July, 2016, Part 2, By The Numbers: Less Taxes Makes For Better Government Which Makes For More Freedom

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

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

Yesterday and today we focusing on how economic freedom is tightly linked with political freedom. I say this because the less money the government and the American political class allow you to keep from your work endeavors, the less overall freedom you have. You have less freedom, options and choices to send your kids to better schools, to start a business, to donate to charities, to retire in better financial shape, or to just enjoy life to the degree that you should be able to based on how hard you work. 

During these two days we will prove our constant libertarian point in this blog that the less government governs the better off everyone is on average. That the most heavily taxed states are usually the states in the worst financial shape which will eventually require residents of those states to pay more and more in taxes which will result in less and less freedom. As a result, as the numbers will show, that is why more and more people are leaving the highly taxed, financially distressed states for states that afford them the maximal return on their hard work and wealth. As always under this theme, you will see that the numbers do not lie. This is the cold reality of overreaching, freedom reducing politicians in this country today.

Our preliminary analysis of the numbers from yesterday led us to conclude that: low taxes = fiscally sound states and state governments. And low taxes also means more freedom and liberty for the residents of those fiscally sound states. Simple logic, solid numbers to support it. 

Today, we will continue this number analysis by looking at another measure of state by state financial shape and state by state migration to see if fiscally sound states with low taxes, as we proved yesterday, also increases the wealth of state residents.

Let’s do another more set of numbers. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) recently released their ninth annual “Rich States, Poor States” report. The report is based on the following approach: “The Economic Outlook Ranking is a forecast based on a state’s current standing in 15 state policy variables. Each of these factors is influenced directly by state lawmakers through the legislative process. Generally speaking, states that spend less—especially on income transfer programs, and states that tax less—particularly on productive activities such as working or investing—experience higher growth rates than states that tax and spend more.

The Economic Performance Ranking is a backward-looking measure based on a state’s performance on three important variables: State Gross Domestic Product, Absolute Domestic Migration and Non-Farm Payroll Employment—all of which are highly influenced by state policy. This ranking details states’ individual performances over the past 10 years based on this economic data.”

So, let's take this measurement and numbers approach, which states are in the best economic shape ("rich states"), and the lists we started with yesterday that had the top ten states governments that were most fiscally sound and the bottom ten states that were least fiscally sound and compare them to the health and robustness of their state economies as measured by the ALEC:

1 - Alaska - ALEC rank - 25
2 - Nebraska - 32
3- Wyoming - 4
4 - North Dakota - 3
5 - South Dakota - 11
6 - Florida - 8
7 - Utah - 1
8 - Oklahoma - 10
9 - Tennessee - 7
10 - Montana - 40

Average rank for the ALEC economically ranked states of the most fiscally sound states we identified yesterday = 14.1

41 - Maryland - ALEC rank - 31
42 - New York - 50
43 - Maine - 38
44 - California - 46
45 - Hawaii - 42
46 - Kentucky - 33
47 - Illinois - 43
48 - New Jersey - 48
49 - Massachusetts - 45
50 - Connecticut - 47

Average rank for the ALEC economically ranked states of the most fiscally unsound states we identified yesterday = 42.3

Thus, the economic condition average rank, as measured by the ALEC approach, of the states in the worst financial shape is about three times higher than the economic condition average rank of the states in the best financial shape. Another measure that shows lower taxes actually may lead to better economic conditions. And as we have discussed above, the states in the best economic condition also tend to be operated and led by Republican politicians:



And the two states with the worst economic conditions that are led by Republicans, New Jersey and Illinois, are really the exception because historically they have almost always been operated by Democrats. 

Note: Just to answer any assumptions that this analysis is tainted because I am a Republican or conservative, understand that I have NEVER voted for a Republican for President in my life (I have been voting since the 1970s) and until 2010, I have never voted for Republican for national office since 2010. As always, these posts are number based and I do not care where the numbers lead to, as long as the numbers are used correctly and thoroughly.

One last set of numbers. Over the past two days we have shown that the states that are in the best fiscal condition from a state government financial perspective also have the more robust economies and the lowest local and state taxes. What do those conditions mean for population growth? Let’s look at the top ten and bottom ten states that we developed yesterday and see if people are moving in or out of them:

1 - Alaska - population growth rate in 2014 - 2015 - -6.9%
2 - Nebraska - 1.2%
3- Wyoming - .3%
4 - North Dakota - 10.6%
5 - South Dakota - 4.0%
6 - Florida - 11.4%
7 - Utah - 1.4%
8 - Oklahoma - 3.0%
9 - Tennessee - 3.7%
10 - Montana - 4.1%

Average population growth of the ten most fiscally sound states = 3.28%

Now, let’s look at the ranking of the ten worst financially sound states and their ranking as far as their population growth:

41 - Maryland - population growth rate in 2014 - 2015 - 4.6%
42 - New York - 1.4%
43 - Maine - .9%
44 - California - 2.8%
45 - Hawaii - 4.2%
46 - Kentucky - 1.7%
47 - Illinois - -3.0%
48 - New Jersey - .5%
49 - Massachusetts - 4.6%
50 - Connecticut - .8%

Average population growth of the ten most fiscally unsound states = 1.85%

Thus, the population growth rate for the most fiscally sound states is about 77% higher than the population growth rate for the most fiscally unsound states. Obviously, state by state population growth is likely affected by a lot of factors but it is an interesting correlation that states with the best run state governments that operate at high efficiency with lower taxes results in more robust state economies and more state residents. And of course, less taxes, smaller government means more freedom and liberty for those state residents.

Of course, people like Obama and Pelosi and Reid get it backwards. They think that more taxation is needed for bigger government to make people’s lives better. Obviously, they have never looked at the numbers to see the exact opposite is true: less taxation means smaller government and better managed government which means more robust economic opportunities. The numbers do not lie.

May, 2014 The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care, Part 4: Another Politicians Sepaks From Another World, Cancer Patients Cannot Afford Their Obama Care Drugs, Maryland Uninsures More Than It Insures and More

This is our fourth and final update post this month to the continuing saga, “the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care.” Despite being live in the market for well over six months, every day there seems to be another fiasco or unintended negative consequence of this law. That is why every month since last August we have had to dedicate multiple posts every month to discussion on what this disastrous law is doing to Americans, their health, the economy, and our freedoms.

1) We usually get our silly quotes or out of this world quotes from Nancy Pelosi, as we have already shared this week. However, she apparently does not have a monopoly on inane statements as we see from what U.S Senator Angus King said on a Sunday morning news show: “There’s no such thing as Obama Care. You can’t sign up for Obama Care. You sign up for an Anthem policy, or an Aetna policy, or a Welthorn policy. It’s private insurance.”

Who knew, there is no such thing as Obama Care. That 2,500 page piece of legislation that Reid, Pelosi, and Obama rushed through for passage was apparently a mirage. The fact that millions and millions of Americans have lost their insurance because of that piece of legislation is just a smoke screen. The fact that the American taxpayer spent billions of dollars on non-working health insurance websites because of the legislation was just a piece of mass hypnosis.

