April, 2017, Part 1,Political CLass Insanity: Liberal Hypocrisy on The Trump Wall and A Senator With Pathetic Priorities

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. 

Today and for all of the insanity posts this month, let’s start off with a welcome piece of honest political dialog. It comes from a State Department spokesperson. Mark Toner, who is about to start the daily State Department press briefing. In a joking matter, he makes the following quote: "Welcome to the State Department. I think we have some interns in the back. Welcome. Good to see you in this exercise in transparency and democracy." 

He then burst out laughing at his own quote, indicating he also knew what a joke the Obama administration has been, especially Mr. Toner’s State Department, when it comes to cover ups, lack of transparency, denial of Freedom of Information Act requests, the prosecution of whistleblowers, etc. But at least it was a little refreshing to finally hear some actual honesty out of Washington as we see from the actual clip of the news conference:

http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2016/08/when-even-the-state-department-spokesperson-cant-keep-a-straight-face-about-things-anymore-video/

With that context of honesty, let’s see what other insanity has been going down:

1) A lot of liberals are upset that Trump wants to build a wall to help prevent illegal immigration and the attendant criminal activity that comes from a leaky southern border. All of the sudden these folks are worried about excessive Federal government spending after remaining silent after their favorite liberal, Barack Obama, added almost $10 TRILLION to the national debt.

The American Patriot Report website recently listed out a bunch of Federal government spending efforts that liberals seemed to find nothing worth complaining about...until their favorite nemesis, Trump wanted to spend a few billion dollars on a wall:

- Democrat Lyndon Johnson back in the mid-1960s started the so-called “War On Poverty.” Since then, the American taxpayer via the Federal government has spent $22 TRILLION on this “war” with the following results: tens of millions of Americans still live in poverty and the poverty rate is unchanged 50 years after Johnson started the “war.” But somehow liberals have not protested this waste of money, money wasted that is almost 1,500 bigger than the Trump wall expense.

- By the time that the Pentagon builds all of the new F-35 jet fighter planes it has planned, probably over $1 TRILLION will be spent on research, development, and the actual construction. And even then, it is highly doubtful that the plane will ever come close to reaching the objectives that were promised. No word from the liberal on this TRILLION boondoggle.

- This year the Federal government will spend $3.8 trillion which comes out to $10.4 billion per day, $432 million per hour and $7.2 million per minute. At that rate, the Trump wall cost would be equal to just one and a half days of operating the government.

- The Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimated in 2014 that the Federal government paid out $17.5 billion in improper Medicaid payments made and $59.9 billion in improper Medicare payments, totaling $76.4 billion. When combined with other government benefit programs, the grand total came out to $124.7 billion worth of improper payments, up from $105.8 billion in 2014. Thus, in just one year, the Federal government wastes more more than 8 times what the Trump wall costs.

- The Federal government spend about $25 billion a year just to maintain vacant and unused property and buildings that it owns throughout the country. This unused space totals an amazing and disgusting 1.186 billion square feet of useless space. Thus, in just one year, the Federal government spends 66% more on empty space than the cost of the Trump wall.

- The Pentagon has already wasted $29 billion on the so-called Littoral Combat Ship development. The whole program has been plagued with cost overruns, development problems, and other delays which led leading Senators to freeze the program until it can be fixed. Thus, for the cost of two Trump walls, we have nothing to show ship wise.

- Every year, the IRS allows about $15.6 billion in improper payments to those claiming the Earned Income Credit on their tax returns, the equivalent to one Trump wall.

- NASA spends $18.5 billion every year even though it has not had a manned space flight since 2011. The annual NASA budget is about 20% bigger than the Trump wall.

- According to the Cato Institute, the Federal government’s Department of Agriculture has paid out over $25 billion over the years to support farmers across the country. But the Feds have a pretty wide definition of what a “farmer” is since they have paid out untold millions of dollars to rich people including Walmart heirs Rob, Jim and Alice Walton, CNN founder Ted Turner and rock musicians Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi.

These examples do not include the taxpayer money that would not be spent on crime, welfare, and other costs related to illegal immigration if the Trump wall actually cut down on illegal immigration, costs that have been estimated in the tens of billions of dollars a year.

I am not saying that spending about $15 billion on the Trump wall is a good idea. But please spare me your outrage on this relatively minor expense if you remained silent when Obama and the rest of the Federal government was wasting trillions and trillions of dollars and getting us nothing in return. At least the Trump wall is a mostly a one time expense whereas most of the wasteful spending discussed above happens year in and year out. 

2) Before we discuss the next piece of political class insanity, let’s review the state of the country:

• Our public schools continue to under educate our kids.
• The nation’s infrastructure of roads and bridges is crumbling.
• Economic growth continues to be anemic with record low labor participation rates and over 94 million American adults not in the work force.
• Wage and household income growth have been mostly stagnant for the past decade or so.
• Terrorism threats continue to grow around the world.
• Diplomatically, Russia and China continue to outmaneuver this country around the world.
• We have just come off a Presidential administration that added a whopping $10 TRILLION to the national debt load.

