No Longer the Land Of The Free

Sometimes things in life change so slowly that you do not realize how things have actually changed significantly until you sit back and reflect on where you are relative to where you were. The other day, while sitting at a spring training baseball game, I listened to the singing of the national anthem which of course includes the words, "land of the free." I realized how far we have allowed the political class to take us away from that concept, "the land of the free." Reflect for a moment on the following conditions and how those conditions deny us the freedom we may have had at one point in the past:

1. You cannot be free if all levels of government take about 40% of your annual income in order to support itself and perpetuate itself. According to the Tax Foundation, the average American household worked until May 29 in 2009 in order cover all of the political class's spending including covering the deficit spending by the Federal government. According to the Tax Foundation, the average American household now sends more money to the political class in taxes than it spends on clothing, food, and housing combined. By taking 40% of our income every year, the government denies and restricts us the freedom of choice to send our kids to a better school, support a charity as we would like, start a small business, buy a better home, or just to do anything we want with the money we earned. If you do not have financial freedom, due to excessive taxation, you are not free.
2. You cannot be free if the political class gerrymanders Congressional districts in order to guarantee that incumbents and the incumbent party is almost impossible to defeat. According to retiring Senator Evan Bayh, he estimates that about 15 Congressional districts, out of 435, are truly competitive. Republican gerrymandered districts will almost always elect a Republican Congressman or woman and Democratic gerrymandered districts will almost always elect a Democratic Congressman or woman. Thus, if you are a Democrat living in a Republican district, your vote will almost always be useless since you have been lumped into a district configured to be overwhelmingly Republican, and the same for a Republican living in a Democratic district. If you vote is useless, you are not free.
3. You cannot be free if the political class decides when and if your votes in the primary elections are to be counted. In 2008, the Democrats' leadership decided that Florida votes for the Democratic nominee for President would not count since the Florida Democrats had the audacity to move up their primary date in order to be relevant. If the political class can cut you out of the election process because of scheduling, you do not have a true voice in electing the country's leaders. If the political class can decide if and when your vote counts, you are not free.
4. You cannot be free if the political class takes hard earned taxpayer money and constantly shovels it out towards businesses, unions, and lobbyists in exchange or reciprical donations to their re-election campaigns. The recent 2010 budget included over 11,000 earmarks, each representing the sale of freedom for donations. If business, union, and lobbyist interest override individual Americans' desires, you are not free.
5. You cannot be free if, at the end of the primary season, party leaders can override the wishes of individual Americans who voted in the primaries and replace their choice for Presidential candidate. The Democratic party has super delegates at their Presidential conventions, special delegates that can override the wishes of all those who thought they had a voice in electing their leaders. If the results your voting depends on the ultimate and final approval of a small cadre or politburo of politicians, who can override your choice, you are not free.
6. You cannot be free if the government can seize your home and property under eminent domain and turn that property over to private interests for development. In the Supreme Court ruling in Kelo vs. New London, the local political class was allowed to seize homeowners' property, for a supposedly fair market place, in order to have private developers remake the area, versus the traditional reasons for eminent domain (schools, roads, bridges). Homeowners had to move against their will, giving up their land and homes. Ironically, the private development project was a flop so that the local political class got nothing for its abuse of eminent domain. If the government can take your property in the name of private development/public good, you are not free.
7. You cannot be free if the government can access your phone records, Internet histories, library activity, etc. The Patriot Act was ramrodded through after 9-11 and encouraged the government security apparatuses to be more aggressive and freedom threatening in the name of homeland security. If the Patriot Act and its potential for abuse is in effect, you are not free.
8. You cannot be free if the government denies the concept of freedom to others outside of the United States. Whether it is torturing prisoners under its control, denying due process to those same prisoners, instituting trade embargoes against long ago enemies (e.g. Cuba), etc., egregious behavior directed against non-Americans makes it easier for the political class to eventually, and subtly, direct that same behavior against Americans. If lack of due process and torture can be potentially directed at you, you cannot be free.
9. You cannot be free if those in the political class hold you and the rest of America in contempt. When Americans used their freedom of speech guarantee and spoke up to argue against the current atrocity called health care reform, Speaker Of The House Nancy Pelosi called them un-American. At the opening of the new visitors center in D.C. a center paid for with American taxpayer money, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared that Americans visiting D.C. in the summer physically smelled. When incumbent Congress people accept campaign donations from companies, unions, and lobbyists that do not even do business in their state or Congressional district, they are more likely to reward those out of district and out of state donors than work for the good of their constituents. If your leaders do not respect you and view your interests with contempt, you are not free.

