The Soviet Politiburo - American Style Part 2

Yesterday we talked about the analogy between the ruling bodies in the old Soviet Union, the Politburo and the Central Committee, and the current state of politics in America today with the American political class starting to look like and act like these two Soviet entities (in office for life, not accountable to the citizens, perks and favors only for them).

Today in Part 2 I would like to include an essay from Charlie Reese that I received from a relative recently via email. From the best of my research, Mr. Reese appears to have been a newspaper journalist for almost fifty years and is currently writing an online column. My attempts to contact Mr. Reese have not yet been successful but his essay on the political class, which I have included below, is elegant in its description of what ails America today and is completely in line with the premise of the Book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government":

545 PEOPLE By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?
Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.
You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason.. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits.. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.
The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.
It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.
If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.
If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.
If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ
If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.
There are no insoluble government problems.
Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.
Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.
They, and they alone, have the power.
They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.
Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.
We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

A fabulous and elegant summation of the problem. That is why we need to greatly reduce the campaign funding available to current politicians (Step 6 in the book), we need to stop the gerrymandering of Congressional districts (Step 14), we need to hold Congressional committees and subcommittees accountable for their performance (Step 34), we need term limits (Step 39) and execute any number of other Steps in the book to make these 545 perform better. The alternative is the Politburo - American style.

The Soviet Poitiburo - American Style

Charles Rangel, Congressman from New York, got me thinking today about how the American political class is starting to look more and more like the old days of the Soviet Union with its Politburo and Central Committee. Mr. Rangel is in the news again for neglecting to pay taxes and disclosing assets that he had. This follows the allegations last September about how he neglected to declare earnings from rental properties he owned. I will not go into the details here, there are plenty of credible Internet sources that document in great detail his tax misgivings.

The tragic thing about Mr. Rangel's tax dealings is that he is the chairman of the House Ways and Mean Committee, the powerful committee that oversees and writes the nation's tax code. You would think that someone in his position would be better able to pay his taxes correctly, if he WANTED to. Unfortunately, Mr. Rangel's tax avoidance, whether intentional or not, is totally consistent with so many of Washington's politicians: Treasury Secretary Geithner ($34,000 in back taxes), Ex-Senator Tom Daschle ($130,000), Kathleen Sebelius ($7,000), Ron Kirk ($10,000), Nancy Keiffer, etc. The list seems to go on and on.

That brings me to the Politburo and Central Committee. These two Soviet groups basically dictated all aspects of Soviet life throughout the decades of the last century. They were accountable only to themselves and basically had jobs for life. The rules and rewards were better and different for them as compared to ordinary Soviet citizens. The founders of our country had different ideals, they wanted everyone in America to be equal in opportunity regardless of who they were or what they did for a living. They would be appalled by the way the American political class has involved into an elite "club" with all of the trappings of the Politburo and Central Committee. By controlling election processes, a politician basically stays in office for as long as they want with all of the perks they have voted for themselves: high salaries, best medical care, lucrative retirement programs, free car usage, (House Of Representatives only) and apparently, immunity from violating tax laws. Stalin, Lenin , and the rest of the Red gang would be proud.

"Love My Country, Loathe My Government" proposes a small fix that would start the breakup of this elitism and blatant disregard for the tax laws that the rest of us have to endure and obey or face the consequences. Under Step 5 on page 20, the book proposes that all members of Congress, the President, Vice President, and all Cabinet heads immediately have their tax returns audited for the past few years and the results made public. In order to have any kind of credibility to govern, those that are governed have to believe that everyone is treated the same under the law, unlike the members of the Politburo and Central Committee.

Tomorrow - Another view on the American Politburo and Central Committee analogy,

Almost A Good Idea

Although it does not happen often, a member of the political class sometimes has a good idea and it should be recognized. It has come to my attention recently that Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander recently proposed a bill that demonstrated some real outside of the box thinking and would have done a little good in restoring some freedom to this country's citizens. As you all know, the Federal government took over $60 billion of our taxpayer money and used it to bailout GM and Chrysler. In a previous blog we discussed this insanity in detail and how it was a total waste of our hard earned dollars. The result of this bailout and the accompanying bankruptcy proceedings has left the Federal government with about 60% ownership of GM.

Senator Alexander's idea is very simple: given that the American taxpayers paid for this bailout, the American taxpayer should own the 60% via a GM company stock distribution process, i.e. all of us who paid for the bailout would own stock in the new GM. Seems only fair, we paid for it, we should own it. Unfortunately, his proposal was defeated in the Senate. Apparently, the political class wants to hold onto the power of ownership even though they had nothing to do with financing the bailout.

