May, 2014 Political Class Insanity, Part 2: Obama Approval Dips To An All Time Low, Bad Harry Reid Priorities, Failing To Educate Our Kids, and More

This is our second post this month on our continuing monthly series on political class insanity. Seems there are endless ways in which American politicians continue to insult our intelligence, waste our wealth, prove themselves ignorant of reality, and fail to efficiently and effectively execute any kind of government operation. Their sad saga continues again today with insanity from just the past month or so.

1) I have always loved the old line of wisdom that goes as follows: “It is better to remain silent and thought ignorant than to speak up and remove all doubt.” This came to mind recently when a Congresswoman did not obey this adage when Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton stated that "perhaps the most catastrophic war of the 20th Century - invasion by the United States of America" in Iraq. How ignorant is this statement:

• First of all, the invasion occurred in the 21st century, not the 20th century.
• Although it is impossible to accurately estimate the number of humans killed in World War II most reputable sources put the death toll at between 70 and 80 million people, certainly more catastrophic than the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
• These 70 to 80 million deaths included 700,000 British military casualties and 60,000 civilian deaths, Soviet Union deaths of 26.6 million people, about 5.7 million Polish deaths, 5.3 total German deaths, and over 400,000 U.S. military deaths (source: www,worldwar2.org).
• In World War I there were about 16 million deaths and 20 million other casualties, making this war also far more catastrophic than Iraq.

Idiot speech from a Congress person, insane. Her actual ignorance is on display at the following website:

http://m.cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/matt-vespa/dc-democrat-iraq-most-catastrophic-war-20th-century

2) As a country we spend a lot of money on educating our kids. Unfortunately, spending money and getting good education attainment results on our investment are usually not related. Our kids always end up behind the kids of dozens of our countries on standardized tests.

This dichotomy of high spending and low results is nicely illustrated by the following graph from the U.S. Department of Education and other reputable sources:



While we are spending almost 200% more on public schools than we spent in 1970, far above the rate of inflation, and the staffing growth in public schooling is up almost 100% since 1970, math, reading, and science performance has barely moved since 1970. 

In no other aspect of our lives would we tolerate this sort of incompetence. For some reason, though, we seem to think nothing of handing over massive resources to the political class, hoping they would improve the lot of our kids, and then sit idly by for over forty years during which no improvements are made.

Given that the current Presidential administration has been in place for more than five years and there is no sign that they have any plans or strategies to fix this four decade old problem, it is highly unlikely that this situation will change in the remaining years of this administration. Thus, we would have wasted another eight years and hundreds of billions of dollars to allow this graph to remain unchanged. 

No plans, no strategies, no changes, just massive spending for minimal results. Are we starting to see why we need term limits? Forty years of incompetence should not be rewarded with continued employment in Washington.

3) Speaking of more costs, consider the following graphs that recently appeared in a Washington Examiner article, based on data form the Bureau of Economic Analysis:

Over the past five years, quarterly growth in the nation’s health care spending has gone up between 2% and 4% on average with quarters being above 4% and some quarters being below 2%.

However, over the past two quarters, we have seen the growth rate break out of this range, so much so that in the fourth quarter of last year the quarterly growth in health care spending in this country was almost 6% and in the first quarter of this year the quarterly growth was an unprecedented 10%. It just so happens that those two quarters, which had the highest growth rate in the past five years, corresponded with the rollout of Obama Care, a piece of legislation that was supposed to reduce health care costs and spending, not increase them.

Now, the Examiner article correctly points out that these figures will likely be revised in the future as more data becomes available. However, that means they also could be higher than currently estimated. It is looking like just another case where legislation coming out of Washington is doing the exact OPPOSITE of what it was supposed to do, raising costs rather than lowering them. Only in the American political class can you get the exact opposite result of what you intended to do.

4) There are over twenty million Americans who are unemployed or under employed. The economic growth from the latest quarter is almost nothing. People are dying and homeless in the Midwest from tornados. The Ukraine is being torn apart from within and without. Wasteful government spending is out of control, our kids are not getting educating, and health care costs are going up.

So what does Senate Majority Harry Reid give a speech about on the Senate floor recently? He wants the National Football League to pressure the Washington Redskins owner to change the name of the team since in Mr. Reid’s opinion it is racist. 

No new economic policies, no strategic planning to contain the Russian threat in eastern Europe, no overhaul of our public education system, nothing of consequence to the majority of Americans. Just the name of a football team that has been around for 80 years.

Now, I am not saying the name is not racist. I am saying that a Senator from Nevada should really shut up and work on the major issues affecting all Americans vs. worrying about the name of a football team that resides almost three thousand miles away form his home state. A pathetic set of priorities.

5) One last piece of insanity today. An ABC News poll recently found that President Obama’s approval rating has sunk to 41%, the lowest level of his Presidency. This is about five years and four months into his administration. [The fact that ABC television news hardly mentioned the dire poll results is a topic of another blog on media prejudice.]

On March 7, 2006, an ABC News poll showed that President Bush’s approval rating had fallen in the same range, a 42% approval rating. Thus, it would appear that we are not much better off with this President than the previous President, especially when you consider that Obama hit the same low point in his Presidency about one year sooner than Bush hit the same level in his Presidency. 