Okay, keep these real issues in mind as we review the latest piece of insanity from Washington:

• In a recent interview with Axios, current Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin talked about a lot of government financial topics.
• In a previous life, Mnuchin was a co-founder of a film production company called RatPac-Dune Entertainment back in 2004, thirteen years ago.
• This company were involved in the big hit films X-Men and Avatar which also came up during the interview.
• When the interviewer asked what current movie he would recommend, he offered this caveat: “I’m not allowed to promote anything that I’m involved in. So I just want to have the legal disclosure, you’ve asked me the question, and I am not promoting any product.”
• But he then jokingly said, “But you should send all your kids to Lego Batman,” which resulted in those present to joke and laugh since “the Lego Batman Movie” is a film from one of his film companies.

But somehow, this ticked off Democratic Senator Ron Wyden to ask the government ethics watchdog to review Mnuchin comments regarding the Lego Batman movie for possible ethics violations: “I am concerned that Sec. Mnuchin’s comments, may be seen to have a predictable effect on the financial interests” of RatPac-Dune, Wyden said in his ethics investigation letter.

Seriously, Senator, this is what is consuming your attention and time and resources? Not the ever growing national debt, not the reality that a bridge or highway is likely to collapse from negligence, not the fact that our kids are dummies vs. kids from around the world? This is a classic example of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, it is a an insignificant nit in the big picture of the big issues facing Americans but this is what gets your attention. Pathetic.

This kicks off this month’s political class insanity. Wasting trillions of dollars goes unnoticed by liberals who focus on the Trump wall which will cost an insignificant amount vs. the rest of the Federal budget and a Senator that is clueless relative to the big issues of our time. More insanity 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:


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

Februrary, 2017, Part 3, Political Class Insanity: The Wall Is (Relatively) Cheap, Bait and Switch In Illinois, and The Economic Plight of Millennials

It has been several weeks since Donald Trump has been sworn in which means at some point in the future we may run out of material to talk about. With the demise of the Obama administration, eight years worth of wasteful and excessive spending for nothing in return, foreign affairs blunders, Obama Care disasters, and assorted other administration and government blunders and screwups might end with the onset of a new administration. Trump may usher in a new paradigm of government actions that are limited, effective, cost efficient, and protective of the Constitution. If so, then this blog would run out of material to discuss and would have to be shut down.

But I doubt it. Even if Trump is truly a different type of President, he is still fighting over 500 embedded and entrenched politicians in Congress and thousands and thousands of government bureaucrats who will not go peacefully into the night for the good of the country. I wish him well and hopefully he can fix at least some of the myriad of problems the American political class creates everyday but until then, enjoy the latest political class insanity from Washington and beyond:

1) There has been a lot of discussion recently on Trump’s plan to build a wall along the Mexican border to staunch the flow illegal immigrants, illegal drugs, human trafficking, and possible terrorist infiltration. Many people, mostly liberals, are going nuts over this concept, often using the excuse that it is a waste of money. And “the wall” will not be cheap, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell estimating a cost of between $12-15 billion House Speaker Paul Ryan putting the price tag at between $8-14 billion.

They certainly have a right to their opinions but if they find the cost of the wall excessive without having at least the same outrage with the following Federal government projects, then please do not bother to argue your cost viewpoint with me without any outrage to the following insanity, as outlined by Jeff Poor on January 27, 2017 for the Breitbart website:

- The American taxpayer has paid $22 TRILLION, according to an analysis done by Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, since the War On Poverty began in the 1960s under the Johnson administration. Fifty years ago the U.S. poverty rate was about 14%. Twenty two trillion dollars later, the U.S.Census Bureau puts the most recent poverty rate calculation at….14.3%.

That $22 trillion could have built over 1,400 border walls and at least we would have something to show for it. Right now, we have nothing to show for the $22 trillion, 50 year effort called the War On Poverty.

- The F-35 Stealth Fighter Jet Project has been going on for decades. Total research, development, and construction costs, as we have reported before, are likely over a trillion dollars already. Reuters reports that the cost now to build out the fighter jet program will possibly another $379 billion. The plane has been a colossal failure since day one, plagued with massive cost overruns, schedule delays, and malfunctioning operations. Just that $379 billion could have build about 125 border walls.

- The Federal government has a mind numbing budget annual budget of about $3.8 trillion. At that rate, it is spending about $7.2 million a MINUTE, another mind boggling, obscene number. This comes out to about $10.4 billion a DAY. Thus, building a wall at say $15 billion consists of about one and a half days of Federal government spending, less than .3% of the annual Federal budget.

- A 2015 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that in 2014 the Federal government made $59.9 billion in improper/criminal Medicare payments and $17.5 billion in improper/criminal Medicaid payments, a grand total of $76.4 billion in one year in just these two government programs. This is equivalent to about five border walls. And the assumption is that the border wall would be basically a one time cost with smaller annual maintenance requirements while the Medicare and Medicaid almost $80 billion is an annual, recurring waste of money.

And by the way, if you include all 122 Federal programs like the GAO analysis did, you will find that in 2014 the Federal government made $124.7 billion in improper and criminal payouts, up from $105.8 billion the year before. In other words, under Obama, the inefficiencies and ineffectiveness of the Federal government and the money it wastes was growing steadily year over year.