It gets depressing when you take a really hard look at where freedom and liberty stand in this country today. We have allowed the political class to slowly but steadily erode our freedom that is recognized only as we view the deterioration over time. This deterioration is what the fifty steps in "love My Country, Loathe My Government" attempts to redress. We need to act now before the political class makes a total sham out of "land of the free."

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.

How Illegal Immigration and The Failed War On Drugs Intersect

Over the past fourteen months, we have seen how ineptly the political class has struggled to solve one problem, rising health care costs. Their bungling and childish haggling has resulted in a potential bill that is neither effective or efficient relative to controlling health care costs and which may not even pass Congress anyway. Their fourteen months of getting nothing accomplished shows how incompetent they are when they focus, and fail, on just a single issue.

Now, imagine how long it will take for them to solve large interrelated problems, given they cannot solve a single issue. Today we will look at the first of interrelated problems and issues, namely the failed War On Drugs and illegal immigration. We will examine similar intersections in subsequent posts. Consider the following information that has recently been published:

• The March 5, 2010 issue of The Week magazine had a synopsis of an article by Gregory Rodriguez of the LA Times, "Mexicans Who Fear Mexico." According to the article, the current drug war and the resultant killings going on in Mexico may cause millions of Mexican immigrants to not return to their homeland, after working and saving in the United States, like they have done in past generations. This generation may decide that returning home, even for a visit, is just too dangerous and the risk of staying in the U.S. is well worth it. As fewer and fewer of the current illegal residents in the country decide not to go home and more and more Mexican flee to this country to both work and avoid the drug killings, we will be faced with a growing illegal immigrant situation. I am not saying this is good or bad, just that it will occur.
• An Associated Press (AP) investigation and article by Alicia Caldwell, that was published on March 1, 2010, described how the Mexican drug gangs have set up extensive marijuana growing farms on public lands out west. The gangs use armed guards and trip wire bombs to protect their growing fields, endangering U.S. citizens who might be out hiking or camping in our national forests. The DEA said that police destroyed 7.6 marijuana plants from 20,000 pot fields in 2008. The article does not say what percentage of the total crop is represented by the 7.6 million plants but it certainly appears to be a major problem with one quote from a law enforcement agent estimating that they confiscate far less than 50% of what is grown on public lands. The drug gangs also kidnap and/or force illegal immigrants to work in the marijuana fields which are highly sophisticated growing operations. And finally, their use of high concentrations of fertilizer and other chemicals have created significant pollution problems around their growing fields.
• For those of you that are no aware, there are over six thousand drug-related murders every year in Mexico. Many of these murders are often grisly and may involve Innocent bystanders to gun battles between rival drug gangs or between the authorities and the drug gangs. Thus, almost twenty people are killed every day in Mexico because of the drug trade and industry.

Thus, two major issues facing America today, the failed War on Drugs and illegal immigration, are highly related. Current illegal immigrants will not go home because of the drug trade murders, many illegal immigrants are brought into the U.S. to work in the illegal marijuana fields, and we are seeing a major battle underway just below our southern border with the possibility that if the government loses its battle with the drug gangs, we will have a lawless narco state right next door.

Now, honestly ask yourself: given the bumbling of the political class in trying to solve the single issue of health care reform, what chance do we have that they can solve the interrelated issues of drugs and illegal immigration? I would say that even if they ever get around to it, the chance of them effectively and efficiently solving these joint issues is next to nothing. These are the same people running our government who significantly overran their budget and schedule in just trying to build a visitor's center in D.C. No way they can come up with a policy and legislation that is effective in the drug and immigration areas.