Of course it is private insurance, driven by the OBAMA CARE legislation. Again, what world, what reality do these Washington politicians live in? Pathetic.

2) On May 19, 2014, the website of Judicial Watch put out a public relations release that described the chaos and ineptness of the Obama Care rollout’s initial days and how that ineptness was likely still affecting the numbers that the Obama administration have been hyping as proof of success. Specifically, Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act request went after “any and all records concerning, regarding, or related to the number of individuals that purchased health insurance through Healthcare.gov between October 1, 2013, and October 4, 2013.”

October 1, 2014 is critical since that was the first day that people could sign up for health insurance via the Federal Obama Care web portal/website. As you may recall, those first few days were an unmitigated disaster from a data systems perspective despite the government having over three years and having spent probably over a billion dollars trying to get ready.

The Judicial Watch posting reminds readers how it was impossible to get a total number of enrollees during those early days in October from the administration: “Marilyn Tavenner, head of the HHS Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, refused to disclose the number of people who had purchased insurance through the site saying, “We have just decided not to release that yet.””

We now know, via this Freedom Of Information Act effort, why the government was a little reluctant to tell what the enrollment numbers were:

• On October 1, there were 43,208 accounts created and a grand total of…one enrollment.
• As of October 31, 2013, there were 1,319,425 accounts created nationwide, resulting in only 30,512 actual enrollments in Obama Care, an enrollment closure rate of a measly 2.3%.
• At the end of the first day of open enrollment for Obama Care, October 1, 2013, the Senior Advisor at Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Brigid M. Russell, sent out an email to her staff with a subject line celebrating “2 enrollments!” The body copy of the email read: "We have our second official FFM enrollment! The first two Form 834s sent out are to: 1) CareSource in Ohio, 2) BCBS of North Carolina."
• Serious problems were not restricted to ordinary American citizens since all 24,000 Congressional staffers that are required to use Obama Care also faced numerous failures and delays. An October 2, 2013 email from HHS Special Assistant Marianne Bowen indicated serious problems with Congressional enrollments: “The Congressional issue (68 attempts for Direct enrollment) was an issue stemming from incomplete applications being sent through (started, not finished, sent anyway) and the way the issuers are assigning unique numbers. Turns out there were only 4 complete Direct Enrollment applications that went through, the other 64 were not complete."
• On October 2, 2013, the Obama Care website had 70 million page views but only 5 million were unique visitors, and a whopping 48% of registrations failed. 
• And here is the truly critical take away from the Judicial Watch information cache. On April 17, 2014, President Obama announced that eight million people had signed up for health insurance on Obama Care health insurance exchanges. However, this number may be seriously over estimated since, according to testimony earlier this month by the America’s Health Insurance Plans Association in front of the House Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Oversight, “Because of the challenges that surfaced with the launch of the Exchanges in October 2013, some consumers were advised to create a new account and enroll again. As a result, insurers have many duplicate enrollments in their system for which they never received any payment.”

Pathetic performance despite billions of dollars spent in systems development and government salaries dedicated to probably the worse product launch in the history of mankind. And eight months later, we still do not know how solid that 8 million number is, given the multiple accounts that the same people put into the fatally flawed system to begin with.

3) One Obama administration person who was in the thick of the whole chaos and disaster was HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius. She is no longer in that position, having left government employment a few months ago once the initial Obama Care enrollment period ended. 

Given how awful the launch was back in October, it is quite beyond belief that she was not booted out of her job long before she left due to incompetence. However, that is a story for another post, namely how incompetent does one have to be as a government employee before being fired for being…incompetent? 

During the chaos of the launch, a local Oklahoma television reporter was interviewing Ms. Sebelius and discussed the fact that Obama Care was very unpopular. He then paused, waiting for a reaction to that observation from the Secretary. Embarrassingly, Ms. Sebelius just sat silently, at a loss for words in reaction to his statement. 

After about seven awkward seconds without a response, the reporter speaks up and says that perhaps the sound isn’t working. Sebelius replies that the sound is working just fine. She just didn’t have anything to say. The video clip on how she was stunned to think that Obama Care was unpopular can be seen at:

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/03/125684-awkward-moment-reporter-tells-sebelius-unpopular-obamacare-speechless/

This is a “deer in the headlights” embarrassing from the government leader that was supposed to hold it all together but who could not even react to a simple question.

4) One of the emerging problems of Obama Care that is just being talked about is the high out of pocket costs that Obama Care patients have to pout out before they start seeing any benefits of their Obama Care policies. Apparently, in their previous policies, policies that were killed by the Obama Care legislation, they did not have the large out of pocket costs that they have to live with now.

A recent Associated Press report had some examples of what this new potentially deadly wrinkle is:

• One of the problems is that Obama Care policies have little or no flexibility when it comes to out of pocket costs, just about everyone is treated the same way.
• Breast cancer survivor Ginny Mason can now no longer afford her arthritis medication, Celebrex, under Obama Care because of her higher out-of-pocket costs. 
• To keep taking Celebrex, Mason would have had to pay $648 a month up to a $1500 deductible, and then a co-pay of $85 a month: “I was grateful for the Affordable Care Act because it didn't turn me down but ... it's like where's the affordable on this one,” Mason said. 
• Brian Rosen, senior vice president for public policy for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society explained in the article that specialty cancer drugs are prohibitively expensive under Obama Care: “The challenge is for the sickest patients, the ones that need access to these specialty drugs, the costs are going to come in most cases from that out of pocket cap ... they are likely to hit that $6,350 ceiling and in some cases quickly.” 
• In other words, in many Obama Care policies, the ailing customer will have to put out over $6,000 of their own money before seeing any benefit from their policy. Many people do not have $6,000 available in their household cash flow to afford such an outlay upfront. That is why their previous policies may have higher costs per month but avoided large cash outlays upfront.
• This is very distressing and potentially fatal since a recent study from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine “found that patients with higher co-payments were 70 percent more likely to stop taking their cancer treatment and 42 percent more likely to skip doses.”
• Thus, many Oabma Care patients may be faced with a decision that is critical and contingent on their cash flow: do they scale back taking their medicine because of the high upfront costs of their Obama Care policy deductibles or do they skip a mortgage payment of a college tuition payment. The North Carolina study looks like they will skip the medicine, imperiling their health.

Saving a few dollars upfront on an Obama Care insurance policy just to face a life or death decision on a higher cost impact on a household’s cash flow is not solving the nations’ high health cost problem, it is only redefining it in ways that may prove fatal.

5) One last Obama Care disaster before we sign off for this month. Back in early April, the head of the Maryland Health Insurance Exchange testified in front of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that only 60,000 Maryland residents had signed up for Obama Care through the state’s exchange. But it was noted at the hearing that it was well known and accurate that about 73,000 Maryland residents had lost access to their current insurance policies because of Obama Care. 

