The Horrors and Destruction that Donald Trump Has Imposed On America...Just Kidding! Part 8

Before we start today’s discussion, let’s review my voting history: 

• I have never voted for a Republican for President in my life. 
• Thus, I did not vote for Trump. 
• I have rarely voted for a Republican for national office in my life. 

A about 18 months ago, many liberals, Democrats, and millennials were besides themselves with grief and fear because their pre-ordained queen, Hillary Clinton, was not elected President. Instead, Donald Trump was elected, an individual that these same people despised, hated, and feared, an individual they felt would endanger and possibly destroy the country and our democracy. For the past year and a half they fretted, worried and lashed out at anything or anyone that even remotely smelled of Donald Trump.

Given that Trump has been in office for about 18 months, I thought, that as someone who did not vote for him, it would be a good idea to review the horror, trauma, and terrible things that Trump has subjected the country to in just eighteen month’s time. This is obviously a very sarcastic comment when you take an unbiased look at what has happened during the Trump Presidency. The many previous posts we did on this topic identified over 120 good things that have happened to America and Americans since Trump became President:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald_31.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald_27.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald.html

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-horrors-and-destruction-that-donald.html

But those posts were not enough to cover the good things that have happened since the election. I found another set of ways why the country is better off since Trump came into office and thus, today we add to that list:

- The latest Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the African-American unemployment rate hit a record low in May, at 5.9% it was down an amazing .7% from the month before.

-The unemployment rate for Hispanic workers was 4.9% slightly worse than the record low of 4.8% set the month before.

- Unemployment rate for white workers dropped to 3.5%.

- Total wages were up 2.7% in April vs. the previous April.

- The unemployment rate for women was 3.6%, the lowest level since 1953.

- Those older than 24 years old without a high school diploma had an unemployment rate of 5.4%, close to the lowest level ever, while wages for this group of people was up an amazing 10% over the same time last year.

- Overall unemployment for the country is down to 3.8%, an 18 year low.

- The economy created 223,000 jobs in April, almost double the number of jobs needed to keep up with natural population growth.

- Previous months’ job estimates were raised by 15,000.

- The Atlanta Federal Reserve chapter estimates that GDP will rise an amazing 4.8% in the second quarter.

- Retail sales rose 4.7% in April, 2018 vs. April, 2017.

- In May, average hourly earnings for all private-sector employees rose by 8 cents, totaling a 71-cent increase over the year before which is the largest annual increase since 2009.

- So far, over 4 million American workers have received a pay raise and/or bonus because of the Trump tax reforms.

- Three million incremental Americans have found a job since Trump became President.

- The Consumer Confidence Index rose to 128, up from a revised 125.6 in April according to the Conference Board.

- The U.S. now has the most competitive economy in the world, according to the IMD World Competitiveness Center.

- The summit meeting between the U.S and North Korea is back on track with a tentative date of June 12, a possible first step to reining in North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

- Initial plans are underway for a Trump/Putin summit to smooth out the many difference between the U.S. and Russia.

- Shortly after freeing three American hostages from North Korea, the Trump administration successfully freed an American hostage held in Venezuela.

- Trump has signed a set of executive orders that make it much easier to fire Federal employees that do not do their jobs.

- Trump continues to hold European NATO allies accountable to their NATO promise and commitment to have their military expenditures be at least a certain percentage of their GDP with Germany agreeing with him that it was underfunding its military forces relative to the NATO requirements and dictating to its military people to increase funding requests.

Another twenty three reasons to add to the previous 120 or so reasons why the first year and a few months of the Trump Presidency has not wrought disaster on the country.

For those of you that have hated on Trump since day one, and given your obvious gross error in judgment relative to Trump, let me ask that you to do us all a favor by implementing the following changes in your behavior and attitude:

• Chill out, tamp down your TDS affliction. No matter how much you hate Trump on a sexist, personal basis, get over it. He is the legally and duly elected President, he will be around for a while so refocus your hatred on more constructive issues and matters. You will live a lot longer if you take your hatred out of your heart and soul and devote it to something positive.
• I would really appreciate it if some of you would apologize to the Trump voters you have disrespected in some of the grossest terms possible over the past year. You have called millions of voters racists, ignorant, stupid, Nazis, KKK members, and other horrible names simply because you disagreed with their voting choice. No American should be called such disgusting names simply because they exercised their Constitutional rights to the best of their abilities. Plus, slandering over 60 million Americans is no way to unite the country and get it focused on the real issues facing us all.
• More personally, I would like, no I am demanding, an apology from some of you for your slanderous and disgusting name calling because in doing so, you insulted and disrespected my sister, my family members, my friends, and my co-workers who simply voted their conscience. I will defend their right to vote anyway they wanted and will no put up with your childish and vicious venom and bile directed at them, very important people in my life
• And finally, I challenge you to read the following blog post, a post that shows quite clearly that it was hateful people like some of you and your silence during the Obama years that actually caused Trump to be elected. Thus, the people you hate for voting for Trump are actually looking back at you in the mirror:

https://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2016/03/how-american-liberals-and-washington.html

If you were silent in the dozens of instances listed in this post then you were responsible for the very thing you hate: a Trump Presidency. Or put another way, a so far successful and productive Trump Presidency. Over 140 accomplishments in a little more than a year is not too shabby despite many of you wanting both Trump and the country to fail.