That is why Steps 26 and 29 in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" are so important. Using the model of citizen, expert panels that this country has successfully used in the past (e.g. Manhattan Project, Apollo space mission, the Grace Commission on government waste, the military base closing commission the 9-11 Commission, etc.), the government should impanel separate but conjoined panels to investigate and analyze all of the options relative to the war on drugs and illegal immigration. We can not afford to go slow on these issues and waiting for the political class to finally address them and then fail to do anything is not an option. These panels would be comprised of experts from a diverse set of fields and would bring their knowledge and experience to bear on the problem. They would then put together a set of different options for addressing these interrelated problems and the American public would vote on the options they want to see implemented.

This would bypass Congress and the President altogether, but given that Congress and the President have proven impotent relative to solving any issue, we need to take the initiative and solve it ourselves. The clock is ticking, as Mexico comes closer and closer to a narco state, our illegal immigrant population grows, and our woods and streams are polluted by illegal marijuana fields, we can not wait while the political class bumbles along like it has on health care reform.

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.

I Know It Is A Bad Idea But I Voted For It Anyway

Two days ago the U.S. House Of Representatives approved legislation which allocated $35 billion towards so-called job creation. The bill they passed would give hiring companies a temporary payroll tax break in addition to providing funding for construction in the transportation area. Since the country has lost over 8 million jobs since the recession began in late 2007, the political class thought it would be a good idea to create jobs. never mind the fact that government cannot create jobs, they can only temporarily create work.

The main thrust of the bill is a twofold hiring focus. First, it would allow businesses, who hire the unemployed, to not pay Social Security taxes on those new hires through the end of the year. Second, it would grant those businesses a $1,000 credit per worker if those new workers stay on the job for a full year.

What did some of the Congress people think of their new bill? Here a few examples of quotes from the march 4, 2010 Associated Press article describing the legislation:

• "If that's the only thing that I can vote on... I'll vote for it, obviously." Congressman Bill Pascrell
• "It's really not a jobs bill." Congresswoman Barbara Lee
• "Better late than never, and better something than nothing." - Congressman David Obey
• "It simply encourages conduct that would occur anyway." Congressman Lloyd Doggett
• "It's an insipid piece of legislation." Congressman Jim McDermott
• "It's not that good, but it's better than nothing." Congressman Jim McGovern

That sad part about these quotes is that they all come from Democrats, most of whom voted to pass the legislation regardless of how bad and insipid it is. I can imagine what the Republicans think of the bill, almost all of which voted against it. There are so many problems with this bill:

• For all those businesses that were going to hire people anyway, they get free grants of money since it is impossible to determine which of these hires would have happened in the absence of the this bill. Much like the Cash For Clunkers program, inane laws like this just move demand around and rewards the recipients of the cash for doing something they likely would have done anyway. It does not spur growth and is just a free handout of taxpayer money in most cases. That was Congressman Doggett's point listed above.
• Although it is a lame attempt to spur jobs growth, it robs the Social Security Administration of some potential revenue that the article says will be be made whole. How do you do that? Why, at some point in time you get it from those that generate wealth and the resultant taxes, the American taxpayer. Thus, all this bill does is take money out of the Social Security trust fund, spend it in a lame attempt to spur job growth and then takes the same amount of money from taxpayers to repay Social Security.
• You can bet that there will be rampant fraud under this program. How easy would it be for a small business to cook their books and make it look like they are bringing people (sisters, brothers, cousins, friends, etc.) on board when they are just paper hires? How easy will it be to fire everyone on Friday and hire them back on Monday and make it look like you hired a bunch of people when all you did was reset the clock to collect the Social Security dollars exempted under this bill and get the $1,000 grant per employee?
• As Republican Congressman LaTourette said in the article, most business people he has talked to will not use the provisions of the bill because there is simply not enough business available to justify any hiring, regardless of the provisions of this legislation. "This is not going to create one job."
• And finally, how many jobs can something like this generate (remembering that these types of programs create work, not new economy jobs)? Some of our previous posts to this blog calculated that best, best, most optimistic case is that the previous government stimulus funds cost about $224,000 per "job" created. If you assume that this bill will not be anymore efficient than previous ones and we divide the $35 billion by $224,000 cost per job, you end up, best, best case with just over 100,000 jobs created. Most of these jobs disappear once the money is spent since they were not permanently created, they were temporarily funded with borrowed taxpayer money. Anyway, creating 100,000 temporary jobs pales in comparison to the over 8 million jobs lost in the past year or so to the recession.