Thus, the net gain, or in this case loss, of health insured residents in Maryland was negative 13,000. Only in Washington can you try to get more people health insurance and after years of prep and billions of dollars of expense, in at least one state, Maryland, you end with FEWER insured people eight months after you launch your program…to get people insured. 

That will do it for this month’s disasters. Unfortunately, I am pretty sure we will be right back here at the end of next month reviewing even more disasters from the worst piece of legislation ever enacted by the most inept set of politicians ever to be in power.

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 Democrats' Self Pity Blame Game and The Decline Of American Competitiveness

I accidentally landed on MSNBC this morning, a channel I consider to be nothing more than an extension of President Obama's press office. Before I could find the remote, an interview started with a Democratic Congressman about what the President's job speech is likely to cover. Almost as if on cue, the Congressman ignored the essence of the interviewer's question and immediately reverted to the tired, knee jerk reaction Democratic Party blame game and started blaming the Bush administration for the economic woes we are currently trapped in.

This blame game story line has really gotten tired. It has become a cliche, it has become a caricature, it has become a distraction to fixing what ails our economy. And most importantly, it ignores the fact that Democrats were just as much to blame, if not more so, than the Bush administration for putting the country in the condition it is now.

I never voted for Bush, I thought he was one of our least effective Presidents, I can point to no outstanding achievement of his administration except for the fact he prevented any follow up terrorist attacks after 9-11, and his invasion of Iraq will go down as one of the most costly and unnecessary military actions of all time. Thus, for me to defend him against this continuing and adolescent Democratic blame game is saying a lot.

Why should the Democrats take as much blame as the Bush administration? Consider:

- Once Bush got through the early recession times that were beginning before he got into office, the United States was basically at a full employment level for the majority of years he was in office. Obama would kill for the unemployment numbers that Bush usually enjoyed.

- Dozens of times Bush tried to get Congressional oversight increased over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in order to rein in the housing industry excesses that the Bush administration recognized early on. Bush called for increased oversight in several state of the union messages, he called for oversight in several budgets, and he called for oversight in many other venues. His failure as a President was that he was not able to implement the correct action.

A big reason for this failure to fix Fannie and Freddie were the Democrats. Fannie and Freddie's executives were big donors to Democratic Party politicians and if Bush pushed through more stringent accounting and operations rules and oversight, those campaign funds could dry up. The top three recipients of those donations were Democratic Senators Chris Dodd, John Kerry, and Barack Obama. Let's review: Dodd eventually chaired the Senate committee that oversaw Fannie and Freddie's operations, resulting in a severe conflict of interest if not outright bribery. John Kerry could have become President while Barack Obama did become President.

As a result of letting these two government entities run wild, the U.S. housing industry and the eventual taxpayer bailout cost of these entities is already in the hundreds of billions of dollars. If the Democrats had gone ahead with the Bush plans to fix the accounting, operations, and financials of Fannie and Freddie ten years ago when Bush wanted to, we might not have the economic disaster we have today.

- Of course, the Democrats always point to the outrageously high budget deficits that the Bush administration ran up. Yes, at the time they were higher than average. But if you look AT THE ACTUAL BUDGET NUMBERS, and not the false Democratic rhetoric, you will see the following:

• Up until the Democrats took control of both houses of Congress after the 2006 midterm elections, the annual Federal government budget deficits were actually on a downward trend, both in terms of total dollars and as a percentage of the GDP.
• However, once the Democrats took control of Congress, both the total dollar budget deficits and the percentage that the deficit was of our GDP started to escalate dramatically until we get the truly grotesque TRILLION dollar annual deficits under the Obama administration and the Democratic party controlled Congress.
• These budget deficits increased without any corresponding increase in government services quality and effectiveness under the Democratically controlled Congress and White House since all of the major issues facing the country (health care costs, lost war on drugs, failing public schools, increased gas prices, economic growth, unemployment) have gotten worse since the Pelois and Reid contingent came to power in 2007 and continuing on a downward trend when the Obama administration took office.

Thus, every record setting budget deficit number of the past few years have been established when Democrats controlled Congress and when they controlled the Presidency. To say the Bush administrations deficit spending is the cause of our problems is only half right. The Democrats were strong participants in that ever escalating deficit number starting after the 2006 midterm elections. Bush's failure as a President was that he allowed the deficits to grow dramatically in his last two years in office, in cahoots with a Democratically controlled Congress.

So, please, my Democratic Party friends and family, talk to your Democratic party politicians and tell them to start looking forward for solutions and stop looking backward for blame. Tell them to start dealing with today's reality, it will not change no matter how many times you blame Bush and do not take your rightful responsibility for the mess the country is now.  Start acting like leaders and not kindergarten five years old blaming others for your screw up.

Because two can play that game and some news today gives the Republicans a blame game for themselves to play. According to an Associated Press report September 7, 2011, the United States is now only the fifth most competitive economy in the world. For three decades, since this analysis was begun, up until 2008, the United States was always considered the world's best and most competitive economy, hands down.

However, the latest analysis from the World Economic Forum places the U.S. as number five behind Switzerland, Singapore, Sweden, and Finland. The reasons for the slip according to the article include "a number of escalating weaknesses such as rising government debt, and declining public faith in political leaders and corporate ethics."

It should be interesting to see how the Democrats blame Bush for this decline in 2011, three years after he left office. Throughout our history and until the end of the Bush administration, the U.S. was the most competitive economic power in the world. Since the Democrats took control of Congress one year before 2008 and have controlled the House of Representatives almost the majority of time since then, have controlled the Senate the entire time and have been in the White House since early 2009, it would seem an easy target to blame the DDemocrats for the slipping of the American economy. To try and pin this on Bush would be the height of ignorance and self-delusion.

The problem with playing childish blame games like the Democrats do at all times rather than taking responsibility, recognizing the current reality, and formulating the right plans for success against that reality, is that you leave yourself open for the same type of blame games. I hope that the Republicans do not do the same with this latest slap at the slipping American economy but I could not blame them if they did.

The blame game is easy to play but I pray the Republicans deal with the issues and root causes that led to the slip to fifth in the world rankings rather than act like Democrats who would rather blame and defame than get the country back into the game. Self pity is like a cheap drug high: it makes you feel better in the short term but has long term devaststing effects. In politics, those long term bad effects are usually defeat at the polls since most Americans prefer not to be ruled by self pitying, blameful kindegarterners if they can help it.




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

Small Time Thinking By Small Time Polticians - Tax Edition

In my lifetime there have been very few members of the political class that I would call big thinkers. Big thinkers, in my opinion, focus only on the big issues and challenges that affect the most people. They have a grand plan in mind that they have meticulously constructed by identifying underlying root causes of a problem, they understand how various components interact under various action plans, they know how to integrate and leverage those components into an overarching strategy, and they provide the leadership needed to unselfishly and fairly move the plan towards success. Ask yourself, how many of today's politicians fit that description?

