American politicians like to do is give away our money, in this case to billionaire out of state basketball team owners. That will do it for today’s insanity, but more insanity sure to follow in the next few days, can hardly wait to see who our politicians give our taxpayer money to 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.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

June, 2015, Part 4, Political Class Insanity: The Unneeded Export-Import Bank, Building Castles In The Afghan Desert, And Overwhelming Us With Useless Regulations

It is the start of another month which means it is time to review the latest political class insanity that the American political class has dropped on our heads in the past month or so. We do this review every month in order to continually prove our view that we are currently being served by the worst set of politicians in the history of our country. Their inane quotes, their failed programs and laws, their wasteful spending, their ineptness, and continued focus on their own careers and self enrichment at the expense of taxpayers is constant and disgraceful.

This month could be one of the worst ever, given the backlog that needs to be discussed. The insanity will cover a full range of areas where today’s politicians continue to disappoint and fail us. As always, the new ways they find to screw up is never ending and always creative.

This is the fourth installment in this month's review of political class insanity The first post in this series can be accessed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2015/06/june-2015-political-class-insanity.html

1) The Export-Import Bank in theory is supposed to help American businesses, from large to small businesses, sell their goods and services overseas. It does this by providing low cost loans to foreign buyers who purchase American made products. I have always had a problem with this since nowhere in the Constitution have I found a provision where the American taxpayer, via the Federal government, should operate as a low cost banking option for foreign entities.

There are also other serious issues with this arrangement:

• This financing of foreigners puts American businesses who buy from American businesses at a disadvantage. For example, if Delta wants to buy jets from Boeing, both American businesses, Delta can get no help from the Export-Import Bank. But if a foreign airline wants to buy from Boeing, it can get cheap financing from the Bank, via the American taxpayer, disadvantaging an American company, Delta, in the marketplace.
• If these low cost loans go bad, it is the taxpayer left holding the bag. Shouldn’t businesses like Boeing use shareholder value to finance the purchase of its jets and its risk, not the taxpayer?
• And finally, depending on how you do the measurement, the overwhelming portion of loans from the bank go to huge American businesses and the overwhelming portion of those loans actually do go towards purchases of Boeing products. This is not a program that does a lot of good for small/medium size businesses.

Given that the Bank’s future is coming up for vote in Congress, with a growing contingent of Congress people realizing what a bad program this is trying to kill it, maybe they should also consider the following insanity, facts, and realities of a very corrupt government operation (double click on the image for a larger view):



Just another wasteful, crony infested political class program.

2) We have previously discussed how the U.S. Navy spent $300 million on two new Navy ships, building them almost to completion before spending another $10 million to scrap them. We have previously discussed the story where the State Department spent $40 million to build a consulate complex in the hinterlands of Afghanistan only to abandon it before it was used because it could not be defended against a terrorist attack.

So it should come as no surprise that Washington and the Pentagon spent $26 million to build a military base in Afghanistan that…. nobody is using and nobody is likely to ever use. Details of this massive waste include the following:

• The base was built despite the fact that field generals said it was not needed and would be a waste of money.
• The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) found “$36 million in U.S. taxpayer funds was spent on a building the U.S. never used.”
• The request for the base was made in January, 2010 but by spring of 2010, just a few months later, Major General Richard Mills sent an informal letter to the deputy commanding general of the U.S. Forces Afghanistan. Mills found that the $36 million building and five other proposed projects were “not necessary” because “the need was already met via other means.”
• Two similar memos requesting the cancellation of the facility were sent on June 22, just five months after the funding for the base was requested, but were obviously ignored.
• Requests to stop construction of the base once construction started, since it was still deemed unnecessary, were also ignored.
• Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat who serves on the Permanent Subcommittee of Investigations, stated that the base was “one of the most outrageous, deliberate, and wasteful misuses of taxpayer dollars in Afghanistan we’ve ever seen.”
• Other Washington Congressional people also chimed in with their disgust of the wasteful spending, but of course took no responsibility for the fact that they are supposed to be protecting American taxpayer dollars BEFORE they are wasted, not be outraged AFTER they are wasted.

Makes you wonder how many military veterans could have finally gotten the medical support they neede and were promised if that wasted $36 million went towards their needs and not the wasteland of Afghanistan?

3) Ten Thousand Commandments is an annual survey conducted by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. It estimates the size, the scope and the cost of Federal regulations on American consumers, businesses, and the U.S. economy. It is a problem that continues to grow by leaps and bounds regardless of which party is in charge, placing undo strain and bureaucratic red tape in the way of Americans and businesses.

