December, 2014, Part 7, Political Class Insanity: The Hottest U.S. Senator, More Wasteful Pentagon Spending, And More

It’s the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from America’s politicians. Whether it is wasteful spending, inane quotes, faulty government operations, or insulting the American public, there is always new material spewing forth from these people, usually enough to fill up half a dozen or so posts every month. Given what we know today, this month should be no different as the insanity seems to be expanding exponentially from those in office today.

This is our seventh installment this month and we are getting near to the end of the latest insanity from our politicians. A lot of what you will see today comes from events that happened this past summer. It is only now that we have been able to get through the recent insanity that we can now review older, but still crazy, political class insanity. With any luck and no more political shenanigans, we might be able to wrap up this month’s political class insanity with this post (but don’t bet on it.)

1) According to an October, 2014 New York Times article, soon after U.S. military forces defeated the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein, caravans of trucks started to bring pallets of $100 bills to Andrews Air Force base outside of D.C. The money came from accounts of the former Iraqi government and was being sent to Iraq to try and kick start the economy and new Iraqi government that was to replace Hussein.

In total, over an 18 month period, between $12 and $14 billion in cold cash was sent into Iraq and an additional $5 billion was returned to the country by electronic transfer. Where that money ended up and what it was used for then became a mystery.

So much of a mystery that a special inspector general had to be appointed to find out what happened to the cash. Stuart Bowen drew that assignment and while he found that a lot of the money probably was used as intended by the new Iraqi government, billions of it were unaccounted for. Finally, he had a breakthrough and proved that about $1.5 billion of physical U.S. cash had been stored in a bunker in rural Lebanon.

However, given his findings, no one seemed to want to do anything about it. According to the article, the Bush administration showed no interest in tracking it down and retrieving it, the Obama administration followed suit, and the Iraqi government also decided not to take steps to retrieve it. All of these administrations along with the FBI and the CIA refuse to discuss the missing billion dollars plus.

It is not easy to transport, lose, and store $1.5 billion or so. This is not pick pocket money. Yet, despite the large amount of money, nobody in the political class in Washington is interested in getting it back before it can be used for nefarious purposes. $1.5 billion in U.S. cash can buy a lot of terrorists a lot of weapons. But apparently no one in Washington cares. Insane.

2) Washington Democrats, including the President, have often tried to divide the country by claiming that Republicans have declared a “war on women” and Democrats are the only ones helping women in the country. We have previously pointed out how hypocritical this propaganda is since many famous Democratic politicians have been caught cheating on their wives, not something an advocate of women should be doing, lying and cheating on women:

•  Former President Bill Clinton
• Former New York State District Attorney Eliot Spitzer
• Former New Jersey Governor James MacGreevey
• Former U.S. Senator John Edwards who not only cheated on and lied to his wife he did these dastardly acts while she was battling cancer and fighting for her life.

There are many others but you get the idea. To this ignoble list of insulting women, we add a recent quote by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who publicly declared at a recent campaign fundraiser: “We in the Senate refer to [New York U.S. woman] Senator Gilibrand as the hottest member.” Yes, nothing says you respect women than to refer to them in public as the “hottest.” Such insane hypocrisy.

3) Throughout this week and previously months’ political class insanity posts, we have often pointed out how inept the Pentagon is when it comes to managing taxpayer money. And now thanks to a recent article from Businessweek, that was summarized in the August 8, 2014 issue of The Week magazine, we now know that the average major Pentagon acquisition program comes in at 40% over budget. 

As just one example of how incompetent the Defense Department is at logistics and procurement, Businessweek points out that even when the Defense Department purchases prescription drugs for members of our armed forces, it ends up paying a whopping 60% more than what Medicaid pays for the same drugs.

You really must be incompetent when you are 60% more incompetent than the dysfunctional Medicaid process, a process we have previously reported loses anywhere form $30 to $40 billion a year to fraud and waste. Pathetic disregard for taxpayer wealth and as always, I doubt that anyone who is responsible for this irresponsible spending ever lost their jobs or were otherwise penalized for their ineptness.

4) Political class insanity and incompetence is not restricted to Washington. A Reason magazine article from the November, 2014 issue reported on what is happening in Colorado as a result of the gun control legislation that state passed last year. Part of that legislation required that all private transfers of weapons go through a background check similar to the kinds of checks that gun stores have to do.

So how is that working out? According to the article, the state expected that there would be about 420,000 background checks as a result of the law in the first two years after enactment. One year after enactment there have been only 13,600 background checks or only about 7% of what the state politicians expected. So either the politicians did a really lousy job of estimating the impacts of their law or citizens of Colorado are simply ignoring a law that many found repugnant to begin with. 