I started thinking about these types of positive traits when confronted by the small demands and small thinking from the Obama/Pelosi/Reid triumvirate over the past few weeks. Specifically, their unending demands to "tax the rich" and close the loopholes in our tax code in the following areas:

• Close tax loopholes that oil companies currently enjoy, bringing an additional $2-3 billion a year into the Treasury.
• Close the tax loophole that Obama supported in his economic stimulus plan for corporate jet owners, bringing in an additional $300 million a year.
• Eliminate the Bush tax cuts for those Americans earning over $250,000 a year, bringing in an additional $70 billion a year.

The drone around these three items is almost constant. And the smallness of their view is also constant. Let's assume that Obama, Reid, and Pelosi somehow got their wish and these three ideas became reality. This would increase government revenue by about $72 to $73 billion a year. What would that do to the Federal government's budget outlook:

• $73 billion would reduce this year's government deficit by a little over 4%.
• $73 billion would represent about 2% of the overall budget number.
• 2% and 4%, pretty small thinking. But if you listen to the bluster from these three Democrats, you would think these three tax issues were the biggest injustices possible to inflict on the country and these three steps are the root of all evil.

But what would large, important thinking look like:

- In March, 2008, Money magazine reported on IRS statistics that showed how the IRS estimated they do not collect $197 billion a year in unpaid taxes. $197 billion is about 12% of the 2011 deficit and over 5% of the total budget. A big thinker would find a way of getting their hands on this type of money which is much larger than corporate jet taxes. This one success of big thinking would be more than two and half times more than the small thinking of Obama, Pelosi, and Reid.

- Numerous times we have cited credible sources who estimated that the Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid programs lose $200 billion a year via fraud and waste. A big thinker would find a way to get the waste and fraud out of these programs. Combine this big thinking with tracking down tax evaders and all of a sudden you are talking big numbers, covering more than 20% of the 2011 deficit.

- In the spring, it became news that even though General Electric had 2010 profits of over $14 billion, it paid absolutely no Federal taxes. Adding insult to injury, the Federal government's tax code, a code created, amended and operated by the political class, provided General Electric with a $3.2 billion tax credit.

If the U.S., had a simple 15% flat tax rate, GE would have had a 2010 tax burden of about $2.1 billion, resulting in an additional $5 billion for the U.S. Treasury (the flat tax amount plus the rescinding of the tax credit.) That would be big thinking, getting everyone to pay a fair amount of taxes including corporations. This simple fix would have gotten more for the Treasury from one company than closing the tax loopholes for ALL of the oil companies.

But Obama would probably never go after GE for their legal tax evasion. He has appointed the GE chairman as the head of his Presidential jobs commission. The GE chairman has been a big contributor and supporter of Obama's election efforts. The White House allowed GE executives to escape compensation limitations for GE's financial executives when the company received Federal bank bailout funds under TARP, even though every other corporation that accepted TARP funds had to also accept executive compensation limits.

In return, it is a distinct possibility that Obama received more than favorable press coverage through GE's historical ownership of MSNBC (an ownership that is now controlled by Comcast). A big thinker, a true leader would insist on fairness for all and favoritism for none, something that cannot happen given the incestuous relationship between the President and GE.

Just a few examples where small thinking results in small effects. Should the oil company and jet owner tax breaks be rescinded? Probably. Should GE pay Federal income taxes regardless of his relationship to Obama? Probably. However, these would be moot points if we had some true leaders in Washington who were looking at overhauling, not tweaking or politicizing, the tax code.

If you did a great job of putting a fair and simple to understand tax code in place, this type of small time thinking would go away, it would be easily handled by the revised tax code. In the absence of such grand thinking, the political class drone goes on with small time thinking, small time issues, and small time results.

While this type of symbolic but small time thinking may be attractive to voting blocs, it does nothing to fix what ails the country. We are faced with big time problems and are stuck with small time politicians and their small time thinking.




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

Dissed By The Debt Ceiling Fiasco

Just when you thought the American political class could not stoop any lower or act any more in incompetently, along comes the debt ceiling crisis and we are all amazed that again, the political class has failed to exceed any standards of quality performance. And, as always, its the citizens of this country and the nation itself that gets dissed and abused. Getting "dissed" is certainly the right word when you consider the following apt adjectives to describe this fiasco:

Disallusioning - The characters in the White House and Congress out did themselves when it came to embarrassing themselves and the nation in the eyes of the world. The whole process was so disillusioning when viewed from a problem solving process since there was no process. There was no plan, there was no analysis, there was just a chaotic lurching towards the eventual deal.

How can you think you can competently run a country with over 300 million people, a massive government bureaucracy, and an economy worth over $14 TRILLION when you cannot even maturely and intelligently address a singular budget issue? So disillusioning.

Disgusting - There are many people in this country that honestly and intelligently believe that the national debt crisis is one of the few issues in our country's history that has a credible chance of destroying our nation, our democracy, and our future. Many of them made their concerns known by voting for and electing dozens and dozens of people to the House Of Representatives last November to represent their heartfelt fears and concerns. This is their right and duty as American citizens living in a democratic nation.

And how were their elected House Representatives treated when the debt ceiling debate was raging? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid publicly called those who opposed a meager early version of the debt ceiling deal "extremists." House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi publicly told John Boehner to act like an adult after a meeting at the White House. In a Democratic party meeting, Congressman Mike Doyle accused those in favor of getting out-of-control government spend under control "terrorists: "We have negotiated with terrorists. This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money." Isn't that what one should do if one was spending way too much? Pretty simple concept, Congressman Doyle.

These attitudes are disgusting and despicable on any number of levels. While Reid, Pelosi, people like Doyle, and Obama have been in charge of the White House and Congress, they have incurred over $5 TRILLION worth of national debt and we have nothing to show for it. $5 TRILLION is extremist by any measure of spending, whether it is total spending or out-of-control spending as a percentage of the nation's GDP. I contend their extreme damage to our national debt and economy, under their watch, make these people the real extremists and certainly not adults. Adults would have done a much better budget management job than the job Pelosi and Reid did.

And the worst name calling was by Doyle. To associate House members, who are representing their constituents to the best of their ability, with terrorists that murder, torture, and terrorize innocent people is the lowest of low when it comes to political rhetoric. It has absolutely no place in any kind of adult political discussion. It contributes nothing to a viable solution to any of our problems and certainly did not contribute anything positive to this meager debt ceiling deal. Disgusting.

[Side notes to the "terrorist" statement. Numerous news reports, quoting several sources (i.e. more than one source) who were actually in that meeting, concur that Vice President Joe Biden also contributed ot the "terrorist" language,  reportedly stating that these House Of Representative members  "have acted like terrorists." Several days after the reports, Biden's office denied that he mentioned anything like these words, despite the observation of several at the meeting. For the first time in his tenure in the White House, Obama spoke out and chided those that carelessly toss around words like "terrorists." Doyle does not deny he stated the characterization. Thus, there are conflicting stories of whether or not the Vice President stooped as low as Doyle.]