Quite often many of these new regulations have nothing to do with protecting Americans or protecting the environment. The Federal beast has gotten so large that often Federal employees and bureaucrats have to continually churn out new regulations to justify their unnecessary jobs and organizations and keep them from disappearing.

Depressing top line findings of this years study include:

• Federal regulation and intervention cost American consumers and businesses an estimated $1.88 trillion in 2014 in lost economic productivity and higher prices.
• If U.S. federal regulation was a country, the $1.88 trillion would be the world’s 10th largest economy, ranking behind Russia and ahead of India.
• Economy-wide regulatory costs amount to an average of $14,976 per household – around 29 percent of an average family budget of $51,100. Although not paid directly by individuals, this “cost” of regulation exceeds the amount an average family spends on health care, food and transportation. 
• The “Unconstitutionality Index” is the ratio of regulations issued by unelected agency officials compared to legislation enacted by Congress in a given year. In 2014, agencies issued 16 new regulations for every law—that’s 3,554 new regulations compared to 224 new laws.
• Many Americans complain about taxes, but regulatory compliance costs exceed what the IRS is expected to collect in both individual and corporate income taxes for last year—by more than $160 billion.
• Some 60 federal departments, agencies and commissions have 3,415 regulations in development at various stages in the pipeline. The top six federal rulemaking agencies account for 48 percent of all federal regulations. These are the Departments of the Treasury, Commerce, Interior, Health and Human Services and Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency.
• The 2014 Federal Register contains 77,687 pages, the sixth highest page count in its history. Among the six all-time-high Federal Register total page counts, five occurred under President Obama.
• The George W. Bush administra­tion averaged 62 major regulations annually over eight years, while the Obama administration has averaged 81 major regulations annually over six years.

The Federal government has been around for well over two hundred years. You cannot tell me that we still need to be adding thousands of regulations to the the economy and businesses every year that fill needs that were somehow unidentified up until now. Almost 78,000 pages of regulations, out of control government and bureaucracy. No wonder the economy continues to limp along, it has a 78,000 page book on its back weighing it down.

And to add insult to injury, the Obama administration recently tried to sneak a whopping two thousand new regulations into place without anyone seeing it, despite claiming to be the most transparent administration ever. They quietly and sneakily released the regulations late on the Friday before the three day Memorial Day weekend. 

That will do it for today. Four days into this month’s political class insanity and we are nowhere close to be done. Tune in tomorrow for the next installment and I am absolutely sure that tomorrow will not be the end of the insanity for this month.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

December, 2014, Part 1, Political Class Insanity: Lying To Americans Again, $2 Million For Fossils, Voodoo Spousal Anger, And More

It’s the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from America’s politicians. Whether it is wasteful spending, inane quotes, faulty government operations, or insulting the American public, there is always new material spewing forth from these people, usually enough to fill up half a dozen or so posts every month. Given what we know today, this month should be no different as the insanity seems to be expanding exponentially from those in office today.

1) Senator Tom Coburn issues what he calls the Wastebook every year where he and his staff document the 100 most idiotic uses of taxpayer money. We have already reviewed some of his latest wasteful spending boondoggles in last month’s insanity series but since then we have come across another set of stupid spending from Washington:

1. $331,000 was spent by the Federal government to study “angry” spouses stabbing voodoo dolls. Might help curb divorce lawyer costs but should not be financed by the American taxpayer.

2. $16 Million to revitalize a “ghost mall” in Fresno, CA. I am assuming a ghost mall is a mall that has been abandoned because it could not compete with other shopping options in the Fresno area. So why should the taxpayer sink that much money into a proven losing proposition?

3. $70,000 for a Bruce Lee play. For what purpose?

4. $5.2 million for Columbia University to develop an interactive game designed to combat climate change, and that includes voicemails from the future warning of a post- apocalyptic world. Seriously?

5. $15,000 for NASA to hunt for the lost tomb of Genghis Khan. Because that is the kind of work NASA was established to do.

6. $3 million for the State Department to tweet at terrorists. These are the same people that think nothing of beheading other humans, do we really think that State Department tweets are going to intimidate them? 

Ridiculous wastes of taxpayer wealth especially when you consider that millions of Americans need drug addiction treatment help, millions of Americans are homeless and hungry, veterans cannot get the medical care they were promised and need, etc.

2) The fabulous website, Crony Capitalism, recently ran an earth shattering article relative to the city of Detroit. You remember Detroit. Once one of the largest and richest cities in the country. 

