May, 2016, Political Class Insanity, Part 2: Another Whopping Obama Lie, Taxing The Bagel Eaters, and Giving The Rich Taxpayer Wealth

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 politicians1) Obama has spewed forth any number of memorable deceptions and lies during his time in office. A small sample of the bigger ones include:
- He falsely claimed that if you liked your current doctors, insurance plan, or hospital, then you would be able to keep it under Obama Care.

- He falsely promised to go through the Federal budget “line by line” to get rid of wasteful government spending but he never did.

- He falsely promised to never take a vacation if elected, devoting every waking moment to the American people but ended up taking more extravagant vacations than any other former President.

- He falsely promised to run the “most transparent” administration ever but ended up operating the least transparent administration ever.

- He falsely promised to cut the annual deficit in half by the end of his first term but ended up running up multiple TRILLION dollar annual government deficits.

We could list many more but you get the idea. And now we have another lie/deception to add to the list. Many, many times Obama vowed that he would not send American troops into Syria, that there would be “no boots on the ground” that belonged to U.S. service men and women. Well, that promise, like many of his others, has proven to be false.Obama recently announced that he would deploy 250 special operations military personnel to Syria to assist local allies to beat back the ISIS terrorist group. Now, the administration is trying to spin it that this is not a lie in that these newly deployed troops will be just advisors, not to be actively involved in combat operations. However, Obama never said that, never drew that distinction. He always said “no boots on the ground,” he never said “no boots on the ground except for military advisors.” It seems that this President thinks that by just saying something he can change reality or change history. We are not that stupid, boots on the ground are boots on the ground. You can be sure that those 250 U.S. troops will be defending themselves in combat at some point in time, ISIS would love to get their hands on a live U.S. troop or two. These are military boots on the ground and Obama is still a liar.2) Political class insanity and stupidity is not restricted to those politicians in Washington DC. The politicians at the state government level have done a pretty good job of providing their own versions of political class insanity. Consider the following oddball taxes that are currently in place in some of the nation’s states. Then try to figure out why these laws ever became reality and how much time at the state government level was wasted passing these pieces of tax nonsense:Alabama - In Alabama you have to pay 10 cents to the government every time you buy a deck of standard playing cards. Comments: how much tax revenue could this tax possibly be worth to the state government and is it more expensive for retailers and state employees to collect it than what the tax actually generates?Florida - In Florida there is something called a “greenbelt law” that taxes farmers and ranchers at a lower rate. Comments: sounds like a good idea until you realize that property developers now actually rent cows to graze on their properties to avoid paying higher taxes while preparing their land for building. Even Disney World got a $1.5 million tax break with this cow tax loophole.Kansas - In the state of Kansas, a hot air balloon experience will only be taxed if it is tethered to the ground. If you go somewhere, the ride will be tax free because it is considered “transportation.” Comments: when did anyone anywhere use a hot air balloon to “transport” themselves to a particular place?New Jersey - No matter how close to Halloween it is, pumpkins are categorized as a food and thus tax-exempt it New Jersey. However, if the pumpkin is “painted, varnished or cut and sold as decorations,” sales tax applies. Comments: As with the Alabama card deck tax, is the effort worth it from both a retailer and state government tax employee to collect what has to be a very small tax revenue stream?New York - In New York, bagel buyers get a little something extra with their lox and cream cheese – “an 8-cent bagel cutting tax” on any bagel that comes sliced or is served to be eaten on the spot. Comments: Again, how much time and effort is expended tracking down if the $.08 is collected dependent on whether the bagel is sliced or not? Not clear if you can avoid the tax if the bagel is not sliced and the lox and cream cheese is put on top of the uncut bagel.Tennessee - In Tennessee, you are expected to pay taxes even while breaking the law. In 2004, Tennessee passed the Unauthorized Substances Tax, also known as the “crack tax” that requires anyone possessing illegal drugs to purchase and attach a stamp to the product. Comments: so the Tennessee politicians expect a criminal who is in possession of an illegal drug to actually self identify themselves to authorities in order to purchase a state-required stamp? I don’t think so.Just once it would be nice to talk to some of these politicians who actually conceive, write, and vote on these pieces of nonsense. Just once I would like them explain to me what is the rationale for this insanity. For a state-by-state summary of more stupid taxes, go to:http://freedompartners.org/latest-news/honor-tax-day-ludicrous-taxes-state/3) Government welfare abuse happens at all levels of income and and in all walks of life. Consider this travesty of wasting taxpayer dollars from the Ecowatch website:

• According to Robert Coleman, writing for the website on April 19, 2016, 50 billionaires across the country received $6.3 million Federal government farm subsidies even though most, if not all, of them could not rationally be classified as “farmers.”
• The money was paid out from 1995 to 2014 as part of a Federal crop insurance program, according to analysis by the Environmental Watchdog Group (EWG).
• Fifty members from the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans received taxpayer money under the program.
• The recipients included banker David Rockefeller, Sr., Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, well known stockbroker Charles Schwab and other billionaires.
• Other, lesser known but still wealthy recipients included Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, owners of three professional sports teams, and the founder of the Bass Pro sporting goods business.
• The total net worth, according to the EWG, of the billionaires who got the Federal money was $331.4 billion. 
• Examples of some of the subsidies include the following:

I am sorry, but someone who is worth almost $18 BILLION (Paul Allen) should not be getting thousands of dollars in taxpayer money for his farming operation. If you want to subsidize farmers, than subsidize those that truly need a little financial help. Paul Allen et al do not need financial help.Either return that $6.3 million to the taxpayers or use it for a real human suffering purpose to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, or treat the addicted in this country, do not give over a $1 million to someone who is worth $2 billion (Lee Bass). Enough insanity for today. Making the rich richer with taxpayer money, taxing the less rich more when they buy a bagel or pack of cards, and another whopping Obama lie. Political class insanity comes in all forms and ways, more of it tomorrow.