- The Federal government now spends about $1.7 billion a year to maintain vacant and unused Federal buildings around the country. Not only is there an annual recurring cost just to keep these unused buildings from falling apart from neglect and decay, tens of billions of dollars have probably been already spent on them to obtain the land and buildings that now lay unused, more than enough money to build multiple walls.

- The Littoral Combat Ship program was costly to research and incurred higher than expected costs to build, with total costs estimates now around $29 billion, about twice the cost of the wall. And there is serious concern in the military and in Congress if these ships are even worth building and having with one Senator, John McCain saying that we may need to stop building and paying for thee ships that are not combat worthy or needed...after $29 billion has been spent.

- And last but not least is the Earned Income Tax Credit Program, an IRS program that paid out $69 billion to 28 million taxpayers in 2015. But according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, “The IRS estimates that 23.8 percent ($15.6 billion) of EITC payments were issued improperly in Fiscal Year 2015.” In other words, cleaning up just one year’s screw ups in the Earned Income Tax Credit program could pay for the one time costs of the wall.

Look, I am not saying the wall is a good idea or not. But if you are trying to condemn the wall because it costs too much, please consider focusing your anger at far worst wastes of Federal government money vs. an effort that does not show up in the rounding error of the Federal government over the years.

2) While the Federal government seems to have no problem spending and wasting incredible amounts of taxpayer money, the state of Illinois has the opposite problem: they are so financially strapped that while they continue to sell state lottery tickets to Illinois residents, they no longer pay off on winning lottery tickets that involve more than trivial amounts. 

Phil Velasquez, recently writing for the Chicago Tribune, reported that two Illinois lottery winners have had to file a Federal lawsuit against the state in order to collect their winnings. Rhonda Rasche, who's awaiting a $50,000 payout, and Danny Chasteen, who won $250,000, are the litigants who are seeking class-action status and the halt of lottery ticket sales. Since the state government never passed a budget, the state comptroller claims there is no legal authority to pay off winnings of over $25,000 until maybe some time in the future.

Ms. Rasche raises a very good point on the idiocy and unfairness of this bait and switch effort: "How the heck can they do this, and they're still selling tickets? If I was the one selling raffle tickets and I didn't pay, I would be sued or in jail or both." Her lawyer, Thomas Zimmerman, Jr. also makes some common sense points: "The lottery represents that you can win instantly. They fail to tell you as of July 1 they're not going to pay. But yet they continue to sell the tickets under those false pretenses."

According to the article, “The lawsuit names lottery Director B.R. Lane, the Illinois Lottery Control Board and Northstar Lottery Group as defendants. It seeks to force the lottery to pay winners of more than $25,000 with 5 percent interest and asks that the lottery be barred from paying its administrative or operational costs until the winners receive their prizes. The lawsuit alleges that dozens await more than $288 million in prizes.”

Reminds of the old saying: Government is just like the Mafia except the Mafia is profitable. Here we have the government shaking down lottery players with no ability to pay off the winners, classic bait and switch, classic political class insanity.

3) We have often reported on how Obama and the Washington political class have done a horrible job at supporting and creating robust economic growth. Despite spending over $800 billion on a (failed) economic stimulus program, enjoying record low energy costs, and enjoying trillions of fake dollars the Federal Reserve pumped into the economy, Obama could not leverage these tailwinds into anything better than these anemic economic results:

• Annual economic growth never got close to the long term trend of about 3% a year.
• Wages were more or less stagnant until the past six months or so during the entire length of the “Obama recovery.”
• Job creation could not even keep up with adult population growth.
• As a result, the labor participation rate is at 40 year lows, it has not been this low since the horrible stagflation days of the Carter administration.
• Over 94 million adult Americans are out of the workforce.
• More Americans over 65 years old are still in the workforce and the highest proportion of young American adults are still living at home since the Great Depression.
• Jobs that were created during the Obama recovery tended to be part time, contract work, and in low paying economic sectors such as food services.

And now we can add the death of the American dream for today’s millennials to the above list of failures:

• According to a Federal Reserve analysis, the median income of today’s millennials, $40,581, a full 20% lower than what Baby Boomers were earning at the same time in their lives, taking inflation into account.
• Millennials have half the net worth, a lower home ownership rate, and drastically higher student debt vs. Baby Boomers at the same age.
• College educated millennials have it a little better than the overall millennials average but they are barely doing better than high school educated Baby Boomers, indicating that a college education is less valuable than it was for Baby Boomers.
• A recent study out of Stanford University found that Baby Boomers born in 1950 had a 79% chance of making more money than their parents while those born in 1980 had only a 50% chance of making more money than their parents.

Thus, Obama and the rest of the Washington political class have been able to create economic conditions where younger Americans, despite being much more educated, have higher student debt, have less of a chance of making more than their parents, and are earning far less than the Baby Boomer generation. Nice job Washington.

That will do it for today’s insanity: economic mismanagement, government bait and switch in Illinois, and wasteful government spending that dwarf the cost of a border wall. 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:


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

December, 2016, Part 4, By The Numbers: The Obama Recovery Stinks, The Pentagon Lies, and IRS Employees Love the Ritz Carlton Lifestyle.