Dismal - Despite the teeth gnashing, the embarrassment of the country in the worlds' eyes, the inability to execute a credible problem solving process, and the degeneration of the Democratic Party leaders into kindergarten level name callers, the end product of the fiasco is not much better than dismal. The agreement calls for the Federal government to reduce out-of-control spending by about $2.5 TRILLION over the next ten years.

However, let's do a little math:

• The current Federal government national debt level is about $14.3 TRILLION.
• Obama's long range budget, that he submitted in the spring, called for the Federal government to add an additional $9 TRILLION to the national debt level.
• Thus, without changes to the Obama's long term budget plan, the national debt is estimated to grow to over $23 TRILLION in the next ten years, the equivalent of over $200,000 per U.S. household.
• This meager debt ceiling agreement would theoretically reduce the country's national debt to $20.5 TRILLION or about $178,000 per household.

Obviously, either number, with or without this settlement, is a dismal disaster for America and for America's families. The country will not be able to handle such massive debt no matter how much Obama wants to tax the rich and close tax loopholes. The numbers, even with this agreement, are still overwhelming despite any "solutions" the White House has proposed. Dismal.

Disappointing - Despite all of the ugliness that was incurred during the past few weeks, it probably will not make any difference when it comes to the dreaded downgrading of America's debt rating by the major credit agencies:

1) Last week in a Bloomberg News report, Standard and Poor's (S&P) chairman, John Chambers, issued a video that stated how much the political class needed to reduce government spending: "$4 TRILLION wold be a good down payment. A grand bargain of that nature would signal the seriousness of policy makers to address the fiscal situation in the U.S." In other words, the $2.5 TRILLION that was agreed to is not even a good down payment on debt reduction in the eyes of a major credit ratings agency.

S&P has given a top rated AAA ranking to U.S. government debt since 1941, through world wars, smaller wars, recessions, and various political antics in the White House and Congress. But the current set of politicians may be able to do what all other politicians before them could not do: get U.S. debt downgraded.

Chambers went on to say that "The $4 TRILLION, depending on whether it's front loaded or back loaded, is not going to do the trick in terms of stabilizing the U.S. government debt to GDP ratio. But it takes you pretty far along."

2) One of the most respected investors in the country, Pimco Co-Chairman Bill Gross, has publicly stated that the deal will not eliminate the danger of a credit ratings downgrade: "Eventually there's a downgrade coming, it just depends on Moody's, S&P, and Fitch and they're very slow moving."

Gross went on to state the obvious: the total, unfunded liabilities of the United States, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, puts the country among the most debt-laden countries int he world. He feels that the debt load and crisis has had negative impacts on the country's economic growth, interest rates, and financial markets.

3) Bill Nuti, who is the CEO of NCR, warns that: "a downgrade to the U.S. credit rating will have widespread deleterious effects. Our economy will transition from a slow growth scenario to a no growth scenario and we could likely find ourselves in a double dip recession."

4) One would have thought that once the debt ceiling agreement was signed and some uncertainty from the world removed that the stock market would respond favorably. However, that is not what happened:

• The day after the agreement was signed, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down well over 200 points, down 2.2%. The Dow is down 6.7% in just the past eight days.
• Every one of the companies in the Dow Industrials average was down the day after the signing.
• The S&P 500 dropped 2.6% after the signing while the NASDAQ was down 2.7% in one day. The Russell 2000 index of small businesses was down 3.3%.

4) The price of an ounce of gold went up 1.4% to $1645 an ounce on news that the agreement had been signed while domestic stock prices dropped substantially.

Thus, the people that depend on knowing and understanding the econcomy and financial markets have shown their disdain for the agreement by fleeing the domestic stock market for other, safer investment options. Disappointing.

Disillusioning, disgusting, disappointing, and dismal, no mater how you cut it, we have been dissed by the debt ceiling situation, the debt ceiling childish name calling, and the final debt ceiling agreement. While this agreement has slowed down the row boat as it heads for the waterfalls, it has not stopped the forward progress towards those fatal falls.

Much work still has to be done and if the childish, immature, cowardly, and shallow behavior and analysis of the political class that was exhibited during the past few weeks is any indication of future behavior, we are still in critical condition. As a result, tomorrow we will take a look at a detailed way to reduce government spending, not by a meager $2.5 TRILLION, but by three or four times that much without fear mongering like Obama has done over the past month. I believe that the Federal government can get its financial house in order without starving the poor, bankrupting the needy, and leaving the country defenseless.

No more dissing, let's start respecting and problem solving before  a much larger financial and economic fiasco envelopes the whole country. That would be the ultimate DIS.



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

Special Saturday Post: Disgust Over The Debt Ceiling Travesty, The Four Necessary Steps To Get Over The Crisis

I usually do not post on the weekends, I need those two days to detox my attitude and feelings about the American political class. However, the travesty that is the debt ceiling negotiations in Washington and the disgust they generate for me personally are too much to ignore this weekend.

As most informed Americans know, we are now only a week away from a potential financial disaster. Theoretically, if the government does not raise the country's debt ceiling by August 2, the country could end up defaulting on its financial obligations. This has never happened before so the ramifications are unknown. However, nobody thinks they will be any good.

The most serious, likely outcome is that the government will run short of money which could impact all or some of its functions but is highly likely to result in the credit agencies' downgrading of the nation's credit worthiness and increase borrowing costs. Since the political class and the government it runs borrow $.40 for every $1.00 it brings in, those increased borrowing costs could be very, very large.

Given the dire consequences, one would think that every possible thing was being done to avoid this calamity. Far from it. The five main culprits in this game of politics, Obama, McConnell, Reid, Pelosi, and Boehner, met this morning for less than hour. Less than an hour, unbelievable! The political class is  proving again that they exist only for their own personal political careers and personal political agendas, the good of the of country be damned. They continue to prove they cannot solve any problem, no matter how small or large. Let me repeat, financial disaster ahead and they met for less than an hour.

Given their inabilities and immaturity, let me lay out four steps that need to be implemented immediately in order to have any chance for the country to survive these fools:

- Step 1 - Whenever a company and its union reach and impasse and the clock is ticking towards trouble, what do they usually do? Easy question, they lock themselves in a room, do not leak out any information, and FOCUS on solving the problems they jointly face. Food and beverages are slipped under the locked door and no one comes out until a deal is struck. They do not meet for less than an hour and then leave. Lock the door, throw away the key if necessary, and do not let them out until a deal is reached, regardless if they have to stay cooped up with each other for days with no press conferences, no leaks, no cell phones. That is how real people solve these types of problems in the real world.

Thus, I would consider two lock down scenarios. The first one would lock down the five people listed above in a room until a deal is done, written down, and agreed to. If that cannot happen, then Obama and the 535 members of Congress should be put in a room and they all get locked down until a deal is done. Same criteria: no leaks, no press conferences, no cell phones, nothing until a deal is done and the vote is taken. Anything less than these types of lockdowns is a betrayal of the country.