July, 2015, Part 4, Political Class Insanity: Obscene Government Salaries, Obscene Wordlwide Violence, Madoona Gets Taxpayer Money, 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) It is both funny and frustrating when a politician or government bureaucrat acts like they are smarter than the rest of us. Given the track record of politicians and bureaucrats in wasting taxpayer wealth and never operating an efficient and effective government program, for any of them to talk to down to us or think we are less smart than them is just plain insane.

Let’s start this insanity off with some background data. According to a Pew Research effort from mid-2014, 53% of Americans either believe that the Earth is not warming or that it is warming naturally with mankind’s existence and actions having nothing to do with the warming. Given that background, consider the condescension from current EPA administrator, Gina McCarthy relative to global warming doubters: “When I put a report out on acting on climate like we did yesterday that shows how dramatically our world will change if we don’t act, and just the benefits we can deliver if we do. I am doing that not to push back on climate deniers. You can have fun doing that if you want, but I’ve batted my head against the wall too many times and if the science already hasn’t changed their mind it never will.

But in any democracy, it’s not them that carries the day. It is normal human beings that haven’t put their stake into politics above science. It’s normal human beings that want us to do the right thing, and we will if you help us.”

Now, many times in this blog, in fact every month, we have discussed the reality that being a global warming doubter and a believer in science is a perfectly sane and rational position to hold. In fact, in 2014, NASA admitted that it was not able to explain “the mystery of why global warming appears to have slowed in recent years.” In addition, despite rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere, there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1997. 

Despite all of the data and realities, Ms. McCarthy believes that 53% of Americans are not “normal human beings.” Maybe she needs to be reminded that regardless of what she thinks, regardless of how condescending she is, she just insulted 53% of Americans by calling us not normal, the same people that pay for her high salary and standard of living.

2) A major, overarching foreign relations policy objective of any American Presidency should be to protect the safety of every American. One way to do that is to minimize the violence and tyranny in the world to better shield Americans and American interests.

Now, given the narcissistic nature of this President, I am sure he thinks that he has been a superstar when it comes to foreign policy. In fact, he recently stated that he made the U.S. the most respected country in the world again, a position we soundly rebuked at the following link:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2015/06/june-2015-politicians-say-darndest.html

But it is pretty difficult to say his foreign policy is a success since as the leader of the strongest country in the world, he has oversaw a substantial increase in the amount of violence throughout the world, which indirectly (so far) places every American’s life in a higher chance of danger:

• According to a recent article by the UK Telegraph paper: “The theory that human beings are evolving into more placid, cooperative creatures is undermined by research that suggests the world is considerably less peaceful than it was eight years ago.”
• “Last year 180,000 people were killed in internal conflicts, a number 3.5 times higher than it was in 2010″ and “death from terrorism has risen fivefold – killing more than 32,000 people in 2014,” quoting Dr. David Hammond of the Institute for Economics and Peace.
• The article reports that the United Nations estimates that almost 1% of the world’s population is now refugees.
• This translates into 60 million people having been displaced because of the increased violence, making this level of refugees being at the highest it has been since the Second World War”
• In another measure of increasing violence, worldwide military and security spending was a whopping $14.3 TRILLION in 2014, an increase of over 15% since 2008.
• The $14.3 TRILLION is the equivalent of the combined economies of Brazil,Canada, France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

Since much of world’s violence and military activity is in the Middle East, an area where the Obama administration has been actively involved, from Iran to Syria to Libya, it is pretty clear that this administration’s foreign policy efforts have been a failure.

Tough to make the world more violent when your public intent is to make it less violent, epic insanity.

3) As we all know, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were prime reasons why the Great Recession occurred. It resulted in the American taxpayer spending almost $200 billion to bail out these poorly managed, politically corrupt government entities. 

Thus, it seems a little stupid and wrong when both organizations announced recently that the CEOs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will get a raise in their annual salaries from $600,000 to $4 million. $4 million a year, ten times more than what the President is paid. The reason given for the seven fold increase is that higher salaries were needed to attract good executives. 

To its credit, the Obama administration opposed the obnoxious pay raises but legally could not stop them. Just another area where this administration is powerless to have any influence or pull, not even being able to exert its will within the Federal government it supposedly leads. No government employee deserves a $6 million annual salary.

4) We have reported many times in this blog how the farm subsidy programs of the Federal government have made it easy for rich, non-farmers to get handsome sums of money in the form of subsidies even though most of them never farm the land they own. In the latest episode of American taxpayers paying huge sums to rich landowners, the New York Post recently reported that Madonna is the latest millionaire to get government subsidies.