But in the course of fifty years, through horrendously corrupt local politicians whose corruption was exceeded only by their greed and incompetence, Detroit was turned into a hell hole on earth and became the largest American city to ever declare bankruptcy. Substandard or non-existent government services, population flight, thousands of abandoned houses, and a whole host of every other type of urban problem.

It has gotten so bad that the Detroit police department recently declared that Detroit was too dangerous of a city to enter. That is how bad it has gotten, even the police say do not come. This is the American political class at its finest, running a rich vibrant city literally into the ground. Pitiful and sad.

But the Crony Capitalism website had an interesting and radical approach to resurrecting the city. They proposed turning Detroit into an economic “free-zone.” No taxes, private everything (e.g. schools, police, garbage, everything), and see how it does. If excessive government and politicians' actions killed the city, maybe minimal or no government and politicians' control and create a new city. Because really, just like term limits, how much worse could it be than what is going on now, now that even the local police are saying to stay away? 

3) The U.S. Export-Import Bank gives out taxpayer back loans to foreign entities to encourage them to buy American made goods. Over the years, it has turned into a corporate boondoggle with American taxpayers funding private corporations’ costs that should be paid by the shareholders of those companies.

The fact that Boeing uses well over 50% of the Export-Import Bank’s budget over the years, with other such large companies also getting free taxpayer support, stands in contrast to politicians who support the Bank who claim that the majority of the Bank’s resources are to help smaller and medium size U.S. businesses.

Well, that claim may have just turned into another lie from the political class. According to a recent Reuters report: “The U.S. Export-Import Bank has mischaracterized potentially hundreds of large companies and units of multinational conglomerates as small businesses, a flaw in its record keeping that could undermine the export lender's survival strategy. A Reuters analysis showed companies owned by billionaires such as Warren Buffet and Mexico's Carlos Slim, as well by Japanese and European conglomerates, were listed as small businesses and Ex-Im acknowledged errors in its data in response to those findings.”

Another government screw up or were we just being “grubered” by our politicians to keep the taxpayer spigot open for these large companies, who are likely contributors to politicians’ election campaigns in a quid pro quo? Warren Buffet has not been involved in a ‘Small Business’ in decades so I go with the quid pro quo option. This is just another way for Washington politicians to keep their campaign finance money flowing at the expense of the American taxpayer.

4) As Nixon found out and most other humans find out sometime in their life, sometimes the crime, the error, or the screw up is not as bad as the lies and botched cover ups that happen afterwards. Recently, the Federal Weather Service had what it caused “technical glitches” in its data systems and Internet operations. Fine, could happen to any data systems operation.

However, that turned out to be a lie since we now know from Scott Smullen, a spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration it was not common technical glitches that caused the problem but computer hackers based in China that caused the mischief: “The intrusion occurred in late September but officials gave no indication that they had a problem until Oct. 20, according to three people familiar with the hack and the subsequent reaction by the NOAA, which includes the National Weather Service.”

Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA) was quoted by the Washington Post: “NOAA told me it was a hack and it was China.” He believes the agency was “deliberately misleading the American public in its replies. They had an obligation to tell the truth. They covered it up.”

The cover up is worse than the crime since now Commerce Department Inspector General Todd Zinser is investigating the matter, specifically demanding why law enforcement was not informed of the incident. Fortunately, no one was injured as a result of the Chinese hacking but it could have been worse if had it occurred during a high-impact weather event and the weather satellites were fouled up. 

Lying and incompetence, potential national security breaches and cover ups, this is the distressing level of incompetence our $3 TRILLION in taxes pays for every year.

5) One more piece of insanity for today, plenty more to come in the upcoming days. Before we go into this wasteful spending experience, again keep in mind there are millions of Americans who need help treating their drug addictions, there are millions of Americans who are homeless and hungry every day, there are probably millions of veterans who may not be getting the medical care they need and deserve, and there are millions of Americans who are unemployed or under employed.

Now, how much suffering do you think could be relieved in any or all of these categories of need we just discussed? Well, a certain $2 million pocket of taxpayer wealth will not go to alleviating any of this suffering. As reported by Watchdog.com and the Heritage Foundation, the Federal government and Washington political class allocated that amount to…wait for it… have the University of Florida build a new online telecommunications network that would allow amateur fossil enthusiasts to more easily communicate with each other online. 

I swear, you cannot make this garbage up. The project’s name is: Fostering Opportunities for Synergistic STEM in Informal Learners, or FOSSIL, (STEM is an acronym for Science Technology Engineering and Math). The project consists of a user-friendly website, social media outreach and event get-togethers. 