- Step 2 - in parallel, contingency plans need to be put into place in case a deal is not reached in time. Any such plan should contain a set of prioritized expenditures that would allocate funds to these priorities. Remember, the government is not necessarily going broke on August 3 if a debt ceiling deal is not reached. On a unit basis, while it may not be able to spend $1.40, it will still be receiving a $1.00 going forward. Thus, about 30% of the government's spending would be curtailed rather quickly. The other 70% would then have to be spent on only the essentials that I would list out as follows:

• Pay off Treasury debt as it comes due in order to protect the high credit rating of the country.
• Pay out Social Security checks.
• Pay out Medicare and Medicaid bills.
• Pay out the military's pay checks and expenses as needed.

These four expenses are essential to support the very basic, essential needs of the country. Any left over money would then be used to pay other government expenses. However, in order to start getting under that $1.00 revenue stream, the following steps would need to be taken immediately in order to protect the above four essential expense streams:

• The vast majority of Federal employees would be immediately put on non-paid furloughs. The only Federal employees that would stay on live payroll would be those that service the above four expense streams. Two winters ago, Washington D.C. was snowed in for a week and the government was shut down. We survived that government shutout in fine shape, another short one now would not be a problem for the country either.
• All national parks and national museums would be closed unless they could be staffed with nonpaid volunteers.
• All other government discretionary expenses would be halted immediately.
• All members of Congress and the President would have their pay checks suspended until the crisis was solved. California has a similar process where if the state government politicians cannot deliver a budget on time, the lawmakers lose their salary until the budget is in place. Same thing should apply to Congress and Obama. Screw up your job responsibilities as badly as you have on this issue and you should not be paid until you fix the issue.

The country will not go bankrupt if a deal is not reached, it will just have to go on a severe diet. The above priorities and expense reduction ideas are what is needed to make sure the diet does not turn into a fast. Unfortunately, do we really think these people are capable of thinking about contingency plans, never mind implementing them?

Step 3 - Nancy Peolis needs to just shut up. Her biting, sarcastic, and useless comments and insults, as always, in today's paper that Boehner needs to "have an adult moment" will do absolutely nothing to solve this crisis. I would counter her childish remarks by saying if the President had acted when he should have, years or months ago, and had one of his few adult moments, we would not be in this crisis mode today. Insults at this stage of the game do no good at all but this type of destructive behavior is to be expected by a pure politician like Pelosi.

Step 4 - All of these people need to just go away. They have long been a disgrace to the country and now they are a mortal danger to the country. They are not problem solvers, they are not leaders, they are not good for the nation, they are just useless political animals. In November, 2012, they all need to go away and be replaced by people that are civil, dedicated, smart Americans that can anticipate a crisis before it becomes a crisis, unlike what we are stuck with today.

Sorry for the rant today but come on, this whole issue and the juvenile behavior of everyone in Washington is a disgrace, pure and simple. Lock them all in a room until this deal is done, plan for contingencies, muzzle Pelosi, and start working for their political defeat in 2012. How much simpler could it be.





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

Disgust And Disappointment With Our Political Class... and Free Hugs

I was going to do a mid-year review of the behavior of our political class but they kept creating new gaffes or crises that I never got around to it until now. Someone recently asked me why I was so angry with our politicians. I found the question to be pretty ridiculous, given the horrendous performance of our politicians over the years, with that performance seeming to get worse and worse as time goes by. However, when I thought about the question, I realized that I am not so much angry as I am disappointed and disgusted with the American political class:

- I am disappointed in the inability of politicians to understand the concept of "conflict of interest" especially when Senator Dodd, chairman of the Senate committee that oversees the financial industry in this country, accepts very favorable mortgage considerations from a business (Countrywide Mortgages) in that industry (Earthlink News - 7/27/2009), when that same Senator Dodd receives substantial campaign donations from Federal mortgage agencies he is overseeing and regulating (Fannie and Freddie), when Senator Hilary Clinton gets substantial tax relief for a mall developer in New York after that mall developer makes a $100,000 to Bill Clinton's foundation (New York Times - 1/3/2009), or when Senator Baucus nominates his girlfriend for a U.S. attorney general position in Montana (New York Times/St. Pete Times - 12/6/09).

- I am disappointed when the government tells me that almost $100 billion of taxpayer dollars are wasted every year through fraud and incorrect payments (Earthlink News - 11/188/2009) and that number was up $26 billion or more than 36% from the year before, i.e. the fraud is getting worse at a very rapid pace.

- I am disgusted when that same article also quotes the government as claiming only .5% of the U.S. Defense budget is wasted, I simply do not believe that an entity that large and that far flung has that low of a waste factor.

- I am disappointed in the low level of esteem and high level of contempt Senator Reid displayed for the very taxpayers that pay his salary when he claimed back in December, 2008 that "in the summer time...you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol."

- I am disgusted that several months after the major financial corporations (including AIG, Citigroup and Freddie Mac) made substantial donations to the bankrolling of the national conventions for both the Republicans and Democrats, these same corporations received untold billions of taxpayer dollars as a bailout for their poor management of their respective businesses (Associated Press article - "Troubled Firms Bankrolled Political Conventions").

- I am disappointed that Senator Reid would resort to racial stereotypes when he described President Obama as "light skinned" and "with no negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one" (Associated Press - 1/9/2010).

- I am disgusted when some in the Democratic Party liken me to the racists of the civil rights era because I expressed an honest opinion in disagreement with Obama Care while Senator Reid can refer to a persons' skin color and stereotyped speech pattern and not get branded as a racist.

- I am disappointed that we continue to pay taxes to government safety agencies that are supposed to protect consumers from dangers when we have had three major heavy metal (lead and two cadmium product recalls) situations where these metals were involved in the production of children's toys (Associated Press 1/11/2010).

- I am disgusted that when the country faces so many major issues that Congress would take time to wastefully debate and expend resources to draft and pass a bill aimed at forcing college football to set up a new playoff system (Associated Press - 12/09/10).

- I am disappointed that when one of the few decent folks in the Senate, Senator Bayh of Indiana, decides that the fight in Washington is so dysfunctional and so no longer worth the battle that he decides not to continue his political career (Businessweek - 3/1/2010).

- I am disgusted that while the country's financial systems and economic base was falling apart in the lead up to the latest recession that at least two and a half dozen SEC employees, some at very high levels of responsibility, were spending most, if not all, of their work time surfing the Internet and downloading the pornographic images they found onto their government issued computers (Associated Press - 4/23/2010).

- I am disappointed it took so long for the government to figure out that the Federal Head Start program, which has already eaten up and wasted $150 billion in taxpayer money, has no long lasting positive effect on the children that go through the program, i.e. Head Start is no more than an expensive Federal day care program, as reported in a recently published Department of Health and Human Services study. This finding negates Obama's 2009 claim that "for every dollar we invest in these programs (like Head Start), we get nearly $10 back in reduced welfare rolls, fewer health care costs, and less crime." Why did it take so long to figure out the waste of the program? Very disappointing.