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

June, 2017, Part 5, Political Class Insanity: Medical Ripoffs, NATO Ripoffs and Education Taxpayer Ripoffs

As we do every month, we review the latest idiocy, lunacy, ineptness, and general insanity from the American political class. We are getting started as little late this month since we needed to review the latest global warming.climate change insanity from the likes of Al Gore, culminating in our review of the 26 reasons why it was appropriate and necessary for Trump to pull us out of the Paris Climate Agreement:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2017/06/june-2017-part-4-i-am-global-warming.html

But let’s quickly get into this month’s political class insanity because over the past month or so there has been a lot of it was Washington implodes into a useless pile of incompetence:

1) We have often pointed out how horribly most public schools educate our kids these days. Despite spending trillions of dollars at every level of government over the past few decades to educate our kids, the results have almost always been abysmal. Our kids usually rank behind the kids of dozens of other countries whenever scores on standardized tests are compiled despite the trillions of dollars spent, and wasted, on education in this country.

And apparently things do not get much better for many of our college graduates either. Consider a recent report by Douglas Belkin, writing for the Wall Street Journal:

• The College Learning Assessment Plus test (CLA+) is administered to freshmen and seniors at about 200 U.SA. college across the country.
• After four years, the test results are compared between the freshmen test results and the senior year test results.
• The test is meant to determine the critical thinking skills of our college graduates, not what they think or know but how they think and reason.
• The latest results show that at more than half of the 200 schools using the test, more than a third of college graduates “were unable to make a cohesive argument, assess the quality of evidence in a document and interpret data in a table.”
• At some of the most prestigious, and expensive colleges, in the testing program, the ability to improve thinking skills from freshman year to senior year showed little or no improvement.

As the world and technology change more and more rapidly, those college graduates that have no ability to think clearly, reasonably, and logically will not only leave themselves behind but also help the country remain more and more uncompetitive vs. the rest of the world. All of this despite trillions and trillions of dollars wasted in this country on educating our kids.

And when an outsider comes into the picture, someone like Betsy DeVos, to try and change what is obviously a failed approach to education, from Head Start through college, the political establishment players go crazy. They would prefer the failed, expensive and current policies then even try to do something different.

What did Einstein say once: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” We are truly insane then when it comes to education.

2) Some people both in this country and in Europe got really upset when Trump dared to suggest that most members of NATO were not living up to their commitment to defend themselves and the NATO alliance. Given that Obama allowed these European allies to slide by for eight years without doing what they committed to do trained the Europeans to lash out when someone actually told them the truth.

But Trump was right when you consider the numbers and realities. As the U.S. continues to spend more than half a trillion dollars a year to defend itself and NATO allies during the Obama regime, consider what the Europeans were doing, as reported in a recent Wall Street Journal article:

• Although during the Cold War the Netherlands maintained a tank force of 445 tanks, by 2015 they had put its last 60 tanks up for sale and had sold off all of its helicopters and most of its minesweepers.
• During the Cold War, Germany had over 2,100 tanks but now has only 244 of which about half actually work.
• As of last year on average, 9 of German’s 48 NH-90 transport helicopters and 40 of its just 123 jet fighters were usable at any one time.
• Today, European NATO forces have less than half of the number of soldiers today vs. 1983 and less than half the number of tanks.
• The European NATO forces had 84 destroyers in 1983 but only 54 today, it had 2,672 fighter planes in 1983 but only 1,897 today, and it had 173 frigates but only 92 today.

This the reality that Trump was talking about and why he was looking out for the American taxpayer: why should we continue to pay for a defense of Europe when Europe is not willing to pay for a defense of itself. Trump was doing what all American Presidents should be doing: looking out for the welfare of Americans and America.

3) We recently reviewed the reality that the Federal government wastes or criminally loses at least $144 billion a YEAR from its government programs with Medicare and Medicaid, the main Federal health insurance programs, wasting the vast majority of that $144 billion. 

A recent article in the AARP magazine described a medical scam that was going on in California and illustrated that it is not always seedy street criminals who are stealing money via health care scams, those stealing of money from insurance companies and Medicare and Medicaid are often doctors themselves. 

While the article’s details, highlighted below, are not directly connected to Medicare and Medicaid and taxpayer ripoffs, it does illustrate what is likely going on within the criminal activities relative to those programs also:

• California state officials recently announced that a group of doctors, pharmacists, and others were arrested for ripping off $40 million from state insurance companies.
• Twenty six people were arrested in the fraud investigation.
• 13,000 victims were ripped off as were 27 insurance companies.
• A husband and wife couple who owned a medical billing and medical management companies allegedly recruited doctors and pharmacists to provide unnecessary treatments and medicine that were illegally billed through insurance companies.
• Part of the scheme involved pharmacists creating medicinal and unnecessary ointments, ointments that had no medical value, that cost very little to produce but were billed anywhere from $200 to $750 per ointment tube.
• Another part of the scheme had doctors prescribing unnecessary urine tests that were, of course, criminally billed to insurance companies.

You get the idea. If the insurance companies could not catch the criminals before $40 million was ripped off, you can imagine how many billions of dollars are currently be ripped off by doctors and pharmacists via Medicare and Medicaid using similar scams. That is how easily inept Federal government programs can lose tens of billions of dollars over the years.

That will do it for today’s insanity: medical and insurance ripoffs, European nations using American taxpayers to fund their defense, and trillions of taxpayer dollars spent but our kids are still massively under educated. More insanity to follow.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:


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

May, 2015, I Am A Global Warming Doubter and A Believer In Science: The Science Is NOT Settled, Germany Increases Its Carbon Footprint And Chicken Little's Doomed Forecasts

Every month we revisit the theme, “I am a global warming doubter and a believer in science.” The theme started when I got tired of people like Al Gore and others yelling and slandering anyone who dared to disagree with their view of global warming, since then rebranded as “climate change.” Yelling and demeaning people is no way to win them over to your view, which is what the Al Gores of the world are still doing.