It is no surprise that the National Science Foundation is behind this idiotic program. This is the same federal entity that spent hundreds of thousands of dollars building a video game program that simulated prom week and which funded an effort to estimate when dog became man’s best friend.

So many problems with this effort:

• Why fossil collectors? Why not spend another $2 million on stamp collectors, $2 million on coin collectors, etc.? Don’t they have the same needs and desires as fossil collectors?
• Who is going to program this effort, the same hacks who programmed Obama Care’s online exchanges? I may not be a technical person but I am pretty sure you do not need $2 million to create a relatively simple website that allows for “a user-friendly website, social media outreach and event get-togethers.” A high school kid could probably put this together in his bedroom in a few weeks.
• And even if you think this is a good use of taxpayer money, is it a better use than helping the homeless, addicted, veterans, and hungry in this country? I think not, that is how screwed up the priorities of the Washington political class has become. Fossils that have been dead for thousands of years are more important than suffering, very alive Americans today.

That will do it for today’s insanity. More wasteful spending on such nonsense as fossil collectors, a Bruce Lee movie, and voodoo dolls, more lies and cover ups from Washington, the death of a great American city, and more. And we have just barely scratched the surface on this month’s political class insanity. More to come in the following days.

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

September, 2014 Political Class Insanity, Part 5 - Hillary's Snobbery, Biden's Out Of Touchness, and More Wasteful Spending

This is our fifth, and probably not last, update this month on the political class insanity that the politicians around this country continually rain down on us. From wasteful and criminal infested government spending to ineffective legislation and government programs to selfish greed to their catering to monied interests and crony friends, this set of American politicians are no doubt the least effective, most vain, and most greedy set we have ever had to endure in this country.

Our proof of this hypothesis continues today.

1) Last month we did a short series around the theme, “The American Political Class - They Are Just Not Into You.” The central hypothesis was that today’s politicians could not care less about the major issues of our times or our needs, they are too busy catering to their own personal wealth enhancement and keeping themselves in tight with their political friends and campaign donors.

The first post in that series can be accessed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/08/part-1-american-politicians-are-just.html

To continue along that theme, how today’s politicians are so out of touch with ordinary Americans, consider the following data and information that has been showing up in news reports regarding the demands that Hillary Clinton places on whatever organization wants her to come and speak to.

After reading what her vain, petty, and outrageous conditions are for whether or not she will speak to you, I dare you to tell me that she is in touch with the day to day struggles of today’s American families:

• The following demands are in addition to whatever speaking fees she is paid to show up, usually in the hundreds of thousands of dollars range, e.g. her recent quarter of a million dollars she received for speaking at the University of Connecticut.
• Those wishing to have her speak must pay for her round-trip transportation on a chartered private jet, a Gulfstream 450 or larger jet, in addition to paying for round-trip business class travel for two advance staffers who will arrive up to three days in advance of her speaking engagement.
• The host organization must also pay for deluxe hotel arrangements, the hotels to be picked by her staff only.
• Ms. Clinton must be given access to a presidential-type suite which must have three adjoining or contiguous single rooms for her travel aides and up to two additional single rooms for her advance staff.
• She will remain at the speaking event for no longer than 90 minutes and will pose for no more than 50 photos with no more than 100 people.
• For some gigs, she insists that no other person be on the stage while she is on stage.
• Press or video coverage of her remarks are forbidden.
• The only record allowed will be made by a stenographer whose transcription will be given only to Ms. Clinton.
• Clinton staffers must approve in writing any promotional material ahead of time.

This lady wants to be President of the United States. Do you really think she has any idea what is going on in the country when she is traveling around in private jets and staying in Presidential suites while minimizing her contact with the rest of the citizens in this country? Not a chance, it is obvious she is just not into you and me.

2) Let’s take a look at good old fashioned wasteful government spending. The following examples of wasteful spending are bold, original, useless, and an insult to any American who pays taxes.

The following information comes from a Washington Post investigation and article written by Colby Itkowitz, written in early August:

• The U.S. Marshals Service’s national and district offices spent $2 million over four years on so-called “swag” that included pillows, teddy bears, silk scarves and holiday ornaments, items that likely had nothing to do with their work at the Marshals Service.
• While some of the expenses were used to reward good work and boost morale, some of the items purchased had questionable “morale boosting” value.
• Among the items purchased with taxpayer money that were deemed excessive by investigators was a lamb-wool blanket worth $149 and silk scarves for $40.55 apiece.
• The organization MuckRock filed Freedom of Information Act requests for the U.S. Marshals Service, received over 170 pages of information with thousands of dollars spent on kids’ toys like yo-yos and stuffed animals. Again, more items that likely had nothing to do with the operations of the Marshals’ duties and responsibilities.
• As a result of the Inspector General’s findings, the Marshal’s office claims they have dramatically reduced the amount of money wasted on these types of items.