The Post reported that Madonna purchased a taxpayer owned piece of land next to her $4.9 million mansion in the Hamptons on Long Island, New York. Apparently, she said she plans to use the land for a tree nursery. In fact, she has been planting Leyland Cypress, eastern white pines and Robusta juniper trees. Unbelievably, she is now entitled to collect multiple tax benefits because of the land’s “agricultural” use.

But the dealings are a little shady. The county and town of Southampton had purchased the the 24 acre parcel for $10 million in 2010 and had planned to preserve it as is. Somehow, Madonna paid only $2.2 million for it just five years later. In addition, since the land was zoned for “production for commercial purposes of agricultural products,” local residents say she is only growing the trees out of a legal obligation and to give her mansion more privacy and tax subsidies. 

According to the article, Madonna will receive big tax breaks from the county that are only given to farmers, and will pay just $2,260.28 a year in local property taxes on the 24 acre plot, all because she is planting a few trees. For comparison, the owner of one acre across the street from this parcel pays $6,841.52 in taxes annually.

“That’s not a nursery,” area farmer John White said. “She just doesn’t want people to see her riding — and falling.”

So, as we see, it is not only the Federal government that gives away taxpayer money to wealthy Americans for doing nothing under farm subsidy laws, local and county governments also get into the act of giving away taxpayer wealth.

That will do it for today. Giving millionaires taxpayer money for not farming, giving away millions of taxpayer dollars to leaders of dysfunctional government entities, increased world wide violence levels since the Obama administration came into power, and a top Obama executive calling the majority of Americans “not normal.” 

The diversity of political class insanity continues to astound, depress, and infuriate all of us.

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

February, 2014 Political Class Insanity, Part 1: Coffee Enemas, Penis Pumps, Bowling For Kids, and Other Politcal Class Nonsense

Well, it is another month which means its time for the latest chapter on political class insanity. We do this feature every month because every month the American political class finds new ways to insult us in ways ranging from incompetent government operations to inept legislation that never resolve any problems to wasteful government spending and other embarrassments.

When we started this feature several years ago, we could usually contain the monthly insanity to one post. However, over time, the insanity level seems to have increased exponentially, reflecting the growing ineptness of politicians everywhere. Thus, as has been the recent trend, we will probably need six or seven days to get through everything again this month.

1) On January 12, 2014, the Washington Examiner reported on how the Washington political class has rigged the Federal government’s farm subsidy giveaways so that many very affluent Washington power brokers, politicians, lobbyists, etc. now enhance their high annual incomes with taxpayer funded subsidies for farms they do not farm. 

Details of this legal scam, according to the Examiner analysis and reporting, include the following:

• Thousands of residents in and around Washington D.C. receive millions of dollars every year in Federal farm subsidies even though there are very few farms within the Washington metro area.
• In nearby Chevy Chase, Md., one of the nation's wealthiest communities, lawyers, lobbyists and at least one psychologist collected nearly $342,000 in taxpayer farm subsidies between 2008 and 2011, according to the watchdog group, Open the Books.
• Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack continues to receive government subsides even though he has overseen the agency that pays them since 2009, even though he is in Washington in government service and not back working the farm, a clear conflict of interest.
• Billions of dollars once spent to keep small family farms from going under now go mostly to large agriculture corporations like Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland, and to wealthy landowners who have never farmed.
• Over just the past four years, taxpayers have sent over $30 million to residents New York City, and Chicago, hardly farming meccas by any stretch of the imagination, to compensate them for converting farmland to conservation areas and for growing soybeans, cotton, corn, rice and other crops.
• Apparently the scam is for these rich big city residents to buy farm land, hire a farm manager and collect a check from the Federal government.
• Van Boyette, a lobbyist living in Washington's wealthy Palisades neighborhood, received $186,761 in Federal farm subsidies between 2004 and 2012 for growing corn, soybeans and other crops, and for land conservation on farmland he owns in six different Iowa counties.
• Gerald Cassidy, one of Washington's top and richest lobbyists, got $41,000 in farming subsidies since 1995 for a farm he owns in Dorchester County, Maryland.
• U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa has proposed capping Federal payments to $250,000 per couple per year, likely because he also receives money from the subsidy trough.
• His obscenely high cap is about five times the median income of an average U.S. household.

Rich people and rich companies, including those in government, getting wealthier via a government program that is obviously a misdirected government program,  funded with taxpayer wealth. Pathetic.

2) The Associated Press reported on January 21, 2014 that former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and his wife had been indicted in late January on Federal corruption charges. They are accused of accepting tens of thousands of dollars in loans, shopping sprees, money for their daughter's wedding, and even a joyride in a Ferrara.

Although innocent until proven guilty, maybe the former governor should have bought a farm in order to legalize his corruption via the farm subsidy program that we led off this post with. Bad planning on his part to go the illegal corruption route when he could have gone the legal corruption route like so many of his political peers are using.

3) Let’s stay with our corruption theme, looking at some data from the New York Times and U.S. government that was reproduced by the Against Crony Capitalism website on January 24, 2014. The data and their chart depicted the number of criminal convictions for corruption by state or other legal U.S. entity (e.g. Guam. Virgin Islands, D.C. and Puerto Rico) per capita.