Thus, we set off to explore ALL science, research, and realities relative to global warming, not just the handpicked science that global warming advocates cherry pick. What we have found through the years is that it is very realistic and in tune with the real world to be a global warming doubter and a believer in science.

Much science and research has been shown to debunk Al Gore’s way of thinking and slandering. And we have brought counter evidence to his view of the world every month for years. To access those previous posts, just enter the search term "I am a global warming doubter” in the search box above. 

Our intention is to start an adult, mature, science based conversation based on all available information. That has certainly not been the intention of Al Gore types. They have wanted to browbeat their views into disbelievers heads. And even if they are right about global warming, which we have proven they are quite possibly wrong about, they come up with no plans that would reunite the world around a solution. 

They only want the United States to curtail their carbon footprint, a reduction that would be dwarfed by the increasing carbon footprint of the rest of the world, especially China and India. All they would end up doing is briefly forestalling their end result while crippling the economic growth and vitality of the United States.

With that background, let’s look at what the global warming/climate change hysteria has brought us in the past month or so.

1) I always get a kick when Barack Obama, Al Gore, or other global warming advocate claim that “the science is settled.” This implies that anyone who is not in lockstep with them cannot possibly have any kind of science literacy or knowledge. We have shown many times that it is not the case by quoting, referencing, and citing numerous and solid scientific research efforts and scientists that do not agree with the Al Gores of the world.

The latest example of such a scientist is Dr. Harold Lewis, Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Until recently, Dr. Lewis was apparently a member of the American Physical Society, which I gather is a professional organization of physicists. 

He recently resigned from that organization when he sent a wicked letter to Curtis G. Callan Jr. of Princeton University, claiming that man made global warming and climate change theories were politics parading as science and that the American Physical Society was a facilitator of that fraud. His entire letter can be read at:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100058265/us-physics-professor-global-warming-is-the-greatest-and-most-successful-pseudoscientific-fraud-i-have-seen-in-my-long-life/

The following are some of the excerpts from that letter: 

…the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist….

…The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one. In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.) In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer “explanatory” screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is. This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake…

I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club. Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don't have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I'm not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.

A quick review of what an emeritus professor and scientist thinks about man made global warming and climate change: scam, corruption, pseudoscience, appalling, pompous, asinine, embarrassed, fraud.

Seems like the science is not settled at least for this scientist and professor. Look, I do not know if this professor and his colorful adjectives are right or wrong. But I do know that I am tired of being lied to that all scientists agree that Al Gore is spot on right with his views. Simply not the case.

2) New York Times writer Thomas Friedman recently wrote an editorial entitled, “Germany, the Green Superpower.” Friedman applauds that country’s effort to move from coal to renewable energy sources like wind and solar, known as Energiewende, calling it a smashing success: “…what the Germans have done in converting almost 30 percent of their electric grid to solar and wind energy from near zero in about 15 years has been a great contribution to the stability of our planet and its climate. The centerpiece of the German Energiewende, or energy transformation, was an extremely generous “feed-in tariff” that made it a no-brainer for Germans to install solar power (or wind) at home and receive a predictable high price for the energy generated off their own rooftops.”

What is this so-called feed-in tariff? Well, it was established in 1991 as part of the Electricity Feed-in Act and it requires that renewable energy sources “have priority on the grid and that investors in renewable must receive sufficient compensation to provide a return on their investment irrespective of electricity prices on the power exchange.” In other words, if you are providing electricity from alternative, renewable sources, you get subsidized from the German taxpayer. 

Apparently, it is true that Germany has increased their use of renewable energy sources substantially which now generate over 25 percent of German electricity from renewable sources with wind and solar making up nearly 15 percent of total electricity production. All of this is a good thing, particularly if you are an Al Gore advocate.

But at what cost has this level of renewables been attained? Some figures and positions from the the Institute for Energy Research (IER) shows that the cost has been extremely high:

• Residential German electricity prices are nearly three times higher than electricity prices in the U.S.
• Higher electricity energy prices as a result of forced usage of renewables has also helped retard business growth as domestic manufacturers look elsewhere for cheaper energy to stay profitable. 
• The Federation of German Industries has warned that German manufacturers could “lose a competitive edge against rivals in the United States, where the boom in the unconventional shale gas production has led to a sharp drop in industrial energy costs.”
• As a result of these high prices, as many as 800,000 Germans have had their power cut off because of an inability to pay for rising energy costs.
• The cost to expand Germany’s transmission networks to integrate renewables already officially stands at $33.6 billion.
• German electric grid operators say that the $33.6 billion accounts “for only a fraction of the cost of the energy transition,” meaning that billions of dollars have been heaped upon the German electricity users beyond the ongoing tripled electricity rates.
• This has resulted in highly beneficial business models for the producers, not the users, of renewable energy sources. For example, in 2009 the feed-in tariff price for photovoltaic solar power was a whopping eight times more than the wholesale price of electricity.
• The other big benefactor of the German renewable strategy has been the Chinese solar panel industry, i.e. German consumers are subsidizing manufacturing in China while their electric rates skyrocket.
• Even supporters of renewables have a problem with this financial situation. Ralf Fücks, the president of the German Green Party’s political foundation, as saying, “In my view, the greatest success of the German energy transition was giving a boost to the Chinese solar panel industry.”
• Despite the increase of renewables for power, Germany has increased its use of coal after the nuclear reactor meltdown in Japan in 2011, which has increased Germany’s carbon footprint:

So a country that has been trying for over twenty years to reduce its carbon footprint, as Al Gore would have them do, has resulted in increased energy costs, decreased economic growth from manufacturing, and has increased the country’s carbon footprint. Not a model that this country should try to emulate but one that Obama would have us do even though it has failed miserably in Germany.