On a periodic basis we do some posts that fall under the theme of “by the numbers.” Rather than trust what the American political tells us about reality, we like to examine the real numbers and the real reality in the world to understand what is actually going on. Relying on politicians, and their cohorts in the media, to tell us what is reality is always a sucker bet. They have their own agendas and goals, usually centering around their needs and self-enrichment. So we need to look at the reality of the numbers to determine what is really going on.

Previous analyses of “by the numbers” can be accessed by entering the phrase in the search box above. This is the third and final post this month where we look at the numbers to truly find out how good, not likely, or bad, most likely, the American political class is doing in managing our tax dollars, protecting our freedoms, and resolving major issues that affect all of us. 

1) Let’s start today’s “by the numbers” series with a look at one of the worst managed Federal government operations of all time, the development of the F-35 fighter jet. Winslow Wheeler, writing for the War Is Boring website, gives us the details: 

• After Donald Trump recently stated that the F-35 costs were “out of control,” U.S. Air Force Lt. General Chris Bogdan, who is in charge of the project, issued a press release to give out his view of reality. 
• The general said that the cost to build a new F-35 would range from $102.1 million for the Air Force version to $132 million for the Marine and Navy versions. 
• But these costs do not include the costs to make and buy maintenance equipment and other support needs nor do they include the need to fix unforeseen problems which undoubtedly arise in a new plane. 
• Estimating these additional costs moves the cost of the Air Force version up to $157 million per plane and the upwards of $355 million for a single navy or Marine version of the same plane, more than a third of a BILLION dollars for a single plane. 
• These are much higher costs than what was originally sold to Congress and the American taxpayer: the Congressional Research Service reports that in 1994 the Pentagon promised that the final cost of the F-35 would range from $31 million to $35 million each, or in 2017 dollars, the cost per plane would be $53 million to $60 million. 
• This is a far cry from what is actually happening today where a single plane could cost hundreds of millions of dollars. 

As if these costs are not bad enough, they do not include the hundreds of billions dollars that have already been spent in research and development on this plane. We previously reported on analyses that estimated over a trillion dollars had been spent over the past two decades to develop this plane. 

Thus, not only are the construction costs per plane much higher than promised, but if you spread the embedded research costs across each plane that may eventually be built, the fully loaded cost of each plane is easily over a billion dollars each. Typical numbers of a typical government project, low ball the initial estimate to get funding and then manage the project so poorly that the costs eventually get out of control.

2) Tyler Durden, writing for the Zero Hedge website on December, 21, 2016, put some numbers to a problem we have talked about for a while, another blow to any credence that Obama’s economic strategies have been effective, namely the reality that the number of American millennials living at home has reached a 75 year high: 

• Back in 1940, 76 years ago, at the end of the Great Depression, 40% of millennials were living at home, which one might expect in such a difficult economic time. 
• Today, six years into the Obama economic recovery, just under 40% of millennials are living at home, just short of the record set back in the waning days of the Depression. 
• This data comes from an analysis of census data carried out by the real estate tracker Trulia and reported in the Wall Street Journal. 
• Back in 2005, about one in three millennials were living with family but again, six years into the Obama recovery, that number is still ridiculously high at about 40%. 
• This runs counter to historical economic cycles where this number always went down once a recession ended, indicating how bad Obama’s economic policies and strategies have been. 
• In fact, over the past decade, including the six years of the Obama recovery, the number of adults under the age of 30 has increased by 5 million but the number of households for that age group has grown by just 200,000 in that same time frame according to the Harvard Joint Center For Housing Studies. 

With rising rents in some cities, tougher mortgage lending standards and most importantly, the economy’s inability to generate sufficiently high paying jobs that would allow many more millennials to strike out on their own, it is no wonder that junior is still living at home and not out buying furniture for his or her new place, buying a house, etc., further depressing an economic recovery that has been pathetic by just about any measure. 

The numbers do not lie, this recovery sucks.

3) Ali Meyer, writing for the Washington Free Beacon on December 15, 2016, gave a contrasting set of numbers vs. the numbers from above that show how millions of American young adults cannot find a decent enough job to get out of their parents’ house. Apparently, life is much better for IRS employees vs. struggling millennials: 

• According to Meyer, IRS employees spent $1.l4 million of taxpayer wealth on lavish travel arrangements. 
• A Senate committee investigation found these travel options by IRS employees “to be excessive and inappropriate.” 
• The committee found that “the IRS had 27 employees who traveled 125 business days at a cost of more than $1.4 million in fiscal year 2015. The average cost of each trip totaled $52,800...” 
• In fact, one employee ran up $72,544 in hotel costs, spending an amazing $43,726 just at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Arlington,Virginia while another IRS employee spent half a year living at the Grand Hyatt in Washington DC at a taxpayer cost of $38,799. 
• Another IRS employee decided to avoid hotels and spent $4,950 a month to stay at a million dollar townhouse in Arlington,Virginia while another IRS employee rented a downtown Chicago apartment on taxpayer dollars at $4,605 a month. 
• Other outrageous costs included “a $100 Uber Black car service tab for an airport ride. One employee spent $1,513 on dry cleaning, another spent $178 per month for a cable bundle that included premium channels, and another employee spent $1,185 for a monthly metro pass—which exceeded the daily commuting cost from their lodging to the IRS headquarters.” 
• The Senate report concluded that: “The lodging selected by these employees often appeared to be excessive and inappropriate. The committee also notes that there were a number of instances where vouchers and/or receipts appeared to be missing when compared to the initial aggregate IRS data for all employees traveling more than half a year. The committee found that while the IRS has a number of employees who travel more than half of the fiscal year incurring $1.4 million in travel costs, the IRS has routinely failed to take allowable steps to reduce its travel expenditures. The lack of effort by IRS employees to exercise prudence and economy when utilizing taxpayer funds is concerning, and more importantly, a direct apparent violation of the [Federal Travel Regulation].” 