In either case, a lot of legislative time and effort was spent on a law that is having little real world impact, not a surprising outcome when talking about American politicians today.

5) One last piece of insanity for today and it is also a doozy. Nick Gillespie, writing for the Against Cronyism website, cited an Associated Press report back August that stated that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had actually paid an Amtrak secretary $854,460 over a twenty year period for confidential information on Amtrak train passengers. A secretary, a secretary in a different federal agency, twenty years, over $854,000, unbelievable.

Amtrak’s inspector general FINALLY uncovered the shenanigans after twenty years. Also unbelievable was the fact that the secretary was allowed to retire without any other significant repercussions or punishment. 

Even worse, according to the inspector general’s report and the Associated Press reporting, Amtrak could have lawfully and legally obtained the same information for free over those twenty years through a standing joint drug enforcement law enforcement organization that includes both DEA and Amtrak’s own police force.

Keystone Kops could not be any more screwed up. One agency of the Federal government paying a secretary big bucks in another Federal agency for confidential customer information that they could have obtained for free. Again, you cannot make this stuff up.

Although I promised that this might be the last insanity post for this month, I have to take back that promise. I could not it all into this post. Tomorrow will be the last insanity post for this month, not necessarily because we covered all of the idiocy but because it is too depressing to go beyond tomorrow.

Until then, please consider visiting our term limits website and join the cause to clean out Washington of the insane and the insanity:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

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

www.loathemygovernment.com

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

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

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

The American Political Class - "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly:" The Bad, Part 2

This week we are going through a number of posts under the theme of “The Good, The Bad, and The ugly,” stealing a title from an old Clint Eastwood movie. Yesterday, we looked at some of the good things going on in the country. When you write a blog like this, it can get kind of depressing as we watch our political class operate government in such a way that incompetence is rampant and rewarded, taxpayer wealth is abused and wasted, and the politicians in office have neither the will or the ability to truly resolve the major issues facing Americans. They are more intent on personal self-enrichment and staying in office.

Thus, it was good two days ago to get away from the disaster that is the American political class and talk about some good things going on in the country (“The Good“), all being executed and put forth for the betterment of Americans by private citizens doing the right thing. This is opposed to waiting for the politicians to do the wrong thing or do nothing but costing us a lot for their non-productive efforts.

However, today and yesterday we have to dive into the “The Bad” part of our theme. “The Bad” items discussed below are mostly concerned on how Americans feel about the state of the country, the state of their lives, and their attitudes towards the people causing most of the problems in this country, namely the current set of politicians. Never has a set of politicians been so ineffective or so demoralizing to the citizens of Americas, as we review “The Bad” conditions and feelings prevalent in America today, Part 2 ("The Bad," Part 1 can be accessed at; http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-american-political-class-good-bad.html)

5) Despite Washington being dominated by Democrats in charge of the Senate and in control of the White House for the past six years or more, and the constant Democratic rant that non-Democrats are “waging a war on women,” how does a Democrat explain the fact that according to recent analyses by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the number of women 16 and older not in the labor force climbed to a record high of 55,299,000 in June? 

• This translates into a whopping 55,299,000 women aged 16 and older who not only did not have a job, they did not actively seek one in the last four weeks. That is up 282,000 from the 55,017,000 women who were not in the labor force in May.
• According to BLS, the labor force participation rate for women was 56.8 percent, the lowest it has been this year.
• It has not been this bad for women in about 26 years, not since October, 1988.

Thus, given how much political control the Democrats have had since Obama took office, it appears that they are the ones waging war on women, at least from providing an economic environment that helps American women……and American men, and American minorities, and American kids to have a chance at a decent economic opportunity and a decent economic life.

6) Speaking of young Americans, consider some more bad research results from Pew:

• 51% of the millennial generation believe they will not receive any Social Security benefits at all when they reach retirement. 
• Just 6% of millennials think they will get benefits at the level enjoyed by current retirees.
• 39% believe they will receive benefits but at reduced levels. 
• They are even more pessimistic today than they were when Pew conducted a similar poll in 2011 when Pew found that 42% of millennials said they expected to receive no Social Security payments and 72% said benefits would not be the primary source of their own retirement income. 