3) Of course, people like Al Gore will continue to yell and rant and rave that we must do something IMMEDIATELY for global warming and climate change or all is lost. Despite the German experience, despite the fact that some/many scientists are calling the bluff of people like Gore, despite the fact that climate and temperatures have changed many times in the Earth's history, despite the fact that all climate models have been proven fatally flawed, the urgency is high for those that still believe.

The Daily Caller website recently went back through time and found other Al Gore types and “experts” calling for the same urgency years and decades ago. But despite their pleas and promises, nothing catastrophic has happened. Consider their dire predictions from long ago, all of which have been proven wrong:

• Eight years ago, the United Nations predicted we only had “as little as eight years left to avoid a dangerous global average rise of 2C or more.” Although this is a massively failed prediction, it has not stopped the U.N. from issuing more dire predictions since.
• When Laurent Fabius met with Secretary of State John Kerry on May 13, 2014 to talk about world issues he said “we have 500 days to avoid climate chaos.” This means that climate chaos is less than 12 weeks away.
• When Fabius made his 500 day prediction, the U.N. had already scheduled a climate summit to meet in Paris in December 2015, about 565 days after his remarks, making the U.N. meeting 65 days too late to save the world.
• In 2009, National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Space Flight Center head James Hansen warned that Obama only “has four years to save Earth.” Here we are six and half years later and ….nothing has happened, Earth is still here.
• Also in 2009, Elizabeth May, leader of the Greens Party in Canada wrote: “Earth has a long time. Humanity does not. We need to act urgently. We no longer have decades; we have hours." Needless to say that hourly prediction fell by the wayside pretty quickly.
• Still in 2009 (obviously a very bad year for climate predictions), United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown said there was only 50 days left to save Earth. Brown is now gone, politically speaking, but the Earth is still here.
• Another renowned British climate expert, Prince Charles, warned us in 2009 that we had only 96 months to save the planet. If he is right, we are down to our last 26 months before it is all over. And a Prince wouldn’t lie, would he?
• In 2007, Rajendra Pachauri, the former head of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that if “there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late.” Three years after his drop dead date, nothing has changed since 2007. Well, one thing changed. Pachauri was forced to resign earlier this year amid accusations he sexually harassed multiple female coworkers.
• In 2002, environmentalist George Monbiot wrote in the UK Guardian that within “as little as 10 years, the world will be faced with a choice: arable farming either continues to feed the world’s animals or it continues to feed the world’s people. It cannot do both.” But, according to the Daily Caller reporting, in 2002, around 930 million people were undernourished, according to U.N. data. But by 2014, that number shrank to 805 million. Missed that prediction, did we?
• The San Jose Mercury News reported on June 30, 1989 that a “senior environmental official at the United Nations, Noel Brown, says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed by the year 2000.” Fifteen years later and another prediction bites the dust.

Okay, what did we learn today:

• The science is not settled, many, many scientists are in disagreement with Al Gore and his advocates, including a Physics Professor Emeritus that spoke out above.
• Despite Germany’s best and determined effort, its attempt to reduce its carbon footprint with subsidies and forced actions has increased its carbon footprint, resulted in skyrocketing electricity costs, dampened manufacturing economic growth and made some Chinese solar panel manufacturers very rich.
• The urgency to do something, anything now before it is too late is really the same refrain that has been shouted at us for decades and it is a refrain that has never come true.

Thus, again this month, we prove that it is perfectly viable and accurate to be a global warming doubter and a believer in science. Those of us like this are still waiting for the Al Gores of the world to settle down, stop yelling at us, and have an adult conversation about what might very be a non-matter.

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

Memorial Day, 2013: A Soldier's Story and The Obama Scandals

This post original ran several years ago, also on Memorial Day. I am rerunning it again today to celebrate those brave Americans who fought, and sometimes died, in our past to protect our life, liberty, and freedoms. These thanks also extend to current members of our armed forces who are carrying on the tradition of their peers through the ages today

I think that it is especially appropriate in light of the serious, serious attacks on our freedoms that have come to the forefront in the past month. Unfortunately, these latest attacks and affronts to our freedoms do not come from tyrants and maniacs from far away.

These attacks are originating within elements of the American political class. The harassing of Americans via the IRS, the secret obtaining of news outlets telephone logs and sources, the coercion of religious organizations to violate their tenets and beliefs for a political program that is in conflict with these beliefs, and other egregious actions trample on our basic rights including freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religious choice, etc.

Our veterans did not fight and die in the face of foreign evil just to have their sacrifices be nullified for selfish, short term political gain. Hopefully, their many examples of courage and bravery provide us with the wisdom and strength to fight tyranny today and in the future, from both foreign AND domestic tyrants.

***********************************

No political ranting and raving today. No pointing out how the politicians continue to screw up the country, constantly denying and depriving us of our freedoms and liberties to the benefit of their political careers. Today is a day of remembrance, of the millions of Americans that have served the country in the past and in the present, many times sacrificing their lives for our freedom and liberty. Please spend a few minutes today thinking of them in any way possible and remembering that many of our fellow citizens and family members are on the front lines around the world today, facing serious danger, but unselfishly protecting us.

One soldier in particular is on my mind today. My father served in World War II with the 203rd Engineer Combat Battalion. It is my understanding that the 203rd came ashore at Omaha Beach in June, 1944, served across France, was involved in the Battle Of The Bulge in late 1944 and eventually made its way into Germany. It was destined for the Pacific Theater but had those plans cancelled when Japan surrendered. He was honorably discharged in late 1945.

I say that it was my understanding because my father rarely spoke of the war, I had to find out this information from secondary sources. He did not brag about his service, he did not boast of the battles he may or may not have seen, he did not regale us with tales of heroism.

