August, 2016, Part 1, Poltiical Class Insanity: Veterns Still Getting Short Changed, Lobbyists INfest the Demcorats, and a Throwback Obama Lie

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

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

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

1) We have often reported on the horrible, horrible job that the Veterans Administration has been doing during the Obama administration in taking care of the medical health needs of our veterans. Scandals at various VA facilities across the country have left our veterans without care, put them on long waiting lists and then destroyed the long waiting lists and other personnel records to enhance the financial aspects of VA executives’ job performance. Although Obama made a change to the leadership of the operation a while ago, persistent reports and evidence showing little improvement have previously been reported in this blog.

One of the reasons why our veterans have not been given the care promised was reviewed in a recent article on the Breitbart website. According to a report by the organization, Open the Books:

• The Veterans Administration spent $20 million on an art collection while veterans' medical needs were going unserved.
• Included in the $20 million was the cost of a whopping 27 foot artificial Christmas tree that cost $21,500 and two sculptures that cost $670,000 that were installed at a California VA facility that, get this, serves blind veterans.
• $483,000 was spent on a decorative rock for the VA facility in Palo Alto which does not include the $807,000 that was spent to prepare the area to receive and display the decorative rock.
• At the same VA facility, the government spent $330,000 for something called a half arc that was placed in the lobby, another $365,000 was spent on a sculpture that was placed near the pool, and $285,000 that went to paste dozens of rocks to a wall that spelled out quotes by famous Americans... in Morse Code.
• In a San Francisco Veterans Administration building, $32,000 was spent to hang 62 framed photographs, not paintings, photographs from the local geographic area, a whopping cost of $500 framed per photo.
• A VA facility in Puerto Rico spent $610,000 on artwork and a facility in Alaska spent $100,000 on a single piece of sculpture.
• To add insult to injury, a letter from Senator Mark Kirk pointed out to the head of the VA that even though the VA issued a moratorium on all art purchases a year ago, the VA went forward and spent $1.8 million despite the so-called moratorium.

Such bad priorities, such bad judgement, such a waste of taxpayer money. Veterans get sick and die without the promised care yet the VA continues to purchase useless and unneeded pieces of likely overpriced artwork even though they promised NOT to do it. 

And Hillary Clinton wants to raise our taxes and give the Federal government even more of our wealth even though the Federal government and the bureaucrats that operate it obviously do not know how to spend it on what is needed and critical to serve the citizens of this country. Pathetically insane.

2) If someone claims that the political system in this country today is not rigged to serve the political class and those that fund them, then maybe a recent article from the Washington Examiner would help convince them. We have previously pointed out, both in this blog and in our book, “Love My Country, Loathe My Government,” that the Democrats rig their Presidential primary processes with so-called super delegates. These are about 700 Democratic Party hacks that have a big say in who gets the Presidential nomination regardless of what Democratic voters want.

An example of their power was shown a few times during this year’s Democratic primaries where Bernie Sanders got a large majority of the primary voters' votes but ended up getting a far smaller percentage of that state’s delegates since the super delegates of that state favored Hillary Clinton. In such places, the voters spoke and the super delegates said “never mind, we know what is best for you."

Well, it gets worse. According to a recent Washington Examiner report by Daniel Chaitin on July 30, 2016, almost 10% of the Democratic Party superdelegates were actually registered lobbyists. Research by the Sunlight Foundation found that:

• 63 out of the 712 super delegates were registered at some point in time as lobbyists at the state or Federal government level.
• These super delegates/lobbyists represented banks, health care insurers, the telecom industry, labor unions, Goldman Sachs, and Planned Parenthood.
• Specifically, super delegate and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle is currently registered for the healthcare insurance company Aetna, former House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt is a registered lobbyist with the Gephardt Group and former DNC General Chairman and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell was registered for Ballard Spahr LLP as recently as 2012.
• Sunlight also found an additional 32 individuals it called "shadow lobbyists," which it describes as super delegates who "aren't officially registered as lobbyists, but are heavily involved in the influence industry."

Given that over 86% of the super delegates voted for Hillary Clinton, a far higher percentage than the percentage of Democratic voters that voted for her during the primaries, you can see how rigged the system is and how alive crony capitalism is with the Democrats. The very people that usually arrange for government bailouts, favorable tax treatment, lucrative government contracts, etc., for their industry employers are the same people who pick who gets to run for office. 

And to think that they are not expecting pay back, after delivering 86% of the super delegate vote, is naive. Pathetic and an insult to democracy and freedom.