The fact that they have reduced spending for these nonessential items is a good thing. The bad thing is why in the world did they spend it in the first place? Do these government bureaucrats not think? Or is wasting someone else’s money, in this case taxpayer wealth, so easy to do that they do not think about it?

Even scarier, do the thousands of other Federal government agencies also spend taxpayer money on yo-yos and other such nonsense? How much more taxpayer waste goes on in similar spending habits by other government bureaucrats?

3) While Nancy Pelosi is probably our most favorite politician for saying inane things, Joe Biden is a close second. He recently made the inane comment that his grand daughters have fewer rights than his sons and grandsons. Huh? Not sure where he gets that ridiculous conclusion since:

• His granddaughters have the right to vote just like his sons and his grandsons.
• His granddaughters have the same rights as outlined in the Constitution as his sons and grandsons.
• His granddaughters have the same options in life as his sons and grandsons.
• In fact, given the wealth and prestige of being the granddaughters of a Vice President, they probably have more opportunities than the vast majority of every other American families; sons and grandsons.

Let’s look at some other realities of life that the Vice President obviously is oblivious to:

• The current chairperson of the Federal Reserve Board, one of the most powerful people in the world, is a woman and probably someone’s granddaughter. 
• The Chief Executive Officers of IBM, Intel, General Motors, Yahoo, Hewlett-Packard, and Lockheed Martin are women and probably someone’s granddaughter.
• The president of Harvard University is a woman and probably someone‘s granddaughter
• There are three women now serving on the U.S. Supreme Court, 20 in the U.S. Senate, and 79 in the House of Representatives, all of whom are probably someone‘s granddaughter.
• In fact, news reports and analysis of salaries within the Obama White House staff have shown conclusively that women working for the White House make far less than men working in the White House for equivalent jobs. And that cannot be blamed on Bush.

Another example of a politician living in a different reality than the rest of America who has no clue what is really going on in the world. As a result, with get inane comments like this and stupid policies and legislation like Obama Care.

4) A recent article by the Heritage Foundation gives one a look at another reason why the Federal government’s excessive and unnecessary spending has created an $18 TRILLION debt hole for the country. Consider the total lack of budgeting skills by executives working for the Federal Export-Import Bank:

• House investigators have found that the Bank overspent its travel budget by more than $3 million over the past few years.
• This year its travel budget was $1.3 million but the amount actually spent will come in at $2.3 million, 77% over budget.
• In 2013, the Bank budgeted $1.2 million for travel but spent $2.2 million (83% over budget), and in 2012 it budgeted $1.7 million but spent $2.7 million (59% over budget).

If a single agency cannot effectively budget for a single line item, travel, year in and year out, what makes anyone think that Washington politicians and the operations they are supposed to oversee have any chance of ever living within a budget and suffering the consequences of not staying within budget?

How many times every day, every year are similar budget busting actions being taken across the entire Federal spectrum? And worse yet, these wasteful spending actions continually occur without and consequences to those that ignore and flaunt budgets. In the real world, if you continually miss your budget, you get fired. In the Federal government, miss a budget and all that happens is that the Federal debt rises every larger.

That does it for today but the insanity will continue tomorrow. Yo-yos, budget busting excessive travel, Hillary’s vanity and pompousness, and more insanity from Joe Biden, just another day in the hell that is the current political class of America.

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

July, 2014 Political Class Insanity, Part 1: Corruption At The Export-Import Bank, Housing Still In The Dumps, Household Savings In The Dumps, And Medicaid Fraud Continues

It’s the beginning of another month which means it is that time again to review the latest lunacy, insanity, ineffective government programs, and wasteful spending of the American political class. I sincerely believe that we are currently living through a period in this country’s history where we are being served by the most ineffective and unproductive set of politicians that this country has ever had to endure. 

Given that the latest approval rating for the U.S. Congress and the current President are at their lowest levels ever, it seems that a lot of America agrees with this assertion and observation. To prove our point, take a look at the following recent instances of insanity and see if you do not disagree:

1) The Federal government’s Export-Import bank is a Federal agency that supplies low cost loans and loan guarantees to other countries and companies in other countries in an attempt to have them purchase U.S. goods and services. The prime example and beneficiary of the Export-Import Bank is Boeing. Foreign airline carriers can get low cost loans from the American taxpayer to purchase airplanes from Boeing. This helps Boeing sell planes overseas and theoretically helps Boeing hire more American workers at its domestic airplane manufacturing plants.