46 out of the 54 entities included in the analysis had a per capital corruption conviction rate less than seven convictions per million residents. The entity with the highest per capital corruption conviction rate was, no surprise, Washington D.C. Their per capita calculation came out to over 66 corruption convictions per million people, nine times higher than the conviction rate of 46 other states and other legal entities. Nine times higher, that is a lot of corruption.

4) A Business Insider article from January 24, 2014 had some interesting statistics from International Centre For Prison studies. It seems that the United States has more of its citizens in prison than any other country in the world. About 2.3 million people are now residing in U.S. prisons. China, which has been framed as a much more totalitarian government, has about 1.6 million people locked away in its prisons even thought its population is about four times larger than ours.

The main reason for this dubious worldwide honor? According to the article and the Centre, the U.S.’s war on drugs has resulted in prison populations growing exponentially with low level dealers or recreational users of illegal drugs, a problem that much of the rest of the world does not seem to have. Despite this problem, and the extraordinary expenses that come with it, the American political class seems to be in no hurry to fix what has been a losing and expensive war on drugs for the past four decades.

5) The wasteful and idiotic spending by the Federal government is not restricted to just a handful of government entities. Consider some recent news reports on how the Health and Human Services (HHS) department has been wasting taxpayer wealth over the past few years:

• According to an article from the Washington Free Beacon on January 13, 2014, from 2006-2011, HHS spent almost $175 million on penis pumps, according to a recent HHS Inspector General report.
• Adding insult to injury, HHS paid more than double the retail price for the pumps, with the Inspector General saying that the prices HHS paid “remain grossly excessive compared with the amounts that non-Medicare payers pay,” 
• According to an article from the Fiscal Times from January 15, 2014, in 2013 alone HHS wasted almost $56 billion on improper payments that never should have been made in seven of HHS’s programs that were examined. This rate of wasteful spending is enough to have given every U.S. household an almost $500 tax rebate.

Pitiful disregard and disrespect for taxpayer wealth.

5) But the Federal government is not the only government entity that wastes taxpayer money while remaining incompetent. Consider a report from January 15, 2014 that was put out by the EAG Foundation:

• In Camden, New Jersey, the student to teacher ratio is an excellent and low 14 to 1 in its public schools.
• In addition, Camden on average spends over $26,000 a year per student, much higher than the state and national average.
• Despite that stellar ratio and large budget, Camden’s public school graduation rate is less than 50%.
• Only three Camden high school seniors who took the SAT test would be considered college ready.
• About 75% of Camden’s third grade students have already fallen behind the levels they should be at for reading and math proficiency.
• Despite these horrible academic results, the Camden school budget recently included an expense of $24,000 that was used to take students on out of school trips to bowling alleys and skating rinks.

Wasteful spending and low performance and quality, sounds about right for any U.S. government entity.

6) The wonderful website, Bankrupting America, had some great examples of past Federal government spending idiocy in its January 15, 2014 posting analyzing the latest trillion dollar omnibus spending agreement:

• Based on the results of a $374,000 taxpayer-funded grant, we now know that inhaling lemon and lavender scents doesn’t do a thing to increase our ability to heal a wound. 
• $666,000 in taxpayer wealth was used by scientists to determine whether distant prayer could heal AIDS. They found out after spending the $660,000 that it could not heal anything. 
• The Federal National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine paid scientists $406,000 to study whether squirting brewed coffee into someone’s intestines was beneficial in treating pancreatic cancer. But alas, pancreatic cancer is imperious to coffee enemas.
• The center also paid out a whopping $1.25 million to determine whether or not massage sessions makes people with advanced cancer feel better. They found out that the massage did, something I could have told them for far less than $1.25 million.

This is how we got to a national debt hole of over $17 TRILLION, wasteful spending on coffee enemas, remote prayer healing, inhaling lemon scents, bowling trips for undereducated kids, overpaying for penis pumps, and politician corruption. But we are just getting starting, the well of political class insanity is endless and we will dive into that well again 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

January, 2014 Political Class Insanity, Part 5: Taxpayers Lose, Farmers Win, NYC Tourism Loses, and Double Agents in Washington

This is the fifth post this month trying to cover the latest political class insanity, idiocy, incompetence, and wasteful spending of the American political class. It is not easy keeping up with these people’ never ending quest to enrich themselves at the expense and freedom of the vast majority of Americans. There antics and failures would be hilarious if they were not so damaging to our freedom and wallets.