3) This last piece of insanity for today is a throwback, retro look at another preposterous Obama promise/claim that he made back when he first ran for the Presidency. In 2008, Obama said Bush was unpatriotic for increasing the national debt by $4 TRILLION during Bush’s eight years as President. But if you go to the actual White House budget website at:

chrome-extension://bpmcpldpdmajfigpchkicefoigmkfalc/views/app.html

you will find some incredible lies and hypocrisy of Obama:

• This website contains a detailed historical compilation of the Federal government’s budget performance since the country’s formation over two hundred years ago.
• If you look down Column D to the Bush years, you will see that Bush had budget deficits that exceeded $400 billion for only two years, making it mathematically impossible for Obama’s $4 TRILLION statement to be correct.
• Obama never had a budget deficit under $500 billion until his sixth year in office and even that year was higher than any annual budget deficit of Bush.
• Obama had four consecutive years of running a budget deficit over $1 TRILLION a year, two to three times higher than the highest Bush budget deficit.
• And while Obama’s lowest budget deficit in 2015 did finally get under Bush’s HIGHEST budget deficit, by a mere $20 billion, his White House budget website currently shows the 2016 deficit to be over $600 billion, the sixth highest budget deficit ever for the country, with Obama possessing the five higher budget deficits.
• And finally as we all know, the combined budget deficit of ALL previous Presidencies will be equal to the the budget deficit created by the Obama administration by itself:

So if Bush is unpatriotic for running up a $4 TRILLION deficit number over eight years, which Obama’s own spreadsheet shows he did not, than Obama should be tried for treason given his many $1 TRILLION annual budget deficits. 

I am against all budget deficits, I am not defending Bush. We now have a national debt that has exceed 100% of the country’s GDP, a financial warning sign if there ever was one. But Obama's claim is just one of dozens of false claims and lies he has put forth over the past eight years, claims and lies that do not stand even the simplest efforts to research the truth. 

I cannot figure out if he and other politicians like them actually believe the lies they spew out or they think we are too dumb to understand when they are lying to us. In either case, they are an insult to integrity and truth.

To hear Obama actually speak these words, go to:

http://www.youngcons.com/2008-obama-said-bush-raising-debt-4-trillion-was-unpatriotic-fox-news-tweet-slays/

That will do it for today’s insanity. A Veterans Administration that wastes gobs of money on artwork while veterans die and get sick because they cannot get the healthcare they were promised, how the lobbyists and vested interests infest the Democratic Party’s political processes, and a throwback Obama lie that the test of time shows was a joke. More insanity for many days to come.

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

June, 2016, Part 1, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care:Paying More and Getting Less and Sometimes,Getting Nothing

Every month for years now we have had to discuss how bad Obama Care is turning out to be under the continuing theme, “the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care.” This month is no different. As the legislation continues to march through America, driving up health care and health insurance prices as it serves as dead weight on economic growth, it cements its rightful place as the worst piece of legislation Washington has ever produced.

It never had a chance to be successful since it really never addressed the underlying root causes of our ever increasing health costs in the country:

• Americans eat too much of the wrong kind of food, resulting in obscenely high obesity rates for the country.
• Our food chain is infested with overdoses of high fructose corn syrup, salt, and other unhealthy additives.
• Americans smoke too much.
• Americans do not exercise enough.
• The country is in serious need of health care tort reform.
• Barriers to insurance company competition across state lines need to come down.
• Obama Care never “followed the money” to find out who is actually profiting from the ever escalating healthcare costs in this country and how to get those factors under control.
• Obama Care never got the immense amount of fraud and abuse in current government healthcare programs, Medicare and Medicaid, under control in order to save money to efficiently fund other government health care initiatives.
• Obama Care never put serious research money towards curing the major diseases that drive high healthcare costs such as high frequency cancers and dementia type diseases.

You cannot resolve any problem unless you understand and address the underlying root causes. No difference here: Obama Care legislation never addressed these listed root causes and thus, has no chance of ever being successful.

But it is not just missing the root causes of our healthcare costs that makes Obama Care so horrible. It resulted in millions of Americans losing access to their favored doctors, hospitals, and insurance policies. It has caused insurance premiums, deductibles and co-pays to escalate substantially. It will likely add trillions of dollars to the national debt. It has exposed millions of Americans to higher than necessary identity theft chances. It has created government bureaucracies that are wastefully spending taxpayer wealth and being exploited by criminal elements. It has stifled economic growth and job creation.

These are just a sample of the types of idiocy that we have been reviewing for the past several years in this blog relative to Obama Care., To read those past posts, just enter the phrase, “the unfolding disaster,” in the search box above.

This week we will be reviewing the latest unfolding disasters from the worst piece of legislation ever written by Washington:

1) A June 8, 2016 article on the Patient Daily Reports website asked the very simple question: “Will Out-of-pocket Costs Under Obama Care Continue To Increase?” Before we answer this question, remember that Obama promised that the average American family would see up to a $2,500 annual reduction in their healthcare insurance costs. This is a promise he made multiple times, always in public with the cameras rolling.

According to a nationwide, state by state analysis by Patient Daily, an analysis that examined Obama Care Silver plans, Obama Care policyholders saw their out of pocket insurance costs increase substantially in 2015:

• Some states experienced out of pocket cost increases by over $1,000 - Washington ($1,064), Mississippi ($1,455), and Florida ($1,117).
• South Carolina ($872), Arizona ($866), and Louisiana ($772) Obama Care policyholders also experienced substantial out of pocket cost increases.
• These 2015 increases were just precursor to what is likely to continue to happen in 2017 since we already know that insurance rate hike requests are starting to come in with California asking for an average increase of 8% onits Obama Care policies and Texas rate hikes increases exceeding 50%.