These bad and depressingly low numbers and attitudes are not surprising, given how badly the Washington political class has managed the Social Security program in the face of the following realities:

• Within 15 years, the number of Americans reaching retirement age will increase 70% while the number of working Americans will rise by just 6%. 
• When Social Security started in 1935, there were 17 workers for each retiree but by 2035, there will likely be only two workers per retiree. 
• Social Security already accounts for 23% of the Federal budget and the overall program is currently cash flow negative despite the accounting trick that shows the Social Security Trust Fund will not run out until 2042. 
• In 1940, life expectancy after age 65 was about 12 years but today it is 19 years, a driving force behind the coming bankruptcy of the program.

Thus, how depressing do you think it will be for our kids and grandkids, given they have already realized that they are paying their hard earned wealth into a decaying government system, for the benefits of others, that they will receive little, reduced, or absolutely no benefit from? This is another example where taxation has morphed into repression in this country, courtesy of the American political class.

7) One last set of "Bad" data for today, getting too depressing to dive into more than that. The following chart comes from the Against Crony Capitalism website and it puts into a table the increase in the price of products we use everyday, courtesy of David Stockman, a gentleman who used to be Reagan's main budget resource. Of course, an increase in prices means a decrease in buying power for all of us and a hit to our economic freedom:

A very depressing chart, as we see that we have lost substantial buying power across a whole range of things we need for life, from food to transportation to health care to postage stamps. Although not included in the chart, I am positive that if the chart had a line labeled "Wages" that the growth in wages would be far less than most, if not all, of these household items.

And consider something even more depressing, courtesy of the potlicial class. The government and the politicians that operate it want us to think that the cost of living since 2014 has only gone up either 39.09% or 31.65% depending on what measure of CPI or inflation is bieng used. 

Given that food, health care, and transportation costs have gone up far greater than these two "official" inflation numbers, do the politicians really think we are that stupid not to realize they are "cooking the books" when it comes to calculating inflation? Try to name a major household expense that rose less than 30% in the past 14 years and try to see if that expense could overcome a 176% increase in gas, a 106% increase in eggs, a 59% increase in electricity, etc. 

There are not any major categoies of household purchases that could pull down the overall inflation number to what the politicians say it is. Thus, not only does the American political class not know how to facilitate a growing, low inflation  economy, they then cover up the truth with inflation numbers that do not reflect reality and expect us to believe them.

That will do it for "The Bad" part of this week's blog theme. Nasty, depressing stuff we have discussed over the past two days:

• The number of women not in the American work force is at an all time high and trending upwards.
• Younger Americans are beginning to realize that the personal wealth they are paying into the Social Security System for the benefit of others are benefits and wealth they are increasingly not likely to see returned back to them when they retire.
• The cost of products has grown considerabley over the past 14 years, reducing the buying power and economic freedom of most Americans, courtesy of a political class that is as economic ignorant as they come.
• Americans are suffering through a deteriorating crisis in confidence regarding America's greatness and our levels of freedom and liberty.
• The tepid economic recovery from the Greaty Recession has left millions and millions of Americans cash strapped or unemployed or under employed, further contributing to the state of depression hovering over the country.

Things are bad and getting worse so ask yourself: do you really think that the fools in Washington, the very same people that got us into this fix with faulty economic policies and economic ignorance, have any chance of somehow miraculously getting smart and wise in our lifetimes?

Nick Sorrentino, writing for the Against Crony Capitalism website, sums up our situation and depression quite succintly with the following quote: 

This is a trend which began in earnest under Mr. Bush and which then began to snowball under Mr. Obama. And most people don’t even know anything about the NDAA (which Obama signed which allows him to jail US citizens without trial, attorney, or even notification of abduction). They just feel it. They know that the NSA lurks online, somewhere and everywhere. They stand with hands up in the radiation machines at the airport. They witness the increased police checkpoints. They see the president disregard the rule of law to pursue naked political ends. They feel the loss of dignity. People feel the loss of freedom and of their liberty.

This is just the beginning I am afraid. I don’t see Americans feeling more free or that their government is any less corrupt anytime soon.

Still, each and every one one of us has an obligation to reverse this trend. 

Sad but true. And tomorrow it gets worse before it gets better. Tomorrow we go after the "The Ugly" part of the American political class, which is probably even worst than "The Bad" part we have disucssed over the past two days. 

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

September, 2013 Obama Care Update, Part 5: Nobody Wants It, Democrats Jump Ship, and More Fiascos

I know that I promised that yesterday’s post on Obama Care disasters would be the last for September, I need to go one more day on the unfolding disasters of this lousy piece of legislation. As quickly as I have been able to summarize what is going on as the legislation gets closer and closer to reality, more and more fiascoes pop up. This will be the absolutely last September Obama Care update because frankly, it is getting too depressing to review what this legislation is doing to ravage the economy, family budgets, and our health care system and processes.