A disgusting waste of taxpayer funds. I wonder (and doubt) that any of these employees will be forced to pay back the money they wasted. I also wonder how many times this type of behavior goes on throughout the entire Federal bureaucracy, an insult to every working American whose kid cannot find a decent job after getting out of high school or college but whose tax dollars support Ritz-Carlton level living for government employees.

That will do it for today’s and this month's “by the numbers” series. Today we learned that the IRS has little regard for taxpayer dollars, that the Obama recovery stinks for anyone under 30, and never believe the Pentagon when the give you a cost estimate since it will always go up. More numbers next 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:


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

July, 2016, Part 2, Political Class Insanity: A Four Year Old On the No-Fly LIst, a TRILLION Dollar Plane, A Mountain of Debt, 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. In fact, last month we set a record, needing ten full posts to cover it all.

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.

It looks like our politicians have been especially insane over the past month or so let’s get started with the latest insanity from today’s American politicians:

1) Reason magazine is a great magazine if you treasure freedom. The first several pieces of insanity today come from recent issues of Reason starting with a gun control related piece. A lot of Democrats, liberals and Obama are all hot to trot again for more gun control after the Orlando night club terrorist shooting. One of their inane ideas is to make it illegal/impossible for someone on the Federal government’s “no-fly” list to legally buy a weapon.

Now, a lot of people are against this rule for a number of very rational reasons. First, there has never been an incident where someone on the no-fly list purchased a weapon legally and went on a rampage. Thus, this is a solution looking for a problem. Second, just because someone is on the no-fly list in the future, who wants to go on a terrorist rampage, does not mean he could not purchase a weapon illegally. Criminals and drug cartels are more than happy to sell weapons and make a profit doing so regardless of what the no-fly regulations are.

But the best reason not to adopt this proposal is the serious flaws in the no-fly list itself. It is almost impossible to get off the list once you are placed on it and it is unclear what the procedures and processes are for putting someone on the list. In theory, once this idea was law, Obama could put everyone on the list and accomplish his goal of shredding the Second Amendment. 

Don’t believe me that this list is a farce? Consider the plight of a four year American boy from Alameda, California. For the court records he is referred to as “Baby Doe.” He is one of many Americans who have gone to court to get their names off of the no-fly list. Baby Doe is a prime example because he is, get this, four years old, and he has been on the no-fly list since he was seven months old. Thus, for over three years his family has been trying to get him off the list since, obviously, he is not a terrorist but have not been successful. 

Thus, the Federal government interviewed and tracked the Orlando night club terror shooter at least twice before he shot up the night club and came up with nothing and let him go on with his life but they place a four year old toddler on the terrorist no-fly list. We are doomed.

2) Veronique de Rugy, writing for Reason in their August, 2016 issue, pointed out one of the worst examples of Federal government spending EVER: 

• Lockheed Martin started the development of a nuclear capable jet fighter, the F-35, in 2001, 15 years ago.
• Today, in 2016, the jet is still not fully operational despite already going over its developmental budget by 100%.
• Its development is likely to cost over $1.5 TRILLION, that’s trillion with a “T” in front of it.
• However, the F-35 has turned out to be slower than an F-14 from the 1970s, has less than half the range of a 40 year old A-6 jet, its sustained turn performance is comparable to a 1960s F-4 jet, and its performance was embarrassed when it went head to head with a decades old F-16 in a mock dog fight.
• Thus, on average, every American household spent $8,600, about $570 a year for 15 years, of its own wealth to finance this single failed Federal government operation.

Well over a TRILLION dollars and really nothing to show for it. Want to bet that no one anywhere in the Federal government got fired, demoted, or reprimanded for such waste? This is what happens when you get to spend, and waste, over people’s money, there is no accountability.

3) Besides the F-35 debacle, Ms. de Rugy’s article also talked about how out of control our annual Defense Department spending is. According to her, we currently spend about $585 billion a year just on the Defense Department. This is more than the military budgets of China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France, Britain, and India ...COMBINED. On average, this comes out to over $5,000 per U.S. household per year.

I will let you decide whether or not you are getting over $5,000 a year’s worth of value for from the Defense Department. Given how we have previously reported on how our armed forces personnel are cannibalizing existing weapons and planes and helicopters just to keep their machinery operating, I would certainly say no, we are not each getting $5,000 worth of value. Maybe it is time save money and stop stationing hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops around the world, many of whom are fighting with inferior equipment despite an annual budget of $585,000,000,000.00.