Not really consistent with Obama’s plan to REDUCE annual health care costs by $2,500 when out of pocket costs have been going up for several years now and the 2017 view is not going to change that trend of continually increasing Obama Care policy costs.

2) The Washington Examiner recently reported on how Obama Care has been killing and muting job creation and job opportunities across the country since it was passed. Goldman Sachs bank economist Alec Phillips recently published a research summary where he stated that “the evidence suggests that the [Affordable Care Act/Obama Care] has at least modestly elevated involuntary part-time employment.” He estimates that at least a few hundred thousand workers have had their hours cut or been forced to take part time hours because of the Obama Care legislation.

The Examiner article explains why this is likely true, i.e. Obama Care is killing full time job opportunities: “Obamacare is thought to incentivize part-time work through several means. One is that employers with more than 50 full-time workers face penalties if they do not provide health insurance coverage, giving them a reason to cut hours or avoid hiring new workers if they are near the 50 employee level.”

So increasing costs and decreasing full time job opportunities, we are certainly off to a lousy start in the world of Obama Care.

3) Let’s go out to Colorado and see what is in store in that state for Obama Care policies in 2017, based on what insurance companies have been filing for their 2017 rates, according to the Washington Free Beacon:

• Overall, the state’s Obama Care policyholders will see “significant premium increases in their 2017 Obama Care policy costs."
• Overall, premiums in Colorado will go up an average of 20%, far beyond the overall inflation rate.
• Nearly 100,000 citizens will likely lose their Obama Care policies in 2017 according to the state’s Division of Insurance.
• Denver 9 News called the increases “historic” and that view was supported by a statement from the Department of Insurance: “For the individual [Obama Care policy]market in 2017, many companies have requested significant premium increases.” 
• Some Obama Care policyholders could see their costs go up as high as 40% while the average increase is still likely to be around 20%. 
• Rocky Mountain Health Plans HMO has requested a 34.6% increase and Colorado Shield has requested an increase of 36.33%, hardly the $2,500 annual reduction that Obama repeatedly promised.
• Four other insurance carries either will "not offer or will significantly cut back on individual Plans,” leaving about 100,000 policyholders without insurance coverage.
• All of which is making current Colorado Senator Michael Bennet look a little foolish when he promised back in 2009: “If you have coverage and you like it, you can keep it. If you have a doctor and you like him or her you should be able to keep them as well. We will not take those choices away from you.”
• Not only are costs going up but since Rocky Mountain Health Plans is pulling out of all Colorado counties except one, many areas and citizens throughout Colorado will be left with only one Obama Care company to choose from.

4) As we often do with Obama Carer disaster updates, we present actual stories of disaster from real live Americans on what Obama Care has done to shred their lives. The source of these real life stories is the website:

www.ourhealthcarestories.com

Take a listen to what Obama Care has done to their health and medical care:

SUSAN, WASHINGTON - I was happily going along with my jcpenney insurance when I retired from jcpenney, which was only $40 a month. I got a letter from my insurance stating it didn't follow the Obamacare guidelines (Health Care Authority) and they cancelled my policy. Now, I have to pay 4x that amount to get the catastrophic insurance (deductible of $5,000) before anything is covered, through the Health Care Authority.

JANETTE, CALIFORNIA - The chiropractor who expects her premiums to rise, the 60s-something company manager who has to pay for maternity coverage, the Simi Valley contractor and many others who make at least $46,000 a year -- they all pound away at the same rhythm.

They say the middle class is once again getting tattooed, this time by President Barack Obama's health care reform.

"However you look at it, the son of a gun lied to us," said Janette Ramsey, a Bakersfield business owner with a weekend home in Ventura. She's losing her current coverage and expects to pay $50 more a month for a policy with nearly double the deductible.

"I think it's an abomination," she said. "... I'm going to pay more and get 100 percent less."

STEVE, MICHIGAN - I lost my insurance through work because of it [Obama Care] and I no longer have insurance because I can't afford an extra 200 dollars a week, this is Insanity!

Pay more, get less or for 100,000 people in Colorado, get nothing. Just another day in the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. More disasters tomorrow.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

March, 2016, Part 2, Politicians SayThe Darndest Things: Hilllary Evoking John Dillinger, Denying Radical Islam and More

Ever so often we run a series of posts under the theme, “Politicians say the darndest things.” It is a parody of an old television show, “House Party,” where host Art Linkletter would ask simple questions of young kids and wait for their often funny responses. This segment of his show was called “Kids Say The Darndest Things.”

Unfortunately when kids say silly or dumb things, it is funny. When politicians say silly or dumb things, there are usually serious ramifications across the land that often involve stupid laws, wasteful spending, self delusion of a politician’s intelligence or abilities, or a continued lack of faith that today’s politicians are smart enough to get anything right.