S0 let's review. Most politician do not like the bill and do not think it will work but many voted for it anyway. Although it is unlikely to work, any temporary "jobs" it creates will likely be very expensive, and it well be subject to an incredibly high probability of fraud that will be next to impossible to detect. Most justified voting for it simply because it was better than nothing, kind of like being queen of the pigs, you may be a queen but you are still ugly. And in this case, an extremely expensive, ugly pig at $35 billion. Better uses of the money:

1. Pay down part (a very small part) of the deficit and national debt to get government spending under control and get the country fiscally sound again.
2. Give each U.S. household a check for $270 or so, it is their money anyway, they should be able to waste it anyway they want and not rely on the political class to pass "insipid" legislation to waste it.
3. Retrofit about 580,000 U.S. homes so that they are completely solar powered, reducing green house gases, reducing dependency on foreign energy sources, and possibly creating some real jobs in a new industry. See a previous post concerning nuclear energy on how we arrived at the 580,000 homes ($35 billion divided by the average cost of retrofitting a typical house = $61,000).

If I can come with these three far better ways to spend $35 billion, I am sure smarter people than me could come up with even better ideas. Unfortunately, those smarter people apparently do not currently sit in the U.S. of Representatives.

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.

A Month In The Life Of The U.S. House Of Representatives

Many times I have referenced the great website, www.flipcongress2010.com. The owners of this website have done a fantastic job of researching, analyzing, and publishing the wasted time, effort, and money that the political class expends without solving any of the major problems currently confronting the country. These problems include a skyrocketing deficit, high national debt, failing public schools, a lost War On Drugs, two wars in the Middle East, high taxes, rising health care costs, Social Security and Medicare heading for bankruptcy, no national energy strategy, impotent immigration policies, just to name a few.

Rather than work on these handful of major problems, www.flipcongress2010.com documented the resolutions passed by the House Of Representatives during the month of March, 2009. To me, they seem pretty trivial when compared to my list above but I will let you be the judge. However, I have taken the liberty to cynically comment on these resolutions, using some of the insights that the www.flipcongress2010.com folks used on their website:

• Congratulating the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia for more than 100 years of service and leadership to the United States. Too bad none of these leaders ever made it to Washington, a vacuum when it comes to leadership skills.
• Raising awareness and promoting education on the criminal justice system by establishing March as National Criminal Justice Month. Nice thought but would it have been a better tribute to solve the War on Drugs failure, a major criminal justice issue?
• Recognizing and honoring the employees of the Department of Homeland Security on its sixth anniversary for their continuous efforts to keep the nation safe. Isn't what they are supposed to do? Why are we congratulating someone on just doing their job? Would this resolution pass today given the horrible job Homeland Security did relative to the Christmas day underwear bomber?
• Recognizing Beverly Eckerts service to the Nation and particularly to the survivors and families of the September 11 2001 attacks. Kudos to Ms. Eckerts but 1) is she the only one do deserve this honor and 2) wouldn't focusing on fixing Social Security have been a better use of the House's time?
• Commending the University of Southern California Trojan football team for its victory in the 2009 Rose Bowl. Why stop at the Rose Bowl? Why didn't Congress finish the job and congratulate the winners of the Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Mienke Car Care Bowl, The St. Petersburg Bowl, Gator Bow, Outback Bowl, Chic Filet Bowl, etc.?
• Supporting the goals and ideals of Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Week. Nice idea but why stop with the one disease and not include the hundreds of others that are just as worthy?
• Designating March 2 2009 as Read Across America Day. According to the website, this resolution passed a few weeks after March 2. Missed it by that much. Tough to hype your Congressional endorsement day after the day actually happened.
• Congratulating the National Assessment Governing Board on its 20th Anniversary in measuring student academic achievement. I cannot even come up with a witty retort for this insanity, what in the world is the National Assessment Governing Board?
• Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that providing breakfast in schools through the National School Breakfast Program has a positive impact on classroom performance. Wow, aren't they smart? How come no one else figured out that having a food in your stomach is good for learning? They are so smart in Washington.
• R. Jess Brown United States Courthouse. First naming of a building to suck up Congressional time.
• J. Herbert W. Small Federal Building and United States Courthouse. Second naming of a building to suck up Congressional time.
• Recognizing the plight of the Tibetan people on the 50th