4) The same issue of Reason magazine pointed out how insanely out of control government spending has been over the years, so much so that our Federal government national debt is over $19.2 TRILLION. Some sad facts about this overwhelming pile of debt:

• On average, every American is on the hook for $59,400 worth of Federal government debt.
• You would have to confiscate and liquidate Bill Gates entire fortune and then multiply that amount by 240 times to pay off the $19.2 TRILLION, a reality that is obviously impossible.
• If the current debt was frozen at $19.2 TRILLION and then paid down by a dollar per second, it would take over 600,000 years to pay it off.
• The Federal debt is about equal to about 105% of the nation’s annual GDP, a troubling rise just in the past seven years ago since when Obama came into office the debt was only about 60% of the annual GDP.

The numbers are insanely mind boggling. What is also mind boggling, we as a society and nation have very little to show for this out of control spending. Our nation’s infrastructure is breaking down, our public schools do not educate, our military does not have enough spare parts to function at peak efficiency, our borders are not secure, etc. A lot of debt and not a lot to show for it.

5) The following instances of government out of control are from around the world but they aptly illustrate how politicians everywhere, including this country, promise roses but usually end up only delivering expensive thorns. Reason took a look back at previous Olympic games countries and cities to see what happens to these government/taxpayer funded and politician endorsed spectacles after the athletes leave town. The results are not good:

• For the Olympics in Athens, Greece went 60% over budget, it is considered by many as the precursor to the near collapse of the Greek financial markets and economy, Greece lost 70,000 jobs in the three months after the Olympics ended, and 21 of the 22 Olympic venue sites are either abandoned, in a state of disrepair, or underused.
• The Olympics in Sarajevo,Yugoslavia went over budget by 173% and the entire Olympic infrastructure was wrecked during the Bosnian War with the ski venues still littered with landmines, the podium used to award medals became useful for executing enemy combatants, and all of their Olympic venues are also in disrepair.
• The Olympics in Montreal were heralded by the city mayor at the time with the quote: “The Olympics can no more lose money than a man can have a baby.” The mayor did not realize at the time, or maybe he did, that the budget for those Olympics in 1976 would come in almost ten times higher than promised, $2.3 billion vs. $250 million, and that the debt and costs incurred to put on those Olympics in 1976 were not paid off for thirty years in 2006.

Yes, politicians are the same everywhere, either economic dunces who do not understand the realities of the world when it comes to budget or con men that lowball government expenditures fully knowing that they are bogus from the start. In either case, the taxpayer always gets stuck paying more than promised and get less than promised.

That will do it for today’s insanity: political Olympic promises that cost much more than promised, out of control debt, a TRILLION dollar jet, and a four year American toddler on the no-fly list. More original 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.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

September, 2014 Polticial Class Insanity, Part 3: Laws and Jets That Do Not Work, CIA Lying, A TSA Education Failure and More

This is our third post in our monthly series where we look at all of the recent political insanity that our politicians have dumped on us and the country over the past month or so. From wasteful spending to stupid quotes to inefficient and ineffective government operations, the amount of ineptness and insanity keep on coming at an ever quickening pace. There is little doubt that we are being served by the worst set of politicians in the history of the country.

1) One of the Obama administration’s biggest successes is supposed to be the Dodd-Frank legislation that was supposed to clean up the financial services section of the economy. We have previously reported in other insanity posts that we have no idea if that legislation is a success since years after it was passed, more than half of the necessary government rules and regulations have yet to be written and put into effect. 

It is tough to say anything is a success with its impact yet to be felt. Plus, you wonder how successful it will be if it is that hard to write the rules and regulations. Not very efficient.

As a prime example of such nonsense, consider an older article that appeared in the December 27, 2013 issue of The Week magazine. At that time, still years after the legislation was passed, just one of the rules in the bill, the so-called Volcker Rule was expected be almost 1,000 pages long. It was estimated in the article that just complying with this single aspect of Dodd-Frank will take businesses 2.3 million hours of legal and administrative work.

Such a waste of economic resources, resources that companies would be much better off using to grow the economy and create more jobs. Plus, who in the world in the government is going to review the 2.3 million hours of work to see if the work is legal, legit, complete, accurate, etc. In short: no one, making the Volcker rule and the larger legislation it sits within just plain nonsensical insanity.

2) According to an article in the July 25, 2014 issue of The Week magazine, a TSA agent refused to let a Washington D.C. resident go through TSA security checkpoints at Orlando’s airport because…wait for it… they did not know that Washington D.C. was a part of the United States. Really? This government employee, employed by the Federal government in Washington D.C. did not know that Washington D.C. was a part of the United States. Insane.

Two points of concern here:

1. These are the types of people that are supposed to keep the air traveling public safe. Scary.
2. In a bigger sense, what value are we getting for our tax dollars that go to public education if this employee did not even know the capital of the country?

A TSA spokesperson said that additional training would be done so that TSA employees recognize D.C. driver licenses when used as id. Really? That training should have been done and completed by the fourth grade at the latest: what is the capital of the country?