1) President Obama on terrorists: "We defeat them in part by saying 'you are not strong.'” This was the President’s reaction to many people, both political allies and opponents, when he decided to go out and enjoy a meaningless baseball game in Cuba rather than showing any shred or leadership and taking charge of the U.S. response and reaction to the brutal and fatal ISIS terror bombings in Brussels.

Instead of putting together a real plan to defeat ISIS, the most fearsome, violent and richest terror group to ever exist, and executing this plan, the President has decided to defeat them with verbal sparring. His strategy consist of calling them names, “you are not strong.” 

Seriously, does anyone besides Obama think that ISIS is going to back off because of his opinion and name calling in the absence of a real plan to defeat them? Pathetic leadership and total lack of strategic thinking and planning.

2) Bernie Sanders, Democratic candidate for President, recently tried to convince the world that there are no poor white people in this country when he said: “When you are white, you do not know what it is like to be poor.” As we discussed yesterday, do these politicians really believe the bs they say or do they think we are too stupid to checkout and verify them when they make these global and outrageously wrong statements? 

Because this is a tremendously wrong statement if you look at the numbers and the reality:

• The five poorest counties in the country are all at least 95% white, according to the 2010 Census.
• The nation’s poorest county, Owsley in Kentucky, is 98% white.
• Owsley is only .5% black.
• The second poorest county, Lee county, also in Kentucky, is 95% white and only 2% black.
• Clay county in Kentucky was called the “hardest place to live” in the country by a New York Times article and Clay is 94% white.

Again, are these politicians delusional or pathological liars and deceivers? Never, ever believe what they tell you because they say the darndest things and usually these darndest things are pure fiction.

3) While Obama’s reaction to the latest ISIS attacks were meant with nothing stronger than name calling, as always, the reaction of Secretary of State John Kerry’s reaction to the terror attacks was even more inane: “Today’s abhorrent attacks in Brussels are an assault against the Belgian people and the very heart of Europe. Our thoughts are with all those in Brussels, including the injured and the loved ones of those who were killed, and with the first responders and security personnel who are working tirelessly to keep Brussels safe.

The U.S. Embassy in Brussels is making every effort to account for the welfare of American citizens in the city, and in the days ahead we stand ready to provide whatever support the Belgian Government may require. As I made clear this morning in a conversation with Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders, the United States stands firmly with our ally Belgium and with all of Europe in the face of this tragedy. Attacks like these only deepen our shared resolve to defeat terrorism around the world.”

What is critical here is not what Kerry said but what he did not say:

• He never recognizes the attacks as being planned by ISIS even though ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attacks and almost immediately confirmed that the same ISIS terror cell that executed the Paris terrorist attacks also did the Brussels attacks.
• He never mentions that Islamic radicals planned and executed the attacks that killed dozens and wounded over a hundred innocents.
• He never mentions that these were blatant “terrorist” attacks, he calls them “abhorrent” attacks.

Thus, it is more important to identify what he did NOT say than what he did say. What he did say used mostly sterile boilerplate sentences that could have been lifted from every other State Department reaction to other attacks and tragedies. What it did not say is that this administration again refuses to acknowledge that Islamic radicalism is the real terror threat. 

Failure to face the reality of a problem or issue in any situation usually means that you are incapable of finding a solution to that problem or issue. Such is the case with the Obama administration’s statements and attitudes: failure to believe or identify that radical Islam as the leading cause of terrorism in the world prevent the Obama administration from having any chance of resolving the problem of worldwide terrorism. Just listen to their quotes.

4) One last quote for today and this month. John Dillinger, the famous bank robber from the 1930s,was once asked why he robbed banks. He reportedly answered this question with, “Simple, that is where the money is.” The latest rendition of the same attitude of bank robbers comes from a recent Hillary Clinton quote when she was asked why she accepted $675,000 for three speeches she gave to Goldman Sachs banker audiences: “I don’t know. That’s what they offered.” When you have the same attitude as John Dillinger maybe you should not be President. Especially when you claim that you will be tough on the banking industry but you accept tons of money that they constantly throw at your feet.

Being hypocritical when it comes to getting rich, denying that radical Islam exists, denying that white people can be poor, and trying to defeat terrorism with mean words than real strategies, their quotes prove it all. Delusional or pathological liars? Whatever the cause, these are the same people that control great parts of our lives and their quotes prove that they are so out of touch with reality that we all should be scared, very scared.

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

May, 2015, Part 3, By The Numbers: More IRS Tomfoolery, Squandering Billions In Baltimore, and Failing the Small Business Owners of America

On a semi-regular basis we revisit the theme "by the numbers" just to check in on the state of the country and political class using actual realities and their underlying numbers, not the spin or lies from our politicians. You see, politicians usually have nothing to gain by looking at reality and the numbers since they are more than likely to have screwed up reality and our lives in the first place.

That is why they would rather lie and deceive than tell the truth. But that approach can be destroyed by looking at the hard numbers behind the mess they have created. I once worked for a boss whose favorite saying was: "There is nothing more devastating to an opinion than the right number.” And that is what we try to do with this theme, devastate politicians’ opinions by looking at the right numbers.