1) On September 11, 2013, the Arlington Patch newspaper out of Virginia, citing a Huffington Post article, reported that Trader Joe's, the grocer once recognized for providing health care coverage to it's part-time workers, is about to push those employees off their plan since the company will stop covering employees who work less than 30 hours per week as a result of Obama Care. The change is set for the start of 2014. Instead of insurance, workers will get a check for $500 come January.

More disruption to Americans’ lives for a program and law that has very little chance of ever succeeding. This is just another in a long line of companies, unions, universities, etc. that cannot afford Obama Care and are forced to kick their employees off of existing, completely satisfactory company health care plans in order to stay financially solvent. It will add more Americans to the Obama Care exchanges, probably increasing the cost of operating them and increasing the national debt or will result in more Americans going without health care insurance, the exact opposite of what the legislation was supposed to do. Insanity.

2) A recent research report from Stanford University verifies one of these potential outcomes, namely that under Obama Care, employers may find it less expensive to dump some or all of their current employees onto Obama Care exchanges as a result of the regulations and penalties in the law. This would substantially add to the cost burden on the Federal government, really the American taxpayer, who would have larger subsidy costs with more Americans dumped into the exchanges. 

The research conclusion was that the additional cost to the national debt would be about $132 billion. It gave no indication over what time period that would be but since most of Obama Care planning has been over ten year periods, that is probably their window also. According to the research, Washington politicians “should plan for the possibility that the exchange subsidies may end up costing the federal government much more than currently projected.”

This research paints a perfect picture of the whole underlying fallacy of Obama Care. It does NOT reduce health care costs in this country, which is what is needed, it only shifts around the costs. While companies may pay less for health care insurance since they either dumped their plans altogether or forced employees onto the Obama Care exchanges, the American taxpayer will pay more through their Federal taxes since more money will be needed to keep the exchanges going because of more employees having been dumped into the exchanges. 

It is nothing more than a huge circuit that gets us right back where we started: high and ever escalating health care costs. The root causes have those high costs are not addressed by Obama Care. All this law does is create a huge Rube Goldberg system that disrupts businesses and their employees without reducing overall costs. Pathetic.

3) According to an article in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on August 21, 2013,   United Parcel Service Inc. plans to remove 15,000 spouses from its medical plan because they are eligible for coverage elsewhere. The Atlanta-based logistics company blames Obama Care as a big reason for the decision: “Rising medical costs combined with the costs associated with the Affordable Care Act [Obama Care], have made it increasingly difficult to continue providing the same level of health care benefits to our employees at an affordable cost.” 

UPS expects the move, which applies to non-union U.S. workers only, to save about $60 million a year according to a company spokeswoman. More lives disrupted, more distractions for no good reason. I would bet two underlying realities exist here:

First, since most of my contacts with UPS have been male employees, I would bet the vast majority of those 15,000 spouses are women. Ironic that the last Obama Presidential campaign constantly said they were fighting against the fictitious “war on women” and here their fatally flawed but boastful legislation is causing major headaches and disruptions to thousands of women’s lives.

Second, I would also bet that those UPS families will end up paying more for their overall family health care insurance since they will now be dealing with two separate companies health insurance providers rather than being served together as a family and with other UPS families in a larger and probably less costly group plan.

4) In that same article regarding 15,000 spouses scrambling to get new healthcare insurance, is a quote from a government official: "The health care law will make health insurance more affordable, strengthen small businesses and make it easier for employers to provide coverage to their workers," said Joanne Peters, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

It is quotes like these that really undermine my trust in the people that are running this government and the country:

• Are they that out of touch with the realities of Obama Care that they can issue such obviously inane statements?
• Do they really understand how bad this legislation is and are just touting a company line, hoping that somehow everything will work out in the end?

An old saying correctly states that “hope is not a strategy” if that is what they really think. Denying reality does not make it go away or change if that is what they really think. Come on Ms. Peters, check out reality:

UPS spouses, Trader Joe employees and a whole raft of other companies’ employees are losing their current health care insurance coverage because of Obama Care, it will not make it easier for employers to provide coverage to their workers.

Every analysis that has been done so far, every state that has put together their health care insurance exchange programs‘ costs, every unbiased consulting firm analysis has shown that individual health care insurance under Obama care will go up significantly, it will not make health insurance more affordable.

Story after story in a whole slew of news publications have definitively shown that Obama Care is causing small businesses to lay off workers, delay hiring workers, cutting workers’ hours, halting expansion plans, crimping their profit realities and potential, etc., Obama Care is not going to strengthen small businesses. 