The first of this month’s series can be accessed at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/01/january-2014-political-class-insanity_5.html

1) Think Washington politicians know what they are doing when it comes to economic management, strategy, and policy? Consider the grim findings that were released by the U.S. Census Bureau in mid September:

• During the four years of President Obama’s first term in office, the real median income of American households dropped by $2,627.
• During the same time, the number of Americans living in poverty increased by approximately 6,667,000.
• The year Obama was elected, real median household income in the United States was $53,644 according to the Census Bureau. 
• In 2012, the last full year of Obama’s first term, median household income was $51,017. Thus, real median household income dropped $2,627,or 4.89%, from 2008 to 2012.
• Real median household income dropped in every year of Obama's first term. In 2008, when he was elected, it was $53,644. In 2009, the year he was inaugurated, it dropped to 53,285. In 2010, his second year in office, it dropped to $51,892. In 2011, his third year in office, it dropped to $51,100. And, in 2012, his fourth year in office, it dropped to $51,017.
• In 2008 there were approximately 39,829,000 people living in poverty in this country. In 2012, there were 46,496,000. 
• That is an increase of approximately 6,667,000, or16.73 percent, from 2008 to 2012.
• The number of people in poverty increased during three of the four years of Obama's first term--taking a slight dip from 2010 to 2011, but then rising again from 2011 to 2012. 
• In 2008, there were 39,829 people in poverty in the U.S. In 2009, it climbed to 43,569. In 2010, it climbed again to 46,343. In 2011, it dipped to 46,247. And, in 2012, it climbed to an all-time high 46,496.

Yes, the economy is doing somewhat better but only for certain segments of the nation: those that live and work in the Washington metro area (the “Hunger Games“ syndrome), those that work in the banking and financial industry, and hackers that are fleecing Obama Care’s data systems for identify thieves. The vast number of Americans are substantially poorer and less well off since 2008 despite an energy revolution, record low interest rates for record lengths of time, and record levels of stimulus spending. 

In other words, Washington’s politicians are clueless when it comes to economic matters.

2) On November 27, 2013 the wonderful website Bankrupting American provided some Thanksgiving dinner table topics for discussion relative to what most people were eating. The website pointed out that farm incomes likely increased about 15% just in 2012 alone, rising to a 40 year high. 

A lot of that increase in wealth was not the result of hard work or creative farming but billions and billions of dollars that are given to the farming industry by the Federal government and Washington politicians, all funded by the American taxpayer. However, a lot of these billions do not go to the traditional American family farm. They are awarded to wealthy farming conglomerates, not average farmers. 

According to the Environmental Working Group, the top 10% of American farms suck up a whopping 75% of all Federal subsidies. The average payout for the top 10 percent is $32,043 annually versus $604 for the bottom 80%. Additionally, 62% of farmers do not receive any Federal subsidies. 

Who gets these taxpayer gifts in a time of record high farm profits? The website highlights the top industry segments:

1. American taxpayers spent $84.4 billion on subsidies to corn growers between 1995 and 2012. These funds went to 1.642 million growers for an average payment of $51,400.
2. American taxpayers spent $35.5 billion on subsidies to wheat growers between 1995 and 2012. These funds went to 1.376 million growers for an average payment of $25,799.
3. American taxpayers spent $32.9 billion on subsidies to cotton growers between 1995 and 2012. These funds went to just 264,952 growers for an average payment of $124,173.
4. American taxpayers spent $504 million on subsidies to sugar beet and apple growers between 1995 and 2012. These funds went to about 17,657 growers for an average payment of $28,544.
5. American taxpayers spent $4.1 billion on subsidies for livestock between 1995 and 2012. These funds went to about 815,282 growers for an average payment of $5,029. 

These five examples total out to just over $157 BILLION in farm subsides. Thus, over the 1995 to 2012 timeframe, the average American family paid the U.S. farming industry about $1,400 per household in subsidies. And as the Bankrupting America website points out and what we have previously reported on, most of this money went to large farming conglomerates that earn billions of dollars in revenue and profits every year. Obscene to have this going on when most Americans are struggling and farming as an industry is earning record profits.

Of course, this does not happen unless there is a link between Washington politicians and campaign contributions from large farming business. Consider Archer Daniels Midland as an example, one of the largest agriculture corporations in the world. According to the campaign finance tracking website, Open Secrets: 

• Archer Daniels Midland contributed over $864 thousand dollars to political campaigns last year, placing it in the highest 2% of all contributors to political campaigns.
• Archer Daniels Midland spent over $1.4 million on lobbying in 2013, placing it in the highest 8% of companies with official lobbying expenses last year.

The equation is simple: spend millions in political campaign contributions and receive billions in taxpayer funded subsidies. All while the median income of American households continues to plummet.

3) Political class insanity is not restricted to the Federal wing of the American political class. Consider a recent example of insanity form New York City, courtesy of its new mayor, Mayor Bill de Blasio says. It is no secret that the vast majority New York City’s public schools stink when it comes to providing a good, solid education for public school kids. I am sure there are many other issues including high unemployment, criminal activities, crumbling infrastructure, etc., that the good mayor needs to get to work on. 

But all of these real problems will have to wait. Within four days of his inauguration, the Mayor has declared that the city needs to get rid of horse drawn carriages on city streets, a romantic fixture of New York city for lord knows how long.

I am not aware of any widespread abuse of horses used on New York streets to give tourists rides. If there were, I would be the first to ask for a crackdown on animal abuse. But apparently, according to news reports I have read, it is only the mayor’s opinion that the animals are working under terrible conditions. 

He proposes that the horse drawn carriages be replaced with electric cars so that the New Yorkers who make a living off of the horse drawn carriage business to not lose their jobs. As if visitors to New York cannot wait to get a romantic ride around town in a …electric car. Guess fixing the roads, and schools and crime rate will have to wait New York. Insanity.