So let’s take a look at the numbers that have recently cropped up and again prove that the political class in America continues to be one of the worst set of people to ever hold office, given the state of the country, the many ways they screw up our wealth and government functions, and their inability or non-desire to step up and tell the truth.

1) I know we did a lot of numbers about Baltimore yesterday in light of the rioting going on there but one last set of numbers today on the subject. Some politicians, including the President, have made the inane statements that not enough “investment” was being done in cities like Baltimore and the President blamed Republicans in Congress for that.

But it appears a lot of investment has recently been made in Baltimore using Federal taxpayer money. Within the President’s failed Economic Stimulus Program a few years ago, the city of Baltimore received $1,831,768,487 for its use, according to research done by the Washington Beacon newspaper. That’s right, almost $2 billion.

According to the Obama administration’s own reporting via the Recovery.com website, one of Balitmore central zipcodes, 21201, received an amazing $837,955,866. That money was spread out over 276 awards which, according to the Obama administration, through 2013 had created a grand total of …. 290 jobs. Doing some simple division, on average it took about $2.9 million to create single job out of the Economic Stimulus Program. Pathetic waste of money and Obama and other politicians want to spend more money.

Let’s take another approach and set of numbers. There are about 2,700 households in an average zipcode area. If we assume it costs $200,000 to build an average house in Baltimore, than that $837,955,866 could have built 4,200 homes or given a new home to every household in 21201 and had a lot of money left over. This is how inefficient government in general is and the Obama administration in particular.

2) Let’s move out of Baltimore and talk some economic numbers. According to recent analyses by different sources, there are still major small business capital access problems, years after the recession ended. In a Pepperdine University survey, 63% of small businesses say it is still hard to get business loans compared to 36% of large companies. 

According to Goldman Sachs, the most likely driver of this loan difficulty is the overwhelming and growing number of regulations that businesses have to deal with, something that large companies can handle better than small businesses. Maybe that is why job creation has been pathetic in this economic recovery, small businesses are usually the primary driver of economic growth and overwhelming bureaucratic Washington is choking off business expansion.

3) Recently we have already reviewed some horrendous customer service numbers of the IRS. The IRS commissioner testified in front of Congress that about 60% or so of calls coming into the IRS customer service help lines were going unanswered. In addition, if you were fortunate enough to get through, the average waiting time was over 30 minutes on hold. Horrendous numbers.

Apparently, according to a recent Washington Examiner article by Ethan Barton, based on a recent IRS internal audit and analysis, it is not just customer service where the IRS numbers are pathetic:

• Despite being told years ago that they were erroneously handing out billions of taxpayer dollars a year relative to a college education tax credit program, the IRS continues to commit the same mistake every year.
• A Treasury inspector general analysis found that the IRS handed out $5.6 billion in bogus education tax credits to 3.6 million taxpayers in 2012.
• In response, the IRS claim that their fraud catching programs are good enough despite the reality that the 3.6 million number is a whopping 1.5 million more than the previous year, 2011.
• If the Inspector General is right, the $5.6 million represents a fraud rate of almost one third since the total amount sent out by the IRS in 2012 was only $19 billion.
• The $5.6 billion in fraudulent payouts is up from $3.2 billion in 2011, a year over year increase about 80%.
• Inspector General J. Russell George said in a statement: "The IRS still does not have effective processes to identify erroneous claims for education credits. Although the IRS has taken steps to address some of our recommendations, many of the deficiencies TIGTA previously identified still exist. As a result, taxpayers continue to receive billions of dollars in potentially erroneous education credits."
• IRS officials, however, argued that the agency can effectively detect erroneous education credit claims. Investigators noted that the agency's processes only caught about half the questionable claims.
• The inspector general also reported in 2011 that 2.1 million taxpayers received $3.2 billion in likely fraudulent education credits.
• In 2012, 2 million taxpayers received $3.2 billion for education credits without providing a required form that proves they paid tuition, another 1.6 million taxpayers received an estimated $2.5 billion in credits for students attending noneligible schools.
• Over $650 million in education credits was given to 420,000 taxpayers who had made claims for more than four years, the time limit for the credit. 
• Nearly 430,000 taxpayers received around $662 million in credits for students who attended school less than half-time.
• Almost 40,000 of the total claims worth $61.5 million were for students who were either under 14 years old or over 65 years old. 
• 2,100 claims, worth almost $4 million, were handed out for students that were in jail for all of 2012, making it unlikely for them to be full-time students (well, duh!). 
• And that's almost 16 times more than the $256,000 in credits for incarcerated students reported in 2011, implying someone found the cookie jar known as the IRS from 2011 to 2012.

Thus, the numbers for the IRS are bad no matter what they do. What a dysfunctional organization, one that apparently wastes tens of billions of dollars every year that taxpayer across the country worked hard for, just to see the wealth given away by incompetence.

So what did the numbers tell us to day:

• For whatever reason, if history is any indicator, the numbers tell us that spending more money in Baltimore without wholesale changes in strategy and oversight is a fool’s errand.
• Small businesses in this country cannot get the loans they need to expand and reduce unemployment.
• The current IRS may be the worst government organization ever, given their abysmal horrendous customer service and auditing results.