So out of touch and so dangerous to be so out of touch. Denying reality or having only hope as your strategy never works out well in the end for anybody.

5) Obama Care was passed by a Democratic Party  controlled House of Representatives and a Democratic Party controlled Senate and was signed by a Democratic Party President. Not a single Republican in either the House or Senate voted to pass Obama Care. It is a  Democratic party contraption and unfolding disaster. 

But we have previously reported on Democrats who are jumping or who have already jumped the SS Sinking Obama Care. A lot of unions, who originally supported passage of Obama Care, now want to see it repealed or radically changed since they now understand the negative ramifications on union members’ lives. Democrat Montana Senator Max Baucus has called the implementation of Obama Care a “train wreck.” Democrat Florida Senator Bill Nelson has also voiced his concerns of how poorly Obama Care is shaping up in the real world.

But they are not the only Democrats who are finally realizing, “holy mackerel, what have we done” relative to all or major parts of Obama Care, according to an Independent Journal Report analysis from August 10, 2013:

• Democratic Senator Ben Nelson has voiced his opposition to Obama Care's individual mandate. He told MSNBC that the law has "attracted questions about its Constitutionality," and stated that it's time to look for a "market based approach".
• Three Arizona Democrats in the House of Representatives,  Ron Barber, Ann Kirkpatrick, and Kyrsten Sinema, have formally also pledged their support of a bill to repeal the IPAB, i.e. the “death panel“ component of Obama Care that is supposed to keep runaway medical costs under control. It is a major component of Obama Care. “The Hill” reported that all three lawmakers "are considered vulnerable in next year’s election, highlighting the stakes and the political angst surrounding the healthcare measure". In other words, holy mackerel, we need to disassociate ourselves with this lousy piece of legislation if we think we can get reelected.
• Former Massachusetts Democratic Representative Barney Frank co-sponsored a bill to terminate Obama Care's Independent Payment Advisory Board, i.e. death panel. Frank's spokesman had stated that he was against "legislation that would place authority for Medicare payment policy in an unelected, executive branch commission or board.” (Washington Times)
• In 2010, the Virginia state government approved a law protecting residents from “any penalty, assessment, fee or fine as a result of his failure to procure or obtain health-insurance coverage.” In Virginia’s House of Delegates, 55% of Democrats backed this anti-Obama Care legislation, as did 8 of 11 (73%) of its Black Caucus members. (NY Post)
• According to The Washington Times, Vice President Joe Biden recently joined Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, former Chief of Staff Richard Daley and five Democratic Senators in opposition to the President's universal female-contraception requirements, a tenet of the law that tramples the freedom of religion promise of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
• Howard Dean, the former Democratic National Chairman called for Obama Care's controversial cost-cutting board, the IPAB or death panel, to be repealed. He wrote in The Wall Street Journal, "Getting rid of the IPAB is something Democrats and Republicans ought to agree on.”

What does this say about the legislation when DEMOCRATS want to gut or terminate major portions of the legislation? Remember how Obama and members of Congress agreed to illegally ignore the part of Obama Care that says no taxpayer subsidies should be given to members of Congress or their staffs to pay for Obama Care insurance coverage? 

Remember how we reported that the vast majority of  IRS employees (>90%), the government entity responsible for implementing a lot of the logistics of Obama Care, said they wanted no part of Obama Care for?

Members of Congress personally want nothing to do with this law. IRS employees want nothing to do with this law. Major Democratic political figures and organizations have finally recognized that this law in whole or in parts needs to be put to into permanent retirement. Small businesses want nothing to do with this law. American workers who are having their hours cut, their jobs terminated, or their health insurance cancelled want nothing to do with this law. American workers who now need to go find health insurance coverage for their families or their spouses want nothing to do with this law. 34 states that refused to set up their own Obama Care health insurance exchanges want nothing to do with this law. Anyone who values freedom of choice and freedom from excessive and unnecessary government intervention in their lives want nothing to do with this law.

Makes you wonder who, outside of Obama, Reid, Pelosi and Ms. Peters, who we  cited above, in this country actually want this monstrosity to come into their lives, a monstrosity that has no chance of ever being successful

As a last thought, many, if not most, of the Democrats in Congress who voted to pass this legislation, the vast majority of whom never read it, have been in their positions for a long time. Please support our drive for term limits for all Federal officials so that these people are relieved of duty and politically punished for passing such a lousy piece of legislation. You can join our term limits cause at:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

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