- I am disgusted that Department of Interior Minerals Management Service employees in the Gulf Of Mexico offices spent a lot of their work time downloading pornography to their government computers, did not do the required number of inspections of Gulf oil rigs, received free hunting and fishing trips from the companies they were supposed to be inspecting, negotiated job offers with the very companies whose rigs they were inspecting, and approved a safety and contingency plan for the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon well in 2009 that had absolutely no chance of working (Associated Press - 5/17/2010, 5/28/2010, and 6/9/2010).

- I am disappointed that the political class has not the faintest understanding of basic economics and this shallow understanding continually results in wasteful, expensive, and ineffective programs such as Cash For Clunkers, the New Home Buyers Credit program, Cash For Appliances, etc. that merely shift economic demand around in time, do not result in increased demand, and just give away taxpayer money to those that would have purchased a new car or new home anyway (Associated Press - 6/23/2010).

- I am disgusted that a candidate for Congress would stoop so low on the illegal immigration issue that he thinks "we should catch 'em, we should document 'em, make sure we know where they are and where they are going, I actually support micro-chipping them. I can micro-chip my dog so I can find it. Why can't I micro-chip an illegal?" (Cedar Rapids Gazette - 4/27/2010).

- I am disappointed that the Obama administration sees fit to sue the state of Arizona for trying to control the illegal immigration flow over its borders rather than trying to solve the root cause of the problem, i.e. the overwhelming illegal flow of people, guns, and drugs across all of our borders, while not suing U.S. cities that actually welcome and service illegal aliens in violation of Federal law.

- I am disgusted that President Obama has remained silent while those that respectfully and legally disagree with his policies have been called racists, un-American, knuckle dragging Neanderthals, terrorists, and other names, resulting in a country more divided than ever against itself.

- I am disappointed that it took over 3,700 claims by an elderly Brooklyn woman before the Federal government finally decided there was some fraud going on, resulting in 94 arrests and busts of crime efforts that had bilked the Medicare program of about $250 million. The disappointment is why did it take so long to crack down when Medicare fraud has been a problem from Day One of the program (Associated Press - 7//16/2010)/

- I am disgusted that the political class continues to pit one group of Americans against another, whether it is rich vs. poor, gay vs. straight, pro life vs. pro choice, resulting in Americans fighting each other rather than bringing heat to bear on the American political class to finally solve some real issues facing the country.

- I am disappointed that GM and the Obama administration thought the American public was too dumb to find out or too dumb to understand that when GM announced that it was paying back $4.7 billion in government loans, that it was not repayng the fund out of its own earnings but were drawing funds from another government fund to repay the government loan, i.e. taxpayers were paying taxpayers (The week magazine - 5/7/2010).

- I am disgusted that in these tough economic times, politicians at all levels seem to ignore these hard times and the suffering of their constituents: 1) members of the Illinois Governor's staff got substantial raises (some more than 20%) at the same time that the Governor was cutting the state budget by $1.4 billion (Associated Press - 7/2/2010), 2) three town administrators in a small town in California, where 17% of the town residents live in poverty, received $787,637 (city administrative officer), $376,288 (assistant city manager), and $457,000 (police chief) in salary in addition to outrageous pensions (Associated Press - 7/22/2010) and 3) the members of Congress that automatically raise their salaries every year regardless of how poorly they lead and perform and how poorly the economy and the nation is doing.

- I am disappointed that money still continues to pervert our elective system with a recent article reporting that a long time Democratic fund raiser, Hassan Nemazee, was recently sentenced to 12 years in prison for fraud, using some of the fraud money he gathered to donate to the campaign funds of Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, and Al Gore (Associated Press - 7/15/2010) and another recent article (Associated Press - 7/22/2010) that reported that Congressman Charles Rangel was recently charged with multiple ethics violations including using government resources to raise money for the Charles Rangel Center For Public Service, receiving improper advantage from New York City's rent stabilization program, and his failure to report income on his disclosure forms.

- I am disgusted that so-called leaders of this country continue to have adultery problems including President Clinton, Governor Spitzer, Senator Ensign, Governor Sanford, Governor MacGreevey, and Senator Edwards, just to name a few. It is not the sex that I am disgusted with, it is the lies of adultery (if they lied in this area, can they be trusted in another area), it is the time it takes to cover up such affairs, time that could be better spent governing, and it is the potential for blackmail that would never result in the good of the taxpayer.

- I am disappointed in the inability of either party to solve any issue of consequence with the drug problem lingering over this country since the late 1960s, the inability to come up with a comprehensive and sane energy program hanging around since the mid-1970s, the continued failure of public schools despite the warnings of a national commission on education in the early 1980s and the failure to secure our borders from terrorists despite numerous terror attacks in the 1990s (USS Cole attack, African embassy bombings, first World Trade Center bombing), etc.

- I am disgusted when I see how poorly we are represented, as proven by the comments coming out of the Wisconsin county politician who believes that Arizona is not a border state with Mexico, the comments from a Georgia Congressman who spoke at a Congressional hearing of his fear that the island of Guam could tip over in the ocean, and the Speaker of the House who believes that unemployment is the best way to create jobs in this country (all of these outrageous claims can be found on YouTube).

It does get overwhelming so I will stop now. However, just when you start to lose all hope, you often stumble across something that reinvigorates that hope. For me, it was a YouTube video that was sent to me over the weekend. To view it go to the YouTube site and search for "Free Hugs In Sondrio, Italy." Apparently this movement has been going on for a while and while there are several related Free Hugs videos on the site, I recommend this Italian one. In a nutshell, people go to public places and hold up signs offering free hugs. The results are amazing. Total strangers going up to each other and giving each other a hug. No one accusing another of being a racist or a Neanderthal or a terrorist or unpatriotic or too rich or too white or too pro choice or too pro life or too anything. Just humans connecting on a very personal and enjoyable level. No politicians around to point out our differences, just individuals making some good, simple memories.

Thus, this video gave me hope, that all of us are basically good people and I still think we can overcome our differences, our disappointments, and our disgust. If we can go up to and hug a total stranger, than just about anything can be overcome. This proves there is a disconnect somewhere and the cause of that disconnect is the political class. They need us to hate each other and defend our "tribe," it allows them to divert attention from their failings and nonperformance. This video proved to me that term limits, as proposed in Step 39 of "Love My Country, Loathe My government" are needed more than ever. We need to continually replenish Congress with people that believe in hugs and not divisiveness. Getting them out of office before they lose the free hugs aspect is critical to working together and solving our problems going forward.