It is also my understanding that he is not alone in this approach. Stories abound of similar attitudes among World War II veterans. They did what had to be done, often at great cost, to protect the country and the ideals it stands for. They did not consider themselves heroes, they just did what had to be done. They then returned to become regular citizens and got on with their lives. No egos, no self-centeredness, just a dedication to country and family.

I never thanked my father for his service in the fight for liberty and freedom, not sure growing up that I fully understood the sacrifices he and others made for us. I would like to do that today, seventeen years after he passed away. I would also like to hope that our politicians eventually realize what great costs have been expended to keep us free and that they re-dedicate themselves to maintaining freedom, for all Americans in so many different ways.

Making freedom the core of their service in politics and government should be their highest priority, not their re-election. May they for once forego their own egos and self-centeredness, for the good of the country, like our military people have done for centuries.

December, 2012, Economic and Financial Review, Part 2: The Economic Struggles of Young Americans, Rich Members Of Congress, More Pessimism, Teetering Europe

This is the second in a two part series we do every month where we review the latest economic and financial trends and statistics. Unfortunately, as we have done this each month this past year, we have found very little good news in the economic arena. Yesterday’s first post for this month discussed the continuing high unemployment situation, the growing pessimism of the American public and consumers, our probable drive off of the fiscal cliff, a still sluggish housing market, and lower than average overall economic growth.

Today’s post is not much more optimistic. In fact, it extends the pessimism discussion we reviewed yesterday.

1) The opinion polls reflecting the growing economic pessimism in the country reflected a gut feeling, an overall sense things are not going well in the economy. But an article from Moneynews from November 26, 2012 adds some solid statistics to this feeling of pessimism:

• In 1970, the average annual household income was $9,350, the average home cost $23,400, a gallon of gas cost 36 cents and the average car cost $3,900.
• In 2012 the average median income is $50,964, between a five and six fold increase over the past forty two years.
• This sounds like good news until we realize that the average home now costs $146,000 (over a six fold increase since 1970), we now pay an average of $3.43 for a gallon of gas (more than a nine fold increase), and the average car now costs $30,303 (an almost eight fold increase).

Thus, our feeling of doom and pessimism is not unfounded. It has become harder and harder to enjoy the simple things in life that previous Americans took for granted: a home for their family, a nice car, and the financial resources to enjoy the freedom that affordable gas and that nice car could create for Americans.

Given that we have previously reviewed how household income and household wealth has decreased dramatically over the past four years or so, the trend in this area is not good.

2) But the trend is even worse for younger Americans. Consider some statistics from a front page article in the November 18, 2012 edition of the Tampa Bay Times:

• 53.6% of college graduates under the age of 25 are unemployed or under employed.
• This compares to an unemployment/under employment figure of just under 15% for all Americans.
• 49% of 18 to 34 year old Americans have taken a job they don’t want just to be able to pay their bills.
• 24% of these younger Americans have taken an unpaid job just to get experience.
• 35% of younger Americans have gone back to school to combat their unemployment situation.
• 24% have moved back to live with their parents after living on their own
• Given these statistics, we have a whole generation of Americans, America’s future, that might be permanently stuck in the pessimism mode.

3) And the political class and Federal government have not made these young Americans’ plight any easier to overcome. Over the next year or so, severe and heavy Obama Care tax burdens will crush business expansion as businesses cut back on other expenses, including personnel expenses, to meet their increased Obama Care tax requirements.

The idiotic pronouncement from the Federal government that a full time worker is now any American who works more than thirty hours a week (vs. the standard, universally accepted 40 hour work week) will force the youngest Americans workers to, on average, lose work hours, earning power, and the chance to improve their lives.

Going over the fiscal cliff will take hundreds of billions of disposable income out of the economy, handing it over to the inefficient, crony infested Federal government and inept/corrupt political class. This will depress consumer and business spending and send the economy into another deep recession, restricting economic expansion and opportunity, especially harmful to younger Americans.

4) While younger Americans are struggling financially, members of Congress are doing quite well, especially Democrats. According to a recent Newsmax article, based on an analysis by Roll Call:

• Republican Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas is the richest member of Congress, with an estimated net worth of $305 million, the first time a Washington lawmaker has gone over the $300 million mark.
• Roll Call’s annual list of the 50 richest members of Congress reveals that seven of the top 10 are Democrats — and four of the 10 owe their fortunes to wealthy spouses.
• McCaul reported in 2010 that his wife had received assets as gifts from her parents, boosting his net worth from some $73 million to at least $294 million that year. His wife Linda is the daughter of Clear Channel Communications Inc. and founder Lowry Mays.
• Second on the 2012 list of wealthiest members of Congress is Senator John Kerry, D-Mass., up from No. 3 last year with a net worth of $199 million. His wife Teresa Heinz Kerry is the widow of the late Sen. H. John Heinz III of the Heinz ketchup fortune.
• At No. 3, down one place this year, is Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., at $141 million. Issa is the founder of Directed Electronics Inc., which makes car alarms.
• Next on the list is Senator Mark Warner, D-Va., at $86 million. He made his fortune as co-founder of Nextel Communications Inc.
• Senator Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V., is No. 5, with $83 million. He is the great-grandson of Standard Oil Co. founder John D. Rockefeller.
• He is followed by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., at $79 million. His wife Cynthia Blumenthal is the daughter of New York real estate mogul Peter Malkin.
• Another Democrat, Rep. Jared Polis of Colorado, is No. 7 with a net worth of $72 million. Much of his wealth comes from Blue Mountain Arts, his family’s greeting card and publishing business.
• Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, yet another Democrat, is No. 8 at $57 million. He is co-founder of Automatic Data Processing, a payroll processing company.
• Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., No. 9 on the list, owes her fortune to her husband Richard Blum, president and CEO of the private equity firm Blum Capital Partners LP. Her net worth is estimated at $42 million.
• Rep. Jim Renacci, R-Ohio, is No. 10 with a net worth of $37 million. He has significant investments in fast-food chains, electronics companies, pharmaceutical companies, and oil giants, according to Roll Call.
• House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California is at No. 13, with a net worth of $26 million, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is at No. 37 with $9 million.