3) Let’s get back to Dodd-Frank. One of the utmost, primary purposes of the legislation was to make sure that large banks and other financial institutions had so-called “living wills,” plans that would be deployed so that a large institution would implode quietly without risking the rest of the economy in the process.

This is was a major driver of the Great Recession, banks and other institutions were poorly managed and started collapsing in financial ruin, almost collapsing the world economy with it. Thus, the attempt to manage and minimize such crashes in the future was a good intention.

But, alas, as with most good attempts by the political class, this too has failed, Years after the legislation was signed, the Washington Post reported that the Federal government has rejected the living wills of eleven of the largest financial institutions in the country. Thus, for the most part, we are no better off than we were prior to the Great Recession, despite years having passed since the legislation was passed.

4) According to a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal opinion poll, Americans are NOT happy:

• 71% said the U.S. is on the wrong track.
• 60% feel the country is in a state of decline.
• Only a meager 2% are very satisfied with the state of the political system while 79% are dissatisfied with it to some degree or more.
• Only 3% are satisfied with the economy while 64% are dissatisfied with the economy.

So much for Obama’s hope and change. The only change has been to a tremendous slide towards negativity while the only hope is that we can survive him and the rest of the incompetents in Washington.

5) In one of the most inept, embarrassing and expensive boondoggles in the history of the Federal government, consider the sad state of affairs relative to the development of the F-35 fighter plan, as described in the Briefing section of the August 8, 2014 issue of The Week magazine:

• The F-35 is supposed to be the country’s next generation of fighter plan that would make the U.S. the undisputed owner of war time skies.
• However, 18 years and $400 BILLION later, the plane is nowhere close to be ready to take to the skies.
• That’s $400 BILLION, with a “b”, or almost $4,000 for every American household.
• It is estimated that the cost of single plan will be about $185 million each, on top of the $400 BILLION that has already been spent.
• The earliest deployment date for any of them is now 2015, making it over 19 years since the work first started on the plane.
• Once we have the planes, it will cost up to 40% more to maintain each plane than what it costs to maintain the jet fighters we currently have.
• It is believed that the Chinese government hackers stole copies of the F-35 blueprints and is working on its own version of the F-35, called, the J-31, which will be lighter and faster than the current plans for the F-35. 
• In fact, computer based warfare scenarios done by the Rand Corporation have shown that in a hypothetical war with China, our F-35 fleet would be destroyed by the Chinese air force. The developers of the scenario rated the F-35 as ‘double inferior,” which does not sound good.
• While the Pentagon has committed to buy 2,400 F-35s if and when they are viable, the article quotes air force analysis and defense analyst Mr. Pierce Sprey as predicting that: “…the F-35 will be such an embarrassment that it will be cancelled before 500 are built."

What a waste of taxpayer dollars, what a national embarrassment, what a deadly farce for our pilots in the future. But I bet no one anywhere in the Federal government got fired for such incompetence. Hundreds of billions of dollars wasted for no reason and not benefit. But that sounds about par with anything our current set of politicians touch. 

6) Speaking of not being fired, recently the CIA Director, John Brennan, openly admitted in a Senate meeting that an internal CIA investigation proved that the spy organization had actually hacked into computers used by Senate staff people. This is contrary to what he told Congress back in March when he strongly denied the CIA had committed such acts.

Which means one of two things: he either lied back in March or he has lost control of the situation within the CIA. Lying or incompetent, either one should be grounds for dismissal. You do not want your top spy to have either of these qualities. In most jobs outside of Washington, either trait is usually grounds for dismissal and/or prosecution.

In democracy such as ours, I have to think that spying on Congress and Congressional personnel is against the law. You know that if you or I spied on Congress we would be in a Federal lock up somewhere.

But apparently those rules and logic do not apply to Washington insiders like Brennan. More than a month he revealed he was a liar or incompetent, he is still on the job and those that hacked Congress are also still at their taxpayer funded jobs. Insane.

That will do it for this episode of political class insanity. Today we learned that we have major legislation and major jet fighter plans that apparently do not work but cost a lot of taxpayer resources, we have a top spy who is either lying or incompetent, we have TSA agents that are so uneducated that they do not even know what the capital of the country is, and the rest of America is not happy with the direction of the country. 

Worst part of the whole post: we still have more insanity to review 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

Chicken Little And The Washington Political Class, Part 2: Biden and The Hyatt Regency

Last week we did a popular post that showed how inane and stupid the Chicken Little talk was from Obama and other Washington politicians relative to the financial sequester:

http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/03/chicken-little-and-washington-political.html

The sequester required a small 2% across the board cut in spending by the Federal government because the President and those in Congress were too incompetent to come up with a rational plan to trim government spending over a 17 month period.

The President was given the task of deciding how to cut the spending by a measly 2% and he chose the most vindictive and cruel ways to do it, ensuring that the citizens of this country would suffer the most despite the fact that the government wastes hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

He chose to shut down school and family tours of the White House despite the low cost of continuing them and the tradition of continuing them. He chose to release over 2,000 illegal alien criminals, of which over 400 had been convicted of a violent crime. He threatened to shut down the long tradition of the White House Easter Egg Hunt despite its low cost. He threatened other measures to maximize the negative impact on America.