But the questions that should be asked is why aren’t Boeing and Boeing shareholders doing this work, making these loans, taking these risks? Shouldn’t that be part of their business plan and responsibility? Why should the American taxpayer put their wealth at risk? 

All good questions and pertinent since later this year the renewal of the chart for the Export-Import Bank is up for renewal and it is getting a lot of Washington attention. Some in Washington want to terminate the program since it is a prime example of crony capitalism at the expense of the American taxpayer. Others, most likely campaign funding recipients from companies like Boeing, want to keep the program alive and funded.

But let’s ask a different question: how well run is the operation? Not too well according to recent news reports:

• The Wall Street Journal recently reported that four employees of the Export-Import Bank have been removed in recent months because of allegations of kickbacks, steering Federal contracts to favored firms, and other corruption.
• The Heritage Foundation identified at least 74 instances in the past five years where bank executives were forced to act on the basis of “integrity” investigations by the Office of Inspector General. 
• Dozens of other fraud cases involving Export-Import beneficiaries have been referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution.
• In a 2013 report to Congress, the Office of Inspector General (IG) characterized the Export-Import Banke as exhibiting “weaknesses in governance and internal controls for business operations.”
• The latest updated report to Congress noted the dismissal of two bank employees and a letter of reprimand against another in a six-month period as a result of the IG’s investigations.
• According to a 2013 government survey, only 42% of bank employees agreed with the statement: “My organization’s leaders maintain high standards of honesty and integrity.”
• Only half of those surveyed agreed they can disclose a suspected violation of any law, rule or regulation without fear of reprisal.
• These results are not surprising since as of March 31, 2014, 47 criminal judgments and 42 pleas were obtained in the preceding six months.
• One example of the corruption and incompetence revolves around the fact that the bank approved a whopping 96 loan transactions in a two-year period for Gangland, USA, which purported to export electronics from Miami to South America. However, according to prosecutors, company owner Jose L. Quijano received more than $3.6 million in fraudulent loans from the bank.
• The bank approved 18 loans involving $13.6 million to Leopoldo Parra, who pleaded guilty in 2012 to wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. According to prosecutors, Parra and his co-conspirators fraudulently obtained the loan proceeds and used them for personal gain.

We could go on and on with other documented cases of fraud, criminal negligence, and cronyism but you get the idea. It is impossible to believe that an organization run this poorly and this fraudulently has any chance of being a net positive to the American taxpayer. 

Additionally, an in-depth article from Forbes in early May, 2014 pointed out that about 70% of the bank’s activity is solely dedicated to supporting Boeing, the bank only affects about 2% of the nation’s exports, it is likely a net negative to the Federal deficit, and it disadvantages many domestic companies. (http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougbandow/2014/05/05/close-the-export-import-bank-cut-federal-liabilities-kill-corporate-welfare-promote-free-trade/2/)

Shut it down and make companies like Boeing pay for their own customer financing and risk, regardless of how it affects campaign contributions to incumbent politicians.

2) This falls into the good news/bad news situation. More than four years after the Great Recession ended, the economy is still struggling to recover, making this post recession recovery the worst ever. Seems the Washington political class still has no clue when it comes to generating economic growth despite record lengths of time with record low interest rates, an $800 billion failed economic stimulus plan, and an energy revolution going on that helped reduce energy costs over the past several years.

But here’s some good economic news: last month, new home sales nationally surged by 18.6%. The bad news: those sales levels are still a whopping 63% below the levels enjoyed before the recession. They are also still way below where they were in the early 2000s, before the housing bubble starting to grow. The following chart summarizes the dire housing situation, courtesy of the political class:

New Home Sales Surge By 18.6% In May, Now Only 63% Below Pre-Crisis Highs



There can be no doubt that when it comes to economics and economic policy, our current politicians are insanely ignorant and ineffective.

3) Despite being years away from the latest recession, a recent survey from Bankrate of consumers found that just one in four Americans has no emergency savings in their household. Additionally, sixty-seven percent of the survey respondents have saved less than the recommended six months’ worth of expenses and half have saved less than three months’ expenses. The percentage of Americans with at least three months’ expenses in savings declined from 45% last year to just 40% this year.

According to Greg McBride, Bankrate’s chief financial analyst: “Americans continue to show a stunning lack of progress in accumulating sufficient emergency savings. Even among the highest-income households -- those with annual income of $75,000 or above -- fewer than half (46%) currently have a six-month savings cushion."