More (likely bad) numbers tomorrow.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

January, 2014, Political Class Insanity, Part 6: 83 Depressing Facts About Reality, Courtesy Of American Political Class (1-40)

I used to work for a boss who had a favorite saying: “Nothing is as devastating to an opinion than the right number.” Everybody has opinions and perceptions of reality and usually, those perceptions differ from person to person. However, reality never changes as does the proper and accurate numerical description of that reality. 

I keep that in mind when someone declares without hesitation what reality is. Usually, the people that are most sure of reality are either looking through the so-called rose tinted glasses to make their position in life and opinion seem better than it is or they are trying to convince others that things are much better than they are. I can usually burst either of their reality bubbles with the right number delivered in a calm, calculated voice.

This quote came to mind recently because of two articles I read. The first article from my local newspaper, the Tampa Bay Times, proclaimed that the upcoming year of 2014 was going to be quite good, that trends in the country were looking up. As proof of their insight, they laid out five or so trends, with little or no numerical proof, that proved that good times were ahead for the country.

The second article proclaimed a similar upbeat trend, proposing that recent upticks, not surges, in hiring was a precursor to good times for the country in 2014. The writer and his style of writing of that article was an obvious attempt to portray President Obama’s economic policies in a good light, trying to show that he has executed a deft economic strategy to turn the country around.

However, he left out some key numbers, namely that there are about 23 million Americans who are unemployed or under employed, the number of Americans on food assistance are at an all time high (almost 50 million), and that many of the newly created jobs were low paying or temporary jobs. Nothing is as devastating to an opinion than the right number.

In order to really devastate these false positive opinions and perceptions of reality, consider 83 numbers that have recently been put together by the Freedom Outpost website. We will cover the insanity of these numbers of the next two days as part of our monthly political class insanity habit. These 83 numbers have been created by the 500 or so members of Congress and the high ranking members of this Presidential administration. 

After reading them, you will be devastated, guaranteed. We have a lot of work to do in this country before it is too late and I doubt that the insanity the current political class in Washington has dropped on us and our families make them the right people to fix these 83 numbers. However,  until we recognize and acknowledge these 83 facts, we will never be able to eliminate them. And that, would truly be devastating.

The following 83 points of insanity can also be reviewed at the following link:

http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/12/america-serious-trouble-83-examples-2013-prove/#2sb1Qz31MHBTkkjB.99

The nice thing about this link is that they provide a backup link to every one of their depressing 83 numbers so that you can check for their truthfulness of their assertions yourself.

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

The United States is in a massive amount of trouble, and it is time that we all started facing the truth. The following are 83 numbers from 2013 that are almost too crazy to believe…

#1 Most people that hear this statistic do not believe that it is actually true, but right now an all-time record 102 million working age Americans do not have a job. That number has risen by about 27 million since the year 2000.

#2 Because of the lack of jobs, poverty is spreading like wildfire in the United States. According to the most recent numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau, an all-time record 49.2 percent of all Americans are receiving benefits from at least one government program each month.

#3 As society breaks down, the government feels a greater need than ever before to watch, monitor and track the population. For example, every single day the NSA intercepts and permanently stores close to 2 billion emails and phone calls in addition to a whole host of other data.

#4 The Bank for International Settlements says that total public and private debt levels around the globe are now 30 percent higher than they were back during the financial crisis of 2008.

#5 According to a recent World Bank report, private domestic debt in China has grown from 9 trillion dollars in 2008 to 23 trillion dollars today.

#6 In 1985, there were more than 18,000 banks in the United States. Today, there are only 6,891 left.

#7 The six largest banks in the United States (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley) have collectively gotten 37 percent larger over the past five years.

#8 The U.S. banking system has 14.4 trillion dollars in total assets. The six largest banks now account for 67 percent of those assets and all of the other banks account for only 33 percent of those assets.

#9 JPMorgan Chase is roughly the size of the entire British economy.

#10 The five largest banks now account for 42 percent of all loans in the United States.

#11 Right now, four of the “too big to fail” banks each have total exposure to derivatives that is well in excess of 40 trillion dollars.

#12 The total exposure that Goldman Sachs has to derivatives contracts is more than 381 times greater than their total assets.

#13 According to the Bank for International Settlements, the global financial system has a total of 441 trillion dollars worth of exposure to interest rate derivatives.

#14 Through the end of November, approximately 365,000 Americans had signed up for Obamacare but approximately 4 million Americans had already lost their current health insurance policies because of Obamacare.

#15 It is being projected that up to 100 million more Americans could have their health insurance policies canceled by the time Obamacare is fully rolled out.

#16 At this point, 82.4 million Americans live in a home where at least one person is enrolled in the Medicaid program.

#17 It is has been estimated that Obamacare will add 21 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.

#18 It is being projected that health insurance premiums for healthy 30-year-old men will rise by an average of 260 percent under Obamacare.

#19 One couple down in Texas received a letter from their health insurance company that informed them that they were being hit with a 539 percent rate increase because of Obamacare.