We pointed to a number of ways that the government could have cut far more expense with much less pain to Americans. However, politically, that was not the best route for the President, with vindictiveness and pain being his path of choice. A week or so after that post, we have uncovered a whole new set of wasteful spending projects and programs that Obama should have shut down long ago but did not.

1) Last week CBS News, a main component of the mainstream media, actually did a piece on government waste that should have been cut before it even happened. The IRS spent $60,000 to have a mediocre Star Trek themed video produced for internal use. The video can be viewed at the following link:

http://patriotupdate.com/2013/03/taxpayers-fund-irs-star-trek-parody/

You cannot claim that you are running an efficient government operation when tens of thousands of dollars are spent on unneeded videos, especially poorly made ones like this piece of trash that will have no redeeming value and impact virtually any American’s life. Makes you wonder how many more such government videos are produced that are just as unnecessary.

2) U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont recently wrote a letter to a Vermont citizen regarding the status of the next generation U.S. military fighter jet, the F-35 which has been under development since 2001: “The F-35 program has been poorly managed and is a textbook example of how not to buy military equipment. The causes of the F-35 program’s present difficulties are too numerous to detail in my response to your letter; however, I believe the F-35 program is approaching a point where the military services and a majority of Congress will recognize that the jet is just too costly to proceed with purchases at today’s planned levels.”

While I applaud the Senator’s candor, I think he is being a little too kind. According to a recent report from the Secretary of Defense by the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, J. Michael Gilmore, dated February 15, 2013, the fighter’s ultimate cost is likely to be about $1.5 TRILLION which will put it at 100% over budget. The plane currently cannot fly in bad weather, on instruments, or at night due to failures in many of it systems. These failures exist despite the fact that the American taxpayer has already spent $400 billion on this disaster.

$400 billion already spent, No viable jet fighter in sight. Over $1 TRILLION still to be spent. You could give a lot of White House tours for $1.5 TRILLION.

3) Apparently the Federal Department of Education has a great amount of say in the education processes on native Americans. As a result of sequester, this administration and its strategy to make these measly 2% cuts hurt as much as possible, forced expense cuts on Native American schools in Minnesota, according to the outraged Congresswoman from that district, Congresswoman Betty McCollum:

• Native American schools in Minnesota are freezing salaries, leaving job openings unfilled, enlarging classroom sizes, and making other cost savings moves to satisfy demands being enforced by the Department of Education.
• The White Earth Reservation tribal school may cut the school year down to save money.
• The Red Lake School District has cut security staff.

However, at the same time these kids’ education capabilities are being cut, the Department of Education is creating a totally new position that pays over $127,000 a year. The job is going to a former aid of Congressman Charles Rangel, David Johns, and is titled, “Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African-Americans.”

I would assume that this is not a solitary position and that this new executive director will also have a staff of people burning through taxpayer money. You decide: do not create and staff this position and new entity, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in
order to minimize the cuts to Native American education processes or expand the Federal government bureaucracy and screw the kids’ education. Not being the vindictive type like our President, I would have kept the resources with the kids and not the bureaucrats.

4) And for the worst hypocrisy of all, Vice President Joe Biden. He recently flew to Europe where he spent one day London and one day in Paris. Total cost to the American taxpayer: about $1 million. Yes, one million for a two night stand in Europe. Copies of the receipts for these two nights can be seen at the following link:

http://www.mrconservative.com/2013/03/6986-biden-spends-585000-in-one-night-paris-stay-on-your-dollar/

Details of the London expenditures include the following:

• Biden’s entourage needed 136 rooms at the Hyatt Regency, certainly not your low end hotel accommodations by any stretch of the imagination.
• These 136 rooms resulting in a total of 893 room nights for the stay for members of his security force and other entourage members, all for a one night visit.
• The total cost just for the hotel stay came out to $459,338.65, or a little more than $500 per room for these public servants

Comparable expenses were run up at the Paris stopover.

Look, I understand the need for our politicians to visit overseas locations and meet foreign leaders. I understand they need to be kept safe, it is a dangerous world out there. But come on, 136 rooms, Hyatt Regency, $500 a night? Why did these people not stay at our embassies, they are secure. The London embassy certainly has the room:

Or why couldn’t Biden have stayed at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in London, another secure location which also certainly has the space while the rest of his entourage stayed at the equivalent of the Red Roof:

The reason he did not is that Biden is just like every other politician in the White House and in Congress: they are so out of touch with reality and the need to intelligently and unselfishly cut expenses that they would rather have the people of America suffer before they see their plush, extravagant, and selfish life styles affected.

Biden’s expenses could have been used to operate White House tours for a whole year. Instead, the tours are out for Americans, the Hyatt Regency is still a go for politicians.

This Chicken Little behavior of our political class through this whole sequester mess, a process they agreed to 17 months ago, proves once and for all that we need term limits more than ever in this country, as proposed by Step 39 in “Love My Country, Loathe My Government.” When the ruling political class is more focused on making life painful for the citizens in this country, it is definitely time to replace those that find being vindictive more preferable to being compassionate and caring.

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.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w