I do not begrudge these people their wealth and assets, I do not envy their wealth. I have no knowledge that they gathered their wealth in an illegal or immoral mode (unless you consider marrying for money to be immoral!).

What I do worry about is that these folks have been very rich and in power in Washington for a very long time. Given that they have been responsible for the dire economic state of the country, especially the plight of younger Americans, I do believe that they are not capable of understanding the difficult economic times most Americans are going through and either do not know how or do not have the desire to fix the economy since there is no sense of urgency in their lives.

Another reason for term limits (Step 39 from “Love my Country, Loathe My Government”), incompetence.

5) And although we have not discussed the financial mess in Europe for a while, that does not mean it has improved. According to a Moneynews article form November 20, 2012, France recently had its government bonds’ ratings downgraded, the eurozone in total is moving further into a recession with the worst still to come and France and Germany are expected to show negative growth of 0.4% and 0.3%, respectively, in the fourth quarter, according to Deutsche Bank Research.

The European Commission estimates the economy will grow just 0.1% in 2013 and the chances of another downgrade for France in 2013 are growing. Given that Europe is a major user of U.S. exports, a softening of demand and economic conditions there will have serious economic downsides for our economy.

6) U.S. domestic manufacturing activity unexpectedly shrunk in November to its lowest level in more than three years. The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said in a Reuters article on December 3, 2012 that its index of national factory activity fell to 49.5 in November from 51.7 the month before:

• The index was shy of expectations of 51.3, according to a Reuters poll of economists.
• It was also the lowest since July 2009 when the U.S. economy was struggling in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
• When the index falls below 50 it indicates an eocnomic contraction is underway.
• "Since May the index has been very close to 50 and I think what we are seeing is that manufacturing has stalled and has yet to recover," said Christopher Low, chief economist at FTN Financial in New York.
• "Overall, today's report suggests that the manufacturing sector is likely to remain a weak point in the recovery for a few months yet," said Jeremy Lawson, an economist at BNP Paribas in a research note.

So, housing is still stalled, consumer attitudes are sinking into pessimism, and now it appears that manufacturing is stalling also.

  Sorry for the bad news over the past two days. But reality is what it is. And the reality is that over the past few decades, trusting established, or entrenched, politicians in Washington, has been to our economic detriment, not our benefit. Enjoy the view as we go over the fiscal cliff by the time we review the economic trends 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.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

How Would Our Politicians Have Handled The Hitler Mocking Finnish Dog?

A bit of a whimsical post today as we look into a theoretical situation and try to imagine how our political class may have handled a historical situation. The specific historical situation we are referring to was described in a January 7, 2011 Associated Press report. Historians found a set of World War II documents that revealed a weird obsession that Hitler's German government had with a Finnish dog.

A Finnish husband and wife owned a mixed breed dog that the wife, a German living in Finland who despised the Nazis, had named Hitler. The reason for the name: the dog raised his front paw in a manner that looked like the "Hail Hitler" salute we have all seen in historical footage when he heard the name"Hitler" mentioned.

This dog and its imitation of the Hitler salute made elements of the German government crazy:

• Just months prior to the Germans massive invasion of Russia, Germany's Foreign Office ordered its diplomats in Finland to gather evidence on the dog and its owner.
• The German Vice Consul in the Helsinki embassy documented the dog's behavior which was sent to Berlin.
• The husband was ordered to the German embassy in Helsinki to be questioned by the German embassy personnel about the dog and its salute.
• The husband claimed that the dog did it only a few times many years before and denied that he called the dog Hitler. The embassy personnel were doubtful of his truthfulness and wrote back to Berlin that he was lying.
• According to the article, three ministries in the German government, the Foreign Office, the Economy Ministry and Hitler's Chancellery, meticulously filed detailed reports on the dog.
• The Economy Ministry tried to get a German company to stop supplying the husband's Finnish business with products in an attempt to drive it out of business, an attempt that was unsuccessful.
• The Foreign Office explored ways to bring the husband to trial for insulting Hitler but could not come up with any witnesses to testify.

All of these resources eventually gave up doing anything in reprisal  for the dog's reputed behavior.

Talk about screwed up priorities. The German nation and its army is in the middle of a World War across two continents, it is about to launch an invasion of Russia that will be instrumental in deciding who wins and who loses the war, and extensive government resources are being used in an attempt to punish a dog for doing a probably cute imitation of the Hitler salute. Not only did they expend a lot of time and effort, nothing ever came of the pooch vendetta. The dog died of natural causes years later.

However, I am not sure that our political class and the government it runs could have done much better. How might our politicians handled the situation:

• They could not have used the Security and Exchange Commission to ruin the husband's business from a financial perspective since dozens of SEC employees were found to be heavily into Internet pornography searching on work time and on government computers. Much like their failure to notice the looming Great Recession, they would have been unlikely to ever get around to crashing this Finn's business, given their Internet surfing obsession.
• The could not have used the State Department since those employees are so busy building grandiose embassies in Afghanistan ( $500 million) and in London ($1 billion) that they also would have never gotten around to contacting the Finnish government.
• They could not have used the Department of Education to re-educate the dog since the Department has no clue what is going on in other countries, even though those countries are doing a far better job of educating their kids; the Department apparently has done no benchmarking of their successful approaches to education. Forget about mind retraining an insulting foreign dog.
• They could not use Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac from a financial perspective since all those organizations do is require an endless supply of billion of dollars in government bailouts every month without solving anything. We could not afford them.
• They could not use our military forces since we have stretched them so thin around the world, mostly in unnecessary places to fight non-existent threats, that we would have no troops to spare to go after the dog.
• The could not use themselves since they tend to leave town early to campaign for their re-election and they get so tied up with trivial matters that they are never around to get anything substantive done. However, they would appoint a Presidential commission to look into the disrespectful dog with the intent of never using the Commission's findings.