The more things change the more they stay the same with political class failures across the board in education, war on drugs, foreign affairs, wasteful spending, and Americans’ disapproval of the job the Washington political class is doing. Term limits anyone:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

More insanity tomorrow.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

April, 2013 Political Class Insanity, Part 2: Why Detroit Is Pathetic, Amtrak Is Still A Loser, and More

Yesterday was the first post in this month’s political class insanity. There we discussed the fact that taxpayer dollars were spent on a wide variety of puppet initiatives and to study the sex habits of New Zealand snails. We learned that a lucky county commissioner in California is not only earning over $400,000 a year but will continue to earn about the same amount every year in retirement. We learned that three of the toughest areas of the country for gun control, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, are the three worst areas for prosecuting the breaking of Federal gun control laws. I can hardly wait to see what today’s insanity brings.

1) The city of Detroit’s story is certainly a pathetic one. It has lost a large percentage of its population over the past few decades. Many parts of the city have turned into vast urban wastelands where there are not even abandoned houses. The unemployment rate is embarrassing high. Some street lights are not turned on or their burned out bulbs not replaced since the city cannot afford these repairs. The governor is likely to impose a state controlled city manager to take over the city government.

How could all of this happened? Well, one reason might be because of a story in the March 22, 2013 issue of The Week magazine. It reported that former Detroit Democratic Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was found guilty of racketeering, extortion, bribery, and fraud. According to the charges, the former mayor steered more than $83 million worth of municipal contracts to a friend who then kicked back money to the former mayor.

According to the local U.S. Attorney, Barbara McQuale: "Kwame Kilpatrick didn’t lead the city, he looted the city." He faces a maximum prison term of 20 years. $83 million could have fixed a lot of street lights and a lot of other problems with this distressed city.

2) The March, 2013 issue of Reason magazine had some interesting analyses of Amtrak, the distressed, Federally operated national train system:

• Amtrak is the most expensive way to transport oneself from city to city, on average costing consumers twice as much than commercial airline travel.
• The average American travels 15 miles a year via Amtrak but 15,000 miles a year via car.
• Amtrak per-passenger miles subsidies are more than nine times higher than subsidies paid to airlines and 20 times more than subsidies paid to car drivers.
• In 2012, Amtrak needed about $1.4 billion from the American taxpayer to run its operations.
• Only three of its twelve routes are profitable without taxpayer subsidies.

This financial insanity has been going on for decades, with no politician willing to fight the right battle to fix this disaster. Sell the assets off, let a private company worry about running a profitable railroad since it is obvious that the Federal government is not capable, and save $1.4 billion a year, a government expense that benefits only a tiny, tiny portion of Americans.

3) That same issue of Reason also carried a crazy story about a crazy public servant in Nevada City. City police chief James Wickham wants to control the city’s homeless population by having the town council pass a law that requires that homeless people pay for a permit to set up a tent.

His rationale for such a law is pretty silly: “The goal is to start managing the homeless population in this city. It just basically means that you cannot set up a tent. You can’t live in your vehicle. You can’t live in the woods in Nevada City.”

Did this brainiac ever think that the reason many of these people are homeless is because they do not have a lot of money? What little money they do have is not going to be spent on a permit, it will be spent on food and other life essentials. Does he think they will not sleep in a tent, car, or the woods because the town council says they need a permit?

The article goes on to say that if you are homeless in the city without a homeless permit, you could go to jail. That might be a better option for these unfortunate people than spending their very limited funds on a piece of paper for the privilege of sleeping in a tent, a car, or the woods.

Maybe the chief and the town council should be working on some compassionate ways to take care of these people rather than criminalizing them.

4) The Hill reported on March 28, 2013 that President Obama’s official Federal government budget proposal will be presented on April 10, 2013. According to existing law, this makes the budget presentation two months late.

This will be the fourth time in five years that Obama’s White House has been late in developing and presenting his official budget, meaning he has broken the law four out of the past five years.

This is not to be confused with the law that the U.S. Senate has broken every year since 2009 when it went four years without developing and presenting a detailed official Senate budget.

To my knowledge, Obama, any of his budget executives, or any Senator has gone to jail for not meeting the lawfully established budget guidelines. However, you can bet you will get prosecuted if you do not submit your tax returns on time by April 15. Apparently laws and their guidelines apply to you and I but not politicians.

5) A national debt fast approaching $17 TRILLION. About 23 million Americans either unemployed or underemployed. Anemic national economic growth. Sky rocketing health care costs. Continued under educating of our nation’s kids. Gas prices that are about twice as much as they were the day Obama took office.

So what are our Washington politicians worrying about these days. According to a March 20, 2013 article from The Hill:

A group of House Democrats on Wednesday introduced a bill that would prevent the term "Redskins" from being trademarked, a move intended to put pressure on the Washington football club to change its name.

The Non-Disparagement of American Indians in Trademark Registrations Act of 2013 is co-sponsored by Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), and comes days after a federal trademark panel heard arguments over whether the team name was a slur. The panel could potentially overturn the team's trademark, which would erode profits by allowing other businesses to sell apparel and goods featuring the Redskins name.

Talk about bad priorities. When you cannot prevent the Titantic from sinking, you rearrange the deck chairs. When you cannot resolve the major issues of our time facing Americans, you spend time and resources on the name of a football team.

The incompetence, bad priorities, and wasteful spending from politicians just keeps on coming. And more of the same will come tomorrow.

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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