4) The Associated Press reported on December 7, 2013 that Theodore H. Moran, a renowned expert on China's international investment, a professor at Georgetown University and a longtime adviser to the U.S. Director of National Intelligence was forced resigned. Why was he forced to resign? After four years, the Federal government finally figured out he has worked as a paid consultant for Huawei Technologies Ltd., a Chinese company the U.S. has condemned as an espionage threat.

Moran had served since 2007 as both an adviser to the intelligence director's advisory panel on foreign investment in the United States. At the same time he was an adviser to the National Intelligence Council, a group of 18 senior analysts and policy experts who provide U.S. spy agencies with judgments on important international issues. Moran had a security clearance granting him access to sensitive government and national security materials.

In 2012, the House Intelligence Committee concluded that Huawei and another Chinese company, ZTE, were a threat that could allow Chinese intelligence agencies to tamper with American communications networks. The committee recommended that the two companies be barred from doing business in the country: "To the extent these companies are influenced by the state or provide Chinese intelligence services access to telecommunication networks, the opportunity exists for further economic and foreign espionage by a foreign nation-state already known to be a major perpetrator of cyber espionage." 

Great, it takes the government four years to figure out that one of its top security analysts and experts was actually working both sides of the fence. The really sad about thing about this security breach is that Moran is quoted in the AP article of saying that he was totally transparent in what businesses he was associated, claming that he told the National Intelligence Council in 2010 that he had a relationship with Huawei. Talk about incompetence.

So, let’s review. American households lose, farming conglomerates win, New York City tourism loses, and a high ranking government security analysts wins by playing for both our team and the Chinese team. Insanity.

That will do it for today. A few more days of insanity should be enough to finally cover the horror and idiocy that that political class created in the past month or so.

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

The Fallacy and Disgrace That Are Farm Subsides, Part 2: Why Do The Subsides Persist?

Yesterday we explored the inner workings of the latest farm subsidy bill being cooked up in Washington. The bill continues the ugly tradition of using taxpayer wealth to serve the political needs of both Democrats and Republicans in Congress. This perversion of what was supposed to be a temporary government program during the Great Depressions has morphed into a corrupt, take form the poor and give to the rich government redistribution of wealth.

As we reviewed yesterday, struggling farmers are no longer the primary beneficiaries of the government's farm subsidies. Most of the money goes to giant farming companies whose revenue streams are in the billions of dollars annually. 

Individual millionaires in America who just happen to own what the government considers farm land get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars and in some cases, millions of dollars, to not farm. These rich Americans getting farm subsides include rock and rollers Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi, former Presidents like Jimmy Carter, media magnates like Ted Turner, and thousands of people who live in NYC, hardly prime farm country. 

Today we will consider the reasons why these egregious examples of enhancing the rich continue to take place. Consider Archer Daniels Midland. According to the Open Secrets website that tracks campaign contributions, in 2012 Archer Daniels Midland-related campaign contributors forked over $864,374 to political campaigns and politicians. This ranked them 472 of 21,023 companies which contributed campaign funds, which put them in the top 2-3% of all political donors. 

They also spent over $1.4 million in government lobbying expenses in 2012, which ranked them 350 of 4,374, which put them in the top 8% of lobbying entities. Is there any surprise then that they are a major recipient of taxpayer farm subsidy wealth when they funnel this kind of money to the Washington political class for the benefit of their bottom line?

Springsteen, Turner, and Bon Jovi have been major supporters of the Democratic politicians in Washington over the years. The Rockefeller family has historically been involved in politics on the Republican side. You scratch my back with subsidies, I will scratch you back with political campaign funding, and together we can both screw the American taxpayer. 

Disgraceful and pathetic. Which gets us back to our original set-up: Should the Federal government continue to support a very small number of wealthy American companies, wealthy American celebrities, and wealthy American farmers with billions and billions of taxpayer dollars every year or should the money be repurposed to serve a much wider array of American citizen interests such as debt control, tax relief, job retraining, or disease prevention and cure research?

To me, that answer is simple and has two parts. First, farm subsidies, while they may have had a purpose seven decades ago in the midst of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, they have no role today for the vast amount of the American farm industry since most of the American farm industry is no longer small American farms. This is a political fundraising front, nothing more.

If society thinks it is a good idea to support family farms, than that is what the program should be about. But it should be for active farmers, not celebrity farmers, it should be for non-millionaire farmers, and it should not be for farming entities that have tens of billions of revenue dollars flowing to it annually.

Second, given that seven decades worth of American politicians have not had the gumption, integrity, and intelligence to stop this rip off of the American taxpayer, the need for term limits is even more obvious. We must find a away to eliminate the perpetual incumbent reelection cycle that needs the farm subsidy program to help fund and finance the perpetual reelection campaign. Term limits would go a long way to ending this needless waste of taxpayer money.

You can join this term limit effort at:

www.howmuchworsecoudlitget.com

Because really, today we are already unnecessarily giving our taxpayer money to larger corporations, rich musicians, rich farmers, wealthy New Yorkers, bankers, and doctors, how much worse could it get if we had term limits for all Washington politicians?