Looks like the dog would be safe whether Hitler's cronies went after it or out political cronies went after it. It always amazes me that politicians, in this country and this era, or in other countries and other eras, can have such screwed up priorities and waste so much wealth and effort on trivial matters.

How much worse are the Germans obsessing about a dog in a foreign country than our political class who actually debated, drafted, and passed a law regulating the sound volume of television commercials in 2010? How much worse are the Germans obsessing about a dog in a foreign country than our political class that passed a failed economic stimulus program to study insects in Africa, replace windows in a shuttered visitors' center at Mt. St. Helen's,  or to replace a heating system in a church? How much worse are the Germans obsessing about a dog in a foreign country than our political class who formally debated how to set up a different playoff system for college football?

Before we judge the German's too harshly, we have to realize that our politicians and the government it runs have wasted a lot of resources and wealth chasing just as irrelevant issues and programs. As a Colorado Senator recently said, the political class has put over $13 TRILLION on the nation's balance sheet and we have nothing to show for it.

The bad omen is that the German's eventually lost the war. How much the Finnish dog contributed to their diversion of attention from the real issues is unknown. Let's hope that we never have to ask the similar question of our political class: were we brought down as a great and free nation because our politicians were chasing college football playoffs and television commercial sound volumes rather than fixing our failing public schools, developing a viable drug addiction program, developing a viable national energy policy, fixing our leaky borders, getting Federal spending under control etc.



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.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment.org

A Few Thoughts On Downsizing The Size Of Government - Human Resources Reductions

I really get scared listening to people discuss on how this is not the right time to downsize government since, in their minds, the economic status in this country is still very fragile and any government downsizing would help cause a double dip recession. This position makes no sense on so many fronts:

• Does it mean that we should continue to waste taxpayer dollars through the incompetence or laziness of current government workers (e.g. SEC employees who did nothing on the job except search for porn, Interior Department employees who also spent work time surfing the Net for porn and who said they inspected oil rigs in the Gulf but did not, etc.)? How does this help the economy stay afloat?
• Does it mean that all government functions, even the unnecessary ones, should continue to be funded and continue to waste taxpayer dollars?
• Does it mean that Federal government employees, that enjoy higher than average salaries and benefit packages should not have there employment compensation reduced or at least frozen, given their private sector counterparts are suffering through very tough economic times?
• Wouldn't it be better to let the taxpayers keep some of this money and spend it on what they want? Overall economic activity would not go away if government was downsized, it would just move into other, more productive areas of the economy while increasing personal freedom in the process.

No, the proponents of this ridiculous theory are just mimicking the words of the political class that do not want the size of government reduced since it would reduce their power and status. Today we will start the first of an occasion series of ways to downsize government that reduces the size of the Federal bureaucracy and increases both the financial freedom and personal freedom of individual Americans. If some politicians lose power and status in the process, that is a risk I am willing to take.

Today we will focus on human resources area to reduce government's size. If I can come up with some worthwhile ideas, I am sure some more involved people could do even better. Thus, I present human resource ideas to reduce the size of government:

- Why do we still have 27,000 U.S. troops in Korea? The North Koreans have over a million troops and the South Koreans have almost 800,000 troops. If war breaks out, our 27,000 troops are not going to make a very big difference. This type of government thinking is a leftover from the Cold War era, let's bring those troops home and save the cost of deployment. A side benefit might actually be a reduction in tensions on the Korean peninsula since the North Koreans could not use the excuse that U.S. was about to attack them since our troops would be gone. The Obama administration estimates that it costs a $1 million a year to deploy a soldier into combat zones. Let's assume it takes about half of that ($500,000) to deploy a single soldier into a non-combat zone. Thus, bringing home 27,000 U.S. troops from Korea would save about $13 billion a year. I fail to see how this type of downsizing would cause a double dip recession.
- Why do we still have about 35,000 troops in Japan? The second world war has been over for a while and if we think that having those troops in Japan will deter China from doing anything, half way around the world, we are kidding ourselves. China has over two million soldiers in their armed forces. For example, if China wants to go into Taiwan, there is virtually nothing that 35,000 troops in Japan can do to stop them. Again, a leftover remnant of the Cold War. Bring them home and save $18 billion a year. A potential side benefit of withdrawal would be improved relations with Japan since the U.S. military bases, especially on Okinawa, have always been a source of diplomatic friction.
- Why do we have over 50,000 troops still stationed in Germany? Again, a leftover of the Cold War. Do we really think that Iron Curtain forces are going to roll over western Europe? Oh yeah, there is no Iron Curtain any more. Bring home those troops and save about $25 billion a year. Is reducing government spending in these three countries likely to cause a double dip recession as the mimics state? I doubt it. Thus, just with these three military human resource-like actions we could conservatively save $46 billion a year.
- With over 100,000 troops coming back stateside, there would be no immediate need to recruit new soldiers, these 100,000 would serve us well for a long time, especially if we did not deploy them back to Korea, Japan, and Germany. Thus, much lower recruitment costs would result in additional savings. How in the world would that lead to a double dip recession? And these three troop deployments are not the extent of our foreign deployment.
- Why do we have almost 100,000 troops still in Iraq? Didn't candidate Obama promise to get us out of Iraq? President Obama has fallen flat with that promise. In fact, Obama's long range plan is to still leave 50,000 troops in Iraq. Sounds an awful like the same type of thinking that caused us to deploy troops unnecessarily in Japan, Korea, and Germany for decades. Bring home the 100,000 troops from Iraq and save about $50 billion a year if you assume that they are no longer in a combat region.
- According to a Money magazine article in their June, 2010 issue, about 20% of workers in private sector pension plans, 3.3 million Americans, have recently had their pension benefits frozen. This generally means that whatever pension you qualify for today is what you will retire with. There is no growth in the benefit by accruing more years with the company or moving to a higher salary, which would usually increase future pension payment levels. According to the article, this trend of freezing private sector pensions is likely to continue, given the hard economic times. An additional statistic from the article pointed out that only 15% of private sector employees now enjoy the benefit of a traditional pension.
In a related article that appeared in Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine in their June, 2010 issue, the article reported that even worse then freezing a pension plan's benefits was the trend of many private sector pensions just going belly up, usually resulting in a government agency stepping in to try and salvage at least part of the plan. The result, however, is usually a greatly reduced pension benefit.
Given this trend for private sector employees, the death of the traditional pension, it is not fair for Federal employees to continue to enjoy such a benefit in addition to Social Security and a 401k like savings plan. Given that private sector employees provide the retirement benefits to public sector employees through their tax dollars, we need to level the playing field and eliminate the idea and benefit of a traditional pension for future Federal employees. If private sector employees are not receiving such a benefit at their work and those that still do are seeing their pension benefit get greatly reduced, then they should not be burdened to pay for something they cannot get, namely a traditional pension benefit program for future Federal employees.
- Step 34 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would prohibit the use of Federal taxpayer dollars for any program or project that does not significantly impact the citizens of at least five states. If a program did not meet this criteria, it would be up to the state or states to get the job done. This is the Federal government, it should be worried about national problems and national issues, not local issues. Let the individual state government pay for the individual state benefit using the tax dollars of just those citizens in that state. Thus, the Robert Byrd method of funding intrastate projects would end.
- There is about $16 billion in earmarks in the current Federal budget, most of which are used to reward local entities or used to award earmarks in exchange for campaign re-election donations, neither of which provide value added service to most Americans' lives. As we have pointed out previously, recent earmarks have been used to renovate theaters, build a farmers market, and build a bike path. Given that the restoration effort of the Statue Of Liberty never got any Federal funding support, these other, trivial projects should also not receive any Federal support. Do we really think that if the Federal government stops building bike paths that will cause a double dip recession.? Save the $16 billion and return it to the taxpayer to expand other areas of the economy which they will do more efficiently than the government will do with farmers' markets and bike paths.
- A recent USA Today article reported on a payroll analysis that showed 80% of government jobs that have a private sector equivalent make more money than the private sector position. Thus, since government jobs are funded with private sector taxes, its only fair that wages for all government employees be frozen at current levels until further notice or until this imbalance is resolved. This includes the salaries of anyone sitting in Congress.
- On a more symbolic level, Step 42 of "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would force former Presidents to begin paying for their Secret Service protection after they leave office, if they can afford it. Since Bill and Hillary Clinton have earned over $100 million since he left office, it makes no sense for strapped taxpayers to continue to pay for Clinton's protection. Let him pay for at least a portion of it since with his $100 million in earnings, he can afford it. While this would result in relatively small savings, it would indicate that the political class is doing their job to help the economy. No way this step would lead to a double dip recession.
- Also on a symbolic level, Step 41 would not allow any sitting politician to draw a Federal salary if their net worth was over three million dollars. It makes no sense for the many millionaire sitting in Congress to draw their $174,000 a year in salary and benefits. If they are not rich, let them have their salary. If they are like John Kerry, who is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, they starts working pro bono immediately. While not saving billions of dollars, it would be another example of politicians identifying with the struggles of their constituents by foregoing their salary. They would also not be allowed to draw a traditional pension, their constituents are not receiving one for the most part, they should not receive one either.
- It has been pointed out numerous times these past months, by Federal regulators or inspector generals, that many Federal employees were either too busy pulling porn down off of the Net during work hours (e.g. SEC and Interior Department) or were too lazy to do their jobs (e.g. lead and cadmium based toys flooding the toy market, Toyota safety problems going undiagnosed for many years, Energy Department employees approving every product submitted for EnergyStar certification even if they were bogus, etc.). Thus, from an outsider perspective, there are a lot of excess Federal employees that can be fired without affecting the basic government function or department they were involved in. Thus, Step 1 of "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" becomes another, non-harmful way to reduce the size of government. This step would institute a five year program that would reduce the size of every Federal department by 10% a year for five years. This approach would squeeze out those excess, porn seeking employees and cause the remaining ones to focus on just the most important government functions.

Thus, even as a non-expert on government human resources, here are about a dozen or so simple suggestions that would greatly reduce the size of government, helping to return hundreds of billions of tax dollars to taxpayers who would grow the economy more efficiently and could also help reduce the obscene Federal deficit, also growing the economy. The myth that we need government to continue to spend money to save the economy is just that, a sad, pathetic myth. It is propagated by the political class to ensure that their influence and dominance of the country continues to grow. The government spends money in extremely wasteful ways, allowing them to continue to do so will never heal the economy, it will just continue to waste wealth and hinder the economic recovery. Just ask yourself: increase government spending (and waste) over the past two years has not worked in moving the economy strongly forward, not when total unemployment is probably approaching 20%. Why continue to do so?



Our new 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.

Also visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/