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/

The Bipartisan National Commission On Fiscal Responsibility and Reform - The Good and The Bad

I came across an article in Parade magazine this weekend on the National Commission On Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, a commission appointed by President Obama, over the wishes of the Congress. The Commission is supposed to take upwards of a year exploring potential ways to get our obscene government spending under control. While I applaud the theory of the Commission, I have a few serious problems with its implementation:

- First, as I just stated, the Commission will take up to a year to finalize its findings and report. That is another year spent with skyrocketing Federal government deficit spending, adding another $1.4 TRILLION to our national debt. I would have much preferred that recommendations come out of the Commissions sequentially, as they were finalized, rather than waiting until all of the work was done and tied up in a nice bow. Many relatively easy cuts in government spending, some of which are listed below, could begin now.
- Second, while Obama put the Commission into place, he also has decided not to do anything immediate with Federal spending, using the Commission as air cover and an excuse not to get spending and the size of government under control sooner rather than later. In the meantime, another $1.4 TRILLION will be added to the national debt.
- If Obama really believed in and trusted the Commission, he would have given it much more support, with the most obvious support being to promise to incorporate all of the Commission's bipartisan findings in his next annual budget recommendation to Congress. This would have forced the political class in Congress to react to a bipartisan set of recommendations for cutting government spending. Now, without that support, there is no teeth in the Commissions findings, unlike previous commissions like the military base closing commission or the Grace Commission, where the output from these commissions forced politicians to make a public stand. By going this route, however, Obama can again take the coward's way out saying that he did his best to cut spending but Congress stopped him.
- This cowardly approach extends to Congress also. Both Pelosi and Reid have stated that they will take up a Commission recommendation if at least 14 out of 18 members of the Commission support a recommendation. Thus, the bar is set very high for anything to be considered by Congress, since 14 out of 18 means that about 78% of the Commission's members must support a recommendation for it to even be considered by Congress. Nowhere else in government, or real life, is the bar set this high to pass a law, enact an ordinance, etc. Why have Reid and Pelosi set it this high for cutting government spending? It is pretty obvious that they do not want to cut spending and reduce their personal power. Thus, without Obama giving the commission any teeth and the head politicians in Congress setting high bars even for consideration, it becomes pretty obvious that this Commission is set up for failure by the political class.
- And it is not as if they have set the bar too high. According to the article, their objective is to reduce the deficit by $240 billion a year by 2015. If you assume they reach this goal, they would have cut almost a TRILLION out of government spending by 2015. Certainly a great accomplishment but it would still be about $400 billion short of Obama's 2010 budget deficit.

How would I cut the federal budget without destroying the country? There are plenty of people smarter than me (and we will look at some of them with the Cato Institute's "Downsizing Government" initiative in future posts) but even I can come up with some easy cuts:

1. The Obama administration admitted earlier in the year in an Associated press article that the Federal government wastes almost $100 billion a year in fraudulent or just plain wasteful spending and bill payments. If put a much stricter auditing process in place to get that waste and fraud under control, assume that you could cut that amount in half and save $5o billion a year.
2. The Citizens Against Government Waste estimate that about $20 billion a year is wasted on politicians' earmarks embedded in the Federal budget, earmarks that are nothing more than thinly disguised bribes to get campaign donations for their re-election campaigns from individuals, businesses, unions, and lobbyists. If Step 44 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" was in place, we as a nation would save all of this $20 billion since none of it would fulfill the criteria of Step 44, i.e. each earmark does not significantly impact the citizens of five states. Another $20 billion saved, or $70 billion total.
3. According to a February, 2010 article in the Washington Times, from 1981 to 2008, the civilian/non-military workforce of the Federal government stayed consistently between 1.1 million and 1.2 million. However, since the onset of the Obama administration, the workforce has already jumped to 1,43 million civilian workers. Given that we have previously discussed the findings from numerous Federal audits and inspector generals that proved that dozens of SEC employees spent their workday surfing the Net for pornography, many in the Interior department responsible for oil rig safety were doing the same, employees in the Energy Department's EnergyStar program gave all submissions a high EnergyStar rating regardless of how poor the design was, etc., it is pretty obvious that there is a lot of headcount cutting that could go on in this workforce. If we assume we could just get the number of employees down to the long term average, say 1.15 million, and that the average Federal employee makes $100,000 when you load in all of the related benefits, we should be able to cut 280,000 Federal employees and save $28 billion in the process. We are now up to $98 billion in savings. The article goes on to point out that 46% of the Federal workforce is over 50 years of age so it is quite possible to reduce the majority of these positions through retirement and attrition without the current workforce suffering significant cuts.
4. Many times we have discussed the obscene number of U.S. troops deployed around the world, ready to fight a Cold War battle that will never occur. The most obvious deployments are Germany (over 50,000 U.S. troops), Japan, (over 30,000 troops), South Korea (almost 30,000) troops, England and Italy (about 10,000 troops in each country) and Kuwait (over 20,000 troops). These are troop deployments, over 150,000, that are left over from another era that needs to end. If it costs a million a year to deploy one U.S. troop into a combat zone (as the Obama adminstration has estimated), if we assume it costs half of that to deploy one U.S. troop in a non-combat zone, bringing home 80% of these deployed troops, 120,000, should save about $60 billion a year, or about $158 billion in total when combined with the previous steps.
5. Now if President Obama ever lived up to the promise of Candidate Obama and brought home our 100,000 troops from Iraq, we could conservatively save another $50 billion a year, bringing our grand total from just these five ideas to $208 billion a tear.

Just these five steps, from somebody who is not steeped in Federal budgeting processes, has just saved $208 billion a year without even trying and without damaging our national security or resulting in massive layoffs of Federal employees. The politicians would not be happy since we would have deprived them of a prime source of funding for their perpetual re-election campaigns but who cares. Those who intentionally defraud the government or accept payments they should not receive due to government billing incompetencies, would also not be happy but again, who cares.

Our approach would easily get the Commission to almost 80% of the first year's $240 billion target. By following some of the steps laid out in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," they could also realize the following significant savings (see the details for justifying each step in the book):

• Step 9 - eliminate the traditional pension benefit for all future Federal government hires. Most people in the private sector no longer can get into a traditional pension program, the same should hold true for government employees.
• Step 11 - prohibit anyone with assets worth over $3 million form drawing a Social Security check in order to help preserve the fiscal integrity of the system. Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, etc. do not need to be drawing checks from a teetering budget process.
• Step 12 - raise the retirement age to 70, with an exception if a financial hardship can be proven. We are living longer than ever and the retirement age has not taken that into account.
• Step 13 - stop funding the Democratic and Republican national conventions, make their national committees pay for everything including security.
• Step 41 - make all Congressional members whose net worth is over $3 million serve without drawing a salary. Makes no sense for very rich members of Congress, e.g. John Kerry, to draw a salary when the national debt is soaring. He and others will not miss the $170,000 or so they would have been getting.
• Step 42 - make ex-President's pay for some of their security in their retirement if their earnings or assets exceed certain thresholds.
• Step 47 - remove the Federal government from having any thing to do with subsidizing the farm industry and subsidizing any component the national transportation system, returning those responsibilities to the states or letting them fade away into oblivion. The Federal government wastes hundreds of billions a year in both areas without a discernible benefit to the vast majority of Americans

I could go on and on but you get the idea. It is not hard to reduce the size of government as long as we have the politicians in place that have the guts to do it. That is why it is so important to make the right decisions in November. Dump the incumbents should be your first choice if we ever want to get our national debt under control. It is unlikely the Commission has the power to do that, only we do.


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/