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

The Fallacy And Disgrace That Are Government Farm Subsidies, Part 1: Taking From The Poor And Giving To The Rich

Before we talk about the latest example of how the Federal government and Washington political class take from the poor and middle class and give to their wealthy political connections and supporters, let’s review a few background realities:

• The national debt is fast approaching $17 TRILLION, or over a $50,000 debt burden for every man, woman, and child in the country. Given the debt situation, no tax dollars should be wasted in any form whatsoever.
• There are over 20 million Americans who are either unemployed or under employed in the country. Given this horrid employment situation, any tax dollars that could retrain Americans for work would be a societal benefit.
• While the average household income for all American households has dropped considerably SINCE THE RECESSION ENDED, the household income of the wealthier households in this country has risen over the past several years.
• Major diseases such as cancers and aging diseases in our aging population still take a horrific toll on our citizens. Any tax dollars that could stem the medical and personal suffering costs of these Americans would be both humane and pay dividends down the road from decreased national health care costs.

I put forth these realities in the context of the Federal government’s farm bill. The August 16, 2013 issue of The Week magazine put forth a scathing and fact filled review of the farm bill and farm subsidies and how waste, stupidity, and political cronyism are all at work with this bill. 

As you read through the following facts, as laid out in The Week’s weekly Briefing column, think about whether the farm bill’s funding is better spent making the wealthy wealthier or if that taxpayer wealth should be repurposed back into the wallets of poor and middle class families to increase their shrinking household income, used to relieve our overbearing national debt burden, retrain Americans for employment, or be diverted into medical research for the pressing diseases of our time. I will tell you ahead of time, based on The Week’s research, any of these efforts would certainly be more worthwhile than  what the Washington political class is doing with our money today relative to the farming industry.

The following facts, realities, and disgraces is what the article, along with other data from cited and related sources, found out to be true:

1) In the past 10 years, the Federal government has given the farm industry $168 billion of taxpayer wealth, used to theoretically protect farmers from the fates of weather, price, and economic conditions.

2) Thus, the average American family annually gives farmers and farming companies/conglomerates about $1500 over that time frame.

3) But this money does not typically go to small, family farms. 75% of the $168 billion payout went to just the biggest 10% of farm-related companies such as Riceland Foods, Inc., Pilgrims Pride, Inc., and Archer Daniels Midland, all hardly quaint, small family farms.

4) As a background fact, in 2012, Archer Daniels Midland’s financial statements show a  gross operating revenue of about $89 BILLION and a profit of over $3.4 BILLION. Makes one wonder why every American taxpayer needs to pay taxes to subsidize payments to a mega-profitable company like this.

5) But it is not just big companies that receive taxpayer farm support. The Week article points out that Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, former President Jimmy Carter, and media mogul Ted Turner also get paid handsomely for the “farm property” they own.

6) Some quick research from the Celebrity Net Worth website  estimates that Springsteen is personally worth $200 million, Bon Jovi is worth about $125 million, Carter is worth about $5 million, and Turner is worth about $2 billion. Which raises the same question that we posed relative to companies like Archer Daniels Midland: why are these fabulously rich people getting taxpayer money under the farm subsidy program?

7) Over the past ten years, farm subsidies have been paid out to over 1,500 residents of Manhattan in New York City. 374 of these payouts have gone to people living in the wealthy and posh Upper East Side of Manhattan, hardly a poverty area or a farming mecca. A sample of those in NYC who have gotten taxpayer farm money include:

• Mark F. Rockefeller (yes, of those Rockefellers) was paid $342,634 NOT to farm his land in Idaho.
• A managing director of Wells Fargo bank.
• A neurologist.

“Payments are going to people in Manhattan who have simply invested in farmland and are about as far away from farmland as you can imagine. That should really make people wonder what on earth has happened to the farm program,” Craig Cox of the Environment Working Group.

8) All farmers have seen double digit growth in the value of their farmland in each of the past three years despite droughts and high temperatures.

9) The average annual household income of farmers is about 60% higher than the average household income of all American families.

10) “The typical American farmer has literally millions of dollars of wealth,” according to Dan Sumer, an agricultural economist at the University of California at Davis. You cannot make that statement for the vast majority of American households who actually pay the farm subsidies.

11) The farm subsidy bill actually pays some farmers NOT to grow crops into order to keep crop prices high, i.e. you reduce supply and prices go up. Thus, the American consumer not only pays for farmers not to grow crops but they then get whacked again with higher prices at the supermarket.

12) As with many Federal government programs, the farm subsidy fiasco was meant to be a temporary short term fix to the problems facing farmers during the Great Depression. Over 70 years later, what was supposed to be temporary is now pretty permanent.

What a disgrace. Higher prices for consumers, more wealth for the wealthy. If any program was ripe for getting terminated in these times of high taxes and higher national debt, it would be the entire farm subsidy infrastructure.

So why hasn’t it been killed for the good of the country? As The Week correctly points out, the only reason it exists is politics. Many of the farmers and farming conglomerates that receive taxpayer wealth are in states that lean Republican. Historically, the food stamp and food assistance Federal programs were hidden in the farm bills of the past, a key aspect for Democrats. 

Thus, the farm bill ensures that  major constituents of both parties get wealthy at our expense while incumbent Washington politicians get continual funding for their perpetual reelection campaigns. Everybody wins except the poor and middle class taxpayers in this country who fund this circuit of corruption. We will explore this corruption more fully tomorrow and why it persists.