Given that the economy shrank a whopping 2.9% in the first quarter of this year, historically we are due for another recession soon, over twenty million Americans are still unemployed or underemployed, and we just proved that the political class has no idea how to manage economic policies and growth strategies, many Americans and their families are likely to be facing some severe financial times in the near future.

4) Let’s finish up today with another expensive example of wasteful spending of taxpayer wealth, courtesy of government incompetence and the political inability to operate a bureaucracy. Medicaid, the health care organization that the Obama administration wants to significantly increase in size, wrongly paid out more than $14 billion in 2013 to managed care organizations.

The fraudulently paid out expenses were often for treatments and services that were not necessary, were never performed or were not eligible for Medicaid funding and coverage. To put the fraud in perspective, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), $14 billion could have been used to pay for the brand new airport being built in Beijing, China and was equal to the how much the U.S. government spent on training Iraq’s military over the past eleven years. $14 billion is a lot of money, all of which vanished to do the ineptness of the Federal government.

According to the GAO, government entities at both the state and Federal levels have recovered "only a small portion" of the fraudulently paid out taxpayer wealth. Thus, the GAO has "little confidence that Medicaid can fix its processes and as Obama Care expands Medicaid enrollees, even more dollars will be "vulnerable to improper payments." 

What sane person or organization expands its operations before fixing its operations that are currently losing billions of dollars to fraud and incompetence? The Federal government and the political class that operates it, of course.

That will do it for the insanity today. We now know that the Export-Import Bank needs to fade into history, given the rampant cronyism of its operations, politicians make very bad economists as measured by the pitiful state of the housing industry and the pitiful state of Americans’ saving profile, and Medicaid is still a hotbed of wasteful spending and criminal fraud, a situation that is likely to get worst going forward. More insanity tomorrow.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

October, 2013, Political Class Insanity, Part 6: A Country Founded By Geniuses and Run By Idiots

Please note: Nancy Pelosi recently made the outrageous comment that there was no waste to be cut in the Federal govnerment, i.e. EVERY dollar the Washington political class spends is essential to our country. Keep this insanity in mind as we go through this month's polticial class insanity, you will quickly see that she is very much out of touch with the reality of today's wasteful federal government.

This will be the sixth and final installment in this month’s political class insanity where we review the lunacy that continues to be created by the nation’s political class, the worst set of politicians to ever hold office in the history of this country. I thought we would need more than six posts to cover it all this month but it looks like a lot of the insanity has been related to the impending disaster that is Obama Care and the tired, old calls for shredding the Second Amendment. We will cover them in a separate series of posts on their own special brand of insanity.

1) In early August, 2013, Commissioners in Weld County, Colorado unanimously voted to make 'North Colorado' the 51st US state. The Republican board hopes to secede from the state in protest of laws passed by the Democratically controlled state legislature this year. The initiative will be added to the ballot this November. More than 11,000 people have liked the 51st State Initiative's Facebook page.

The 51st State website claims that their objective is simple. "We just want to be left alone to live our lives without heavy-handed restrictions from the state capitol," read a post on the website: "The concerns of rural Coloradans have been ignored for years," William Garcia, chairman of the Weld County Commissioners, said in a statement. "The last session was the straw that broke the camel's back for many people. They want change. They want to be heard.”

Think people are getting fed up with the American political class? And these are not the only Americans who want out from underneath what the believe is an ever growing government and ever shrinking set of freedoms. According to the Washington Times, at least three other western counties are trying to do the same thing: Cheyenne, Sedgwick and Yuma also plan to place the 51st state referendum on the fall ballot.

Secession drives are underway in northern California and in rural Maryland. Yes, something might be ready to give, it only takes so long until you realize that America’s politicians only care about their own self enrichment, their perpetual reelection campaigns, and have no ability to resolve the major issues of their times. 

Sounds like these folks who want to form their own state have reached the same conclusion that are term limits effort reached: really….how much worse could it get if you had your own state? (www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com)

2) CBS News reported early this month that the Department of Defense was hurriedly  spending taxpayer wealth on televisions, playground equipment, violins, clarinets, a volleyball court, and other non-defense things so that they would not see their budget decreased next year, the infamous “spend it or lose it approach” to budget management. And according to CBS, this insane wasteful spending of taxpayer wealth is not confined to just the Department of Defense, it is rampant across all Federal agencies and entities, the news report just focused on this one department and its idiotic spending spree.

3) The Export-Import Bank is a Federal government entity which is supposed to provide low cost loans to foreign entities who use those loans to buy American made goods. It is a blatant form of political cronyism, using American taxpayer wealth to help out the profits of large American companies.

