Every month we devote posts to just general political class insanity that is running rampant through the country. The members of the American political class continue to show that they are incapable of efficiently operating any level of government in this country.
Even their best efforts are almost always ineffective at resolving any problem facing Americans. They spend a great amount of time not trying to improve the lives of their citizens but continually ensuring their reelection and enriching themselves, their families, and their friends in the process, all at taxpayer expense.
1)The so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” was a piece of farce legislation that had nothing to do with reducing inflation, in a time of very high inflation, but was used as a vehicle to fund stupid, liberal, and doomed to failure ventures and programs. No notable benefits have come out of the law so far and it is likely that it is just another piece of wasteful spending.
But the damage of wasting taxpayer wealth on stupidity goes even deeper:
It looks like certain aspects of the legislation used Medicare funds to pay for the program involved in the legislation, meaning that the almost 68 million Americans on Medicare are likely to see higher premium costs going forward.
Specifically, listen to the words of Ron Fitzwater, Chief Executive Officer of the Missouri Pharmacy Association: “Nearly two years after its passage, the IRA has diverted nearly $260 billion from the projected Medicare ‘savings’ to pay for special interest handouts like large tax credits for costly electric vehicles, enormous subsidies paid to big health insurer-PBM corporations, and funding health care programs for illegal immigrants.” The Biden-Harris administration is not protecting Medicare; they’re stealing from it.”
Even Politico, a left leaning news website, agrees with his assessment, stating that a chain reaction began as a result of the legislation.
The law shifted the burden of paying for prescription medicine from seniors to insurance companies which led insurance companies to increase their premiums for 2025.
This led to numerous and politically timed accounting shenanigans which according to Fitzwater will shift $330 billion from Medicare funding to fund the many pet projects of the liberal political class, a $330 billion shortfall that will be paid off by the 68 million Medicare customers.
Thus, Medicare customers could see their annual cost go up by about $4,000 a year, just to fund the fantasy “green deal” projects of the Biden administration.
Just another added cost to Americans’ living expenses in addition to the higher food, shelter, gas, utility and other costs Biden has dropped on the country.
By the way, we have previously discussed the reality that analyses by much smarter people than those in Congress, e.g. the Congressional Budget Office and the Wharton School of Business, have shown that the “Inflation Reduction Act” will have very little, if any, impact on inflation, it was all a scam.
2)Speaking of Medicare expenses, far too many times we have discussed the massive fraud and criminal activity that goes on within the Medicare environment, fraud and crimes that increase the costs of the 68 million Medicare customers on a daily basis. Despite the fact that Medicare has been around since the Johnson administration in the 1960s, 60 years later, it is still unable to minimize the fraud that exists within the Medicare environment.
And the sentencing of a recent Medicare criminal in Florida shows how easy it is to rip off the program:
A Florida woman was recently sentenced to 20 years in jail for defrauding the Medicare program of a whopping $192 million in claims for genetic tests, medical equipment purchases, and telemedicine visits that never happened.
And it appears she was not a career criminal working for a crime organization, she was just a nurse practitioner that for years defrauded the American taxpayer.
She signed orders for braces and genetic testing for Medicare customers she never talked to.
She faked information on forms about Medicare customers illnesses, symptoms, and injuries.
During her crime wave,, she ordered more genetic tests for Medicare customers than any other medical provider in the country.
When telemedicine became popular curing the covid crisis, she billed Medicare for thousands of telemedicine visits that she never performed, sometimes billing for over 24 hours of telemedicine visits in a single day.
She then allegedly used the Medicare funds she scammed to purchase expensive cars, jewelry, perform home renovations, and traveled.
Again, this was a nurse practitioner not an organized crime ring. Her scamming went on for years, with nobody or no process in the Medicare organization smart enough to check how she was doing over 24 hours a day in telemedicine visits, why she was the largest provider of genetic testing in the country, etc. In the real world, these are simple audits that should have been baked into the Medicare reimbursement process but sadly, such simple audits apparently do not exist.
The good news is she got caught. The bad news is twofold: 1) she probably spent a lot of the money she scammed so the $192 million of stolen taxpayer money will likely not be recovered and 2) how many others, individuals and organized crime rings, have NOT been caught doing the same type of simple-to-identify and track fraudulent activities?
3)It has been a little while since we checked in with the allegedly and apparently massive fraud that is going on within Mayor Eric Adams’ New York City administration. We previously have had discussions of the many instances of fraud and criminal activity that ranged from the NYC police department to the NYC fire department to the NYC education department and more.
But just because we have not discussed the corruption lately does not mean it has stopped:
Two NYPD Deputy Chiefs, Maximo Tolentino and Victoria Perry, have been accused of directing police department funds to a Bronx restaurant owned by the brother of former Police Commissioner, Edward Caban.
The accusation claims that these two police chiefs lobbied for events to be held at the restaurant, Con Sofrito, a place that is owned by Richard Caban, a retired NYPD officer, Edward Caban’s brother.
The Department of Justice says that the chiefs told their staff to prioritize the restaurant for community events, allegedly stating that doing so would “make the big boss [Edward Caban] happy.”
Both of the accused chiefs earn over $200,000 a year in city taxpayer funded salaries.
And the alleged criminal shenanigans and corruption go on under Eric Adams.
4)The average cost of a dozen eggs in January, 2021, the month Biden was installed as President was $1.50. The current average cost of eggs in October, 2024 was $3.37, more than double what they cost when Biden took office.
The average cost of a gallon of gas when Biden was installed as President in January, 2021 was $2.33 a gallon. The current average cost of gas in October, 2024 was $3.14. Thus, the cost of a gallon of gas increased by almost 50% during Biden’s Presidency.
But the cost of families’ daily expenses are not the only costs that have increased during the past four years:
According to an analysis by the American Action Forum, the cost of Federal government regulations during the Biden Presidency is imposing an aggregate cost of $1.8 trillion on Americans.
Since there are about 131 million American households, theoretically government regulations under Biden are costing each household about $13,700.
This is up 50% from the $1.2 trillion the Federal government regulations were costing Americans during the Trump Presidency, a theoretical increase of about $4,600.
In addition, before the Biden administration ends in January, the Federal Register, the publication that contains every Federal government regulation is expected to exceed the all-time high of pages of Federal government regulations.
The current Register is a disgusting and whopping 89,476 pages long.
The current record size of the Federal Register was attained under Obama and was a mind boggling 95,894 pages and Biden may have a shot at topping that figure.
Given there are about 90,000 pages of government regulations, it is probably not beyond reason that each and every one of us is currently violating some government regulation.
Of course, some government regulations are necessary. But we have discussed the reality in previous posts that as government gets larger and larger, government bureaucrats have to find ways to justify their existence. This results in more and more unnecessary government regulations as the government bureaucracy tries to justify its existence, all of which makes our lives more expensive.
The good news is that drastically reducing the size of government by eliminating wasteful spending, unnecessary regulations, and unnecessary bureaucracy is a top priority of Trump’s second Presidency. Hopefully he can succeed in his downsizing strategy and allow us to pay less towards the currently Federal government.
Enough insanity for today: Biden piled on expensive regulations, more alleged NYC corruption, more Medicare criminal fraud, and more Medicare political class stealing.
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If you agree that we need to deseat every member of Congress for their lack of success and accomplishment, then please consider going to the following petition link to help the cause:
https://www.change.org/p/deseat-congress-reset-freedom
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mRNA