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

The 18 Largest Failures Of The Washington Political Class, Part 1

We have been pretty hard on Obama Care over the past week or so. It has failed in so many ways, financially, operationally, logically, etc. It deserves the mantle of worst piece of legislation ever enacted by the Federal government. To prove our point, let us refer you to the initial posts in two series of posts we did to cover the many, many failures of Obama Care, one series in August and one series in September:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/09/september-2013-obama-care-update-part-1.html

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/08/part-1-august-2013-obama-care-update.html

But a recent article in the Independent Journal Review reminded us that while Obama Care is the worst piece of legislation ever, the Federal government also has a quite impressive (in a negative way) history of 13 failed other major pieces of legislation. All of these failures cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars without ever coming close to resolving the problems that led to the enacting of new laws. In many cases, the enacting of legislation to remedy a problem actually made the problem worse. 

The first 14 failed pieces of legislation are from the original Independent Journal Review’s analysis and research. We have added a few of our own to this ignoble list that they did not cover or got to depressed to go on after doing the first 14.

1) Prohibition: For 14 years, the United States was officially “dry.” Problem was, it wasn’t. The black market flourished, as did crime, the Mafia and rampant violence. Enacted in 1919, it was finally repealed in 1933. But not before many people needlessly died, much taxpayer wealth was wasted, a permanent organized crime underworld was established, and many government entities and police departments were corrupted by bootlegger wealth. And we ended up right back where we started in 1919.

2) No Child Left Behind: Under President George W. Bush’s education program, Federal spending for schools more than doubled …and student test scores didn’t budge. We still lag behind much of the industrialized world. In most standardized international student tests, we usually rank some where between 20th and 30th in education effectiveness despite spending far more per student than any other country in the world.

It didn’t used to be that way though, before the Feds poured all the money, regulations, and rules into local schools, we were at the top of the list as far as educating our kids. For this miserable performance, we still pay out tens of billions of dollars every year to a useless Federal Department of Education.

3) Medicare: When Medicare began in 1965, it was estimated that it  would cost $9 billion per year by 1990. However, by 1990 the annual cost was $67 billion. Missed that forecast by just a bit, say being off by more than a factor of seven!

In 2013 the annual cost of Medicare is $390 billion. And are we that much healthier than we were 50 years ago despite paying more than 40 times what we paid as a nation in 1965? On an inflation adjusted basis, the GDP of the country in 2012 was less than four times the size of the GDP in 1965. 40 fold rise in Medicare costs vs. a less than four fold rise in the size of the economy. Something has gone terribly wrong.

Needless to say, this program is quickly approaching financial insolvency with no remedial plans in sight from the dysfunctional Washington political class.

4) Medicaid: Same deal and disgrace as Medicare. It was estimated to cost $100 million, now it costs $211 billion or more than two thousands times as much. Needless to say, this program is quickly approaching financial insolvency with no remedial plans in sight from the dysfunctional Washington political class.

5) Immigration reform: The number of illegal aliens entering this country has more than tripled since Reagan was President. Whether we should increase or decrease the flow of immigration, it’s clear the Federal government has no idea what its doing when it comes to securing our borders. Israel has secured its borders, making frequent terrorists attacks within their borders a thing of the past. It can be done, it just cannot be done by the Washington political class.

6) The War on Drugs: Since Nixon, we have spent over $1 trillion and incarcerated millions of Americans over relatively minor drug charges. This is one of the most spectacular failures of our government. 

And just like the establishment of a permanent domestic organized crime underworld during Prohibition, our failed war on drugs has created massive, violent, well financed, and efficient drug cartels in Mexico and beyond, cartels that threaten legitimate governments and corrupt police, judges, and government officials worldwide.

7) Farm subsidies: Paying farmers not to grow crops? And many times we are not even paying real farmers. The August 16, 2013 issue of The Week magazine pointed out that in the past, millionaires like Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, Ted Turner, Jimmy Carter, a number of Rockefellers, and other millionaire non-farmers were able to collect taxpayer wealth because of how farm subsidies work in this country. Insanity.

8) Ethanol: Over the last 30 years, the Federal government has given out almost $45 billion in taxpayer wealth to support the ethanol industry. The original purpose was to save the environment by having cars and trucks use ethanol in their vehicle gas tanks as a surrogate for oil. Problem? It’s inefficient, more polluting in several other ways,  and raises the price of corn and makes food more inaccessible for the world’s hungry. Genius.

9) “Green Jobs:” When he was elected, President Obama launched an all-out campaign to kick start the Green Economy. I think at last count the administration had handed out nearly $40 billion to dozens of “green companies,” many of which were owned by people who had made substantial financial donations to Obama’s election campaigns.

End result of this cronyism? $40 billion or so given out with virtually no societal benefit in return and a sorry trail of bankrupt or near bankrupt companies such as Solyndra, Spectra, Evergreen, A123, and probably dozens of others.

This is the first half of the 18 worst failures of the Washington political class. Pretty depressing, wouldn't you say? The bad news is that we will cover the other half of the 18 biggest failures tomorrow. The good news is that we provide a potential solution to finally turn failure into success in time for our kids and our grandkids.

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