#20 Back in 1999, 64.1 percent of all Americans were covered by employment-based health insurance. Today, only 54.9 percent of all Americans are covered by employment-based health insurance.

#21 The U.S. government has spent an astounding 3.7 trillion dollars on welfare programs over the past five years.

#22 Incredibly, 74 percent of all the wealth in the United States is owned by the wealthiest 10 percent of all Americans.

#23 According to Consumer Reports, the number of children in the United States taking antipsychotic drugs has nearly tripled over the past 15 years.

#24 The marriage rate in the United States has fallen to an all-time low. Right now it is sitting at a yearly rate of just 6.8 marriages per 1000 people.

#25 According to a shocking new study, the average American that turned 65 this year will receive $327,500 more in federal benefits than they paid in taxes over the course of their lifetimes.

#26 In just one week in December, a combined total of more than 2000 new cold temperature and snowfall records were set in the United States.

#27 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, median household income in the United States has fallen for five years in a row.

#28 The rate of homeownership in the United States has fallen for eight years in a row.

#29 Only 47 percent of all adults in America have a full-time job at this point.

#30 The unemployment rate in the eurozone recently hit a new all-time high of 12.2 percent.

#31 If you assume that the labor force participation rate in the U.S. is at the long-term average, the unemployment rate in the United States would actually be 11.5 percent instead of 7 percent.

#32 In November 2000, 64.3 percent of all working age Americans had a job. When Barack Obama first entered the White House, 60.6 percent of all working age Americans had a job. Today, only 58.6 percent of all working age Americans have a job.

#33 There are 1,148,000 fewer Americans working today than there was in November 2006. Meanwhile, our population has grown by more than 16 million people during that time frame.

#34 Only 19 percent of all Americans believe that the job market is better than it was a year ago.

#35 Just 14 percent of all Americans believe that the stock market will rise next year.

#36 According to CNBC, Pinterest is currently valued at more than 3 billion dollars even though it has never earned a profit.

#37 Twitter is a seven-year-old company that has never made a profit. It actually lost 64.6 million dollars last quarter. But according to the financial markets it is currently worth about 22 billion dollars.

#38 Right now, Facebook is trading at a valuation that is equivalent to approximately 100 years of earnings, and it is currently supposedly worth about 115 billion dollars.

#39 Total consumer credit has risen by a whopping 22 percent over the past three years.

#40 Student loans are up by an astounding 61 percent over the past three years.

43 more points of devastation and insanity tomorrow, all courtesy of the American political class.

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 Selling and Buying Of America, Part 3: The Gangs That Control America

This is the third post on the topic and insult of the “Buying and Selling Of America.” Two days ago we reviewed the recent history of politicians helping themselves to taxpayer wealth to enrich themselves, enrich their families and friends, and continuing to finance their reelection campaigns with taxpayer dollars.

Yesterday, we reviewed the disgrace of the Washington political class asking for/demanding citizens and businesses contribute to Obama’s inauguration festivities and parties and how taxpayers will likely pay over $150 million to support the inauguration parties for the politicians in D.C.

Today’s examples come from a new book written by Jeffrey Sachs, a highly respected economist from Columbia University. The book is titled "The Price of Civilisation" and Mr. Sachs says the US economy is caught in a feedback loop: ''Corporate wealth translates into political power through campaign financing, corporate lobbying and the revolving door of jobs between government and industry; and political power translates into further wealth through tax cuts, deregulation and sweetheart contracts between government and industry. Wealth begets power, and power begets wealth,''

Well said. In about fifty words Mr. Sachs has summarized how the buying and selling of America works. We no longer live in a democracy, we live below a tier of elitists that trade taxpayer wealth and freedoms for their own reward, greed, and enrichment. That is why no major issue ever gets resolved in this country. There are powers and “gangs” that do not want them solved, it would upset the cozy arrangements that these elitists have established.

I use the word “gangs” because that is what Mr. Sachs calls them, as outlined in an article by Ross Gittins of The Sydney Morning Herald. Mr. Sachs categorizes the gangs as follows:

1) The first gang is the military-industrial complex, i.e. the relationship between the Pentagon and the private businesses and contractors that live off of its massive annual budget. Here are is a famous quote from President Eisenhower from over fifty years ago: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist."

As a result, Sachs concludes that “America has been condemned to militarization, useless wars and fiscal waste on a scale of many tens of trillions of dollars since then.'' I would say he has gotten that right:

• Useless wars: Vietnam, Granada, Yugoslovia, Lebanon, Iraq I, Iraq, II, Afghanistan, and probably a few I have forgotten.
• Fiscal waste: you cannot spend over $600 billion a year on a world wide operation and not have fiscal waste. Rather than run down the many examples that we could list, let me refer to our most popular blog post ever regarding the Navy nonchalantly wasting over $300 million of taxpayer wealth:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2011/07/us-navy-ships-for-sale-cheap-never-used.html

Additionally, if you go to the website www.simplywired.com you will find that the average salary for an individual defense contractor is about $64,000. Since the average American household annual income is just under $50,000, you begin to see why defense contractors want the status quo to be maintained.