Distributing shares to Americans would have a number of advantages:

1. First, it is only fair since we paid for it (the government did not pay for it, it just took our tax dollars and bought the companies). Our dollars, it should be our reward if the stock actually is worth anything in the future.
2. Second, being owned by many, many Americans would force GM management to be solely focused on running the company efficiently and profitably for the shareholders and not have to worry about the political class interfering in that drive for profitability by having the executives of GM and Chrysler scurrying off to Washington every time some vain politician wants to get his or her name in the paper. The company executives would be accountable to the shareholders, all Americans, and not the whims of the political class.
3. Third, do not think for a minute that the political class will not interfere with company activities. Consider two quotes from Obama in the SAME press conference regarding government ownership of GM as reported on Earthlink's news page on June 1, 2009:

• " What I am not saying, what I have no interest in doing, is running GM." He want on to say that auto executives "will call and make the decisions about turning the company around."
• Later in the press conference he said, "looking ahead, GM will be prodded at every juncture by the administration's top officials"."

HUH? In the same breathe he says he does not want to run GM and the executives will make the decisions and that GM will be prodded at every juncture. Makes no sense. You can bet that this administration will meddle in the ongoing efforts of GM, advocating and pressing its position for GM to make small, fuel efficient cars. Unfortunately, a whole lot of America does not want small, fuel efficient cars. Thus, in short order GM will fail again because it did not listen to the needs of the market (first time because of its own shortsightedness and second time because of political class dictates that were not consistent with market needs ands desires) and our billions of tax dollars spent on the bailouts will be wasted.

Nice try Senator Alexander, you gave it a shot for freedom, fairness, and sanity, too bad the rest of your cohorts did not see it that way.

The Taxing Carbon Fallacy - Part 3

Today is the final installment of looking at the fallacy of Obama's cap and trade program for reducing carbon emissions. Two days ago we examined whether or not global warming is, in fact, a reality. We reviewed how these same types of climatologists claiming global warming is a fact today were also claiming the eminent onset of an Ice Age in the mid-1970s and how they missed that big prediction. Also in that blog, we reviewed how a senior EPA analyst's report that debunked many of the global warming methodologies and predictions had been suppressed by senior EPA and/or Obama administration members.

Yesterday, we reviewed how the world trends in population growth, economic progression, third world industrialization, and emerging middle classes around the world will demand cheap energy and the growth in their usage of energy will easily wipe out anything the United States does to restrict its carbon footprint. Thus, one solution proposed yesterday was to put together a cap and trade program and not implement it until the entire world is on board for reducing carbon emissions. Otherwise, only American businesses and consumers will bear the burden of Obama's cap and trade program and will bear it for no reason since any American savings in carbon emission will be wiped out by the increase in the rest of the world.

Today, let's finalize our analysis of Obama's cap and trade fallacy. Consider the following major Federal programs today:

• Social Security - heading for bankruptcy
• Medicare - heading for bankruptcy
• Border Patrol - probably over 10 million illegal immigrants in the country
• FEMA - ask the people of New Orleans of their opinion after Katrina
• War On Drugs - narco nations developing to the south of us and in major American cities
• Budget Management - mind boggling budget deficits now and for the foreseeable future
• Highway System - bridge collapse kills Americans in Minnesota and in the Big Dig tunnel in Boston
• Terrorist Protection - almost 3,000 Americans die on 9-11
• Veterans Administration - wounded soldiers come home to deplorable VA hospital conditions
• NASA - space station goes over budget and under performs while shuttle fleet is fatal to two sets of American astronauts
• Public Education - failure in so many places and in so many ways
• National Strategic Energy Plan - nonexistent
• Campaign finance reform laws - probably unconstitutional and ineffective anyway

Given this track record, do we really think that the political class through the Federal government has any kind of capability of executing a massive carbon cap and trade program? Be serious, what major government program does the Federal government execute in an efficient, effective, and timely manner? If you do a little searching on the Internet you will see that even the Cash For Clunkers program was an administrative nightmare with crashing government computers, incorrect rejections of applications, delayed payments to dealers, and a myriad of other snafus. If the political class cannot execute a simple rebate program like Cash For Clunkers, there is no way they could effectively execute a cap and trade program. If they did, it would be the first time they did anything successful in the past four decades. This is a risk America should not take.

In review:

• If global warming is a myth, and there is insufficient evidence that it definitely is a reality, than Obama's cap and trade program is not needed.
• Even if global warming is a reality, having just the United States abide by a cap and trade program will make no difference given the growth in carbon emissions in the developing countries and Obama's cap and trade program is not needed.
• There is little chance that the political class, through the Federal government, could implement a successful cap and trade program since they currently cannot run any successful program.

The only potential solution to the possibility of global warming is through technology. Would it not be better, more focused, less expensive, less repressive and freedom restricting, and have a better chance of succeeding if we take all of the energy and effort that would be required to police American businesses and consumers via a cap and trade program and put that focus and effort into developing clean coal technologies and automobile technologies that are not carbon based? In "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," Steps 23, 24, and 25 lay out how to accomplish what is required.