If a potential foreign buyer needs financing help to buy goods from an American company, than that company and its shareholders should be the ones to provide the financing and assume all of the risks of financing. The American taxpayer should not be the lender of last resort.

But it is actually worse than this. According to an article in the Washington Free Beacon this past summer, a whopping 83% of the bank’s loans in 2012 went to the customers of only one company: Boeing. 83%, tell me that the Boeing airline company is not getting a free ride on the American taxpayers’ dime. The loans go to foreign airlines who get low interest rates to purchase Boeing airplanes.

Besides the blatant cronyism of this swindle, there are two other major problems. First, domestic airlines like Delta and United do not get the same deals from the Export-import Bank. Thus, ironically, their market competitiveness against foreign airlines is diminished by our own Federal government, insanity. Second, would it not be better to invest that money in loans to domestic companies and domestic households rather than foreign companies? Would it not be netter to just return that money to the taxpayers so we could decide how to expand the economy with our own money?

Oh, by the way, according to the Open Secrets website, Boeing ranks 83 out of over 20,000 entities that have made recent contributions to politicians’ election campaigns ($3.5 million) and 12 out of 4,369 companies when it comes to lobbying expense (almost $32 million in lobbying expense in the past two years.) Any doubts why the political class supports the continuation of the Export-Import Bank when over 80% of its budget supports Boeing?

4) So, who is doing good in this lousy economy? Consider some recently releases of U.S. Census data: 

• Between 2000 and 2012 median household incomes for the nation as a whole dropped 6.6% — from $55,030 to $51,371. 
• But wait, the income of the typical D.C. household rose 23.3% between 2000 and 2012 to an inflation-adjusted $66,583, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.
• The Washington, D.C. metro area — which includes the surrounding suburbs in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia — has it even better, with a median household income of $88,233 that ranks highest among the U.S.’s 25 most populous metro areas. 
• Tampa, Florida’s median income, by contrast, is under $45,000,almost a whopping 50% less than the D.C. median income.

Thus, if you are a lobbyists, politicians, political crony, or just fortunate enough to live in the D.C. area, this is a great economy. If you are none of these, than not so great. Maybe that is why the Washington political class has not moved to fix what ails the vast majority of the country, they are not feeling the pain of falling incomes, high unemployment, high under employment, etc.

5) We will close this month’s insanity with a set of truisms that popped up in my email. They are attributed to comedian Jeff Foxworthy but I have no idea if that is true. What is true is the frustration and insanity that the following realities are causing to most Americans, realities and insanity that are courtesy of out of touch politicians:

If you can get arrested for hunting or fishing without a license, but not for entering and remaining in the country illegally…

If you have to get your parents’ permission to go on a field trip or to take an aspirin in school, but not to get an abortion…

If you MUST show your identification to board an airplane, cash a check, buy liquor, or check out a library book and rent a video, but not to vote for who runs the government…

If the government wants to prevent stable, law-abiding citizens from owning gun magazines that hold more than ten rounds, but gives twenty F-16 fighter jets to the crazy new leaders in Egypt…

If, in the nation’s largest city, you can buy two 16-ounce sodas, but not one 24-ounce soda, because 24-ounces of a sugary drink might make you fat…

If an 80-year-old woman or a three-year-old girl who is confined to a wheelchair can be strip-searched by the TSA at the airport, but a woman in a burka or a hijab is only subject to having her neck and head searched…

If your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of dollars of debt is to spend trillions more…

If a seven-year-old boy can be thrown out of school for saying his teacher is “cute,” but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class in grade school is perfectly acceptable…

If hard work and success are met with higher taxes and more government regulation and intrusion, while not working is rewarded with Food Stamps, WIC checks, Medicaid benefits, subsidized housing, and free cell phones…

If the government’s plan for getting people back to work is to provide incentives for not working, by granting 99 weeks of unemployment checks, without any requirement to prove that gainful employment was diligently sought, but couldn’t be found…

If you pay your mortgage faithfully, denying yourself the newest big-screen TV, while your neighbor buys iPhones, time shares, a wall-sized do-it-all plasma screen TV and new cars, and the government forgives his debt when he defaults on his mortgage…

If being stripped of your Constitutional right to defend yourself makes you more “safe” according to the government… you might just be living in a nation that was founded by geniuses but is beyond doubt run by idiots.

Such is the insanity in America today, brought to you in an ever increasing dosage by the entrenched American political class. If you are just as tired of it as the rest of us, please join the effort to impose term limits on this insane bunch of loons by going to our Term Limits Now website:

www.howmuchwosecoulditget.com

Because really…how much worse could it get?

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