2) The second gang, according to Sachs, the Wall Street-Washington complex, a complex which has steered the nation’s financial system towards monopoly control by just a handful of politically connected Wall Street firms including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and a few other financial firms. Despite the financial meltdown of the Great Recession, despite the useless, but long and cumbersome, Dodd-Frank financial industry reform legislation, despite the public’s disgust with the banking industry in general, these few banks control as much or more of the financial industry than they did five years ago. These few banks control over 50% of banking deposits, banking assets, and just about any other measure of banking value.

How were they able to do this? Let’s look at just two examples of how the “gang” works:

- Congressman Barney Frank used to be a powerful chairman of a House banking committee. His committee was supposed to oversee and make sure banks did not get out of control. But how motivated was he in this role when:

• According to an October 22, 2010 article in the Boston Herald by Dave Wedge, Massachusetts Congressman, Barney Frank, accepted $40,000 in reelection campaign donations from financial institutions that received bailout/TARP from the government. Two things make this action so despicable. First, Congressman Frank was at the center of the whole taxpayer bank bailout activity since he was chairman of the lead House of Representatives committee that was determining which institutions got how much taxpayer money, if any.
• Second, in 2009, Mr. Frank told the Washington publication, Roll Call, that he "won't take any PAC money from banks that took TARP funds, nor would I take it from the top executive." However, according to Mr. Wedge's research he did not fulfill this statement.
• According to Mr Frank's own campaign disclosure reports, he accepted a campaign donation of $7,000 from top executives from Bank Of America. Bank of America received $45 billion in taxpayer bailout funds."
• He received $5,000 for Bank Of America's Federal PAC fund.
• He received $10,000 from the Bank Of New York Mellon Corporation which received $3 billion from the bailout fund.
• He received $2,000 from the Financial Services Roundtable PAC that includes representatives from TARP recipients Bank of America, JP Morgan, Chase, and Wells Fargo.
• He received $1,000 from U.S. Bancorp's PAC which received $6 billion in bailout funds.
• These details and further discussion of “gangster politics” can be found at:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2010/10/conflicts-of-interest-and-lies-that-are.html

Let’s move on to another example, this one where Congressional members got sweetheart mortgage deals from Countrywide Financial, the poster child for the bad  mortgageloans that were the underlying cause of the Great Recession. The following members of Congress and their senior staffs received this preferential treatment, as outlined in an Associated Press report:

1. Former Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.
2. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D.
3. Mary Jane Collipriest, who was communications director for former Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, then a member of the Banking Committee.
4. The AP report said Dodd referred Collipriest to Countrywide's VIP unit. Dodd, when commenting on his own loans, has said he was unaware of the discount program.
5. Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
6. Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., former chairman of the Oversight Committee. Towns issued the first subpoena to Bank of America for Countrywide documents, and current Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., subpoenaed more documents. The committee said that in responding to the Towns subpoena, Bank of America left out documents related to Towns' loan.
7. Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Calif.
8. Top staff members of the House Financial Services Committee.
9. A staff member of Rep. Ruben Hinojosa, D-Texas, a member of the Financial Services Committee.
10. Former Rep. Tom Campbell, R-Calif.
11. Former Housing and Urban Development SecretariesAlphonso Jackson and Henry Cisneros; and former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala. The VIP unit processed Cisneros' loan after he joined Fannie's board of directors
12. Former Fannie Mae heads James Johnson, Daniel Mudd and Franklin Raines. Countrywide took a loss on Mudd's loan. Fannie employees were the most frequent recipients of VIP loans. Johnson received a discount after Mozilo waived problems with his credit rating.

Details of this corruption and more can be found at the following link:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/07/washington-corruption-train-keeps-on.html

Still do not believe the Wall Street/Washington gang exists? Consider the following graphic that shows the incest that exists between the Federal government and Wall Street banks (double click on the picture for a larger view):

The overlap is the incest of the government/Wall Street gang.
Maybe President Wilson had it right about a hundred years ago when he said: "The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy."

Are you beginning to see how the feedback loop works? Corporations support incumbent politicians via financial donations and once back in office, incumbent politicians cut special deals for those same donors and their businesses and interests. Everybody gets wealthy and secure, the gang and their loop keeps rolling along, an invisible empire above the forms of democracy.

Unfortunately, it is all subsidized by American taxpayers, who are not getting wealthy and secure. In fact, if anything, they are getting less secure (high, chronic unemployment) and declining household income and wealth (less secure). That is why there is no urgency on any politicians to upset the process since they do not pay for the process, we do. And that is why our national debt is $16.4 TRILLION and climbing, and cuts in government spending would make the gang members less wealthy and less secure even if it helped save the country’s economy and democracy.

That’s enough bad news for today. We will continue with the selling and buying of America tomorrow when we reveal the identities of the last two gangs and provide some common sense suggestions on how to bring the gangs down, restore our freedom and bring some sanity to our out-of-control government spending and get it under control. In the meantime, see if you can name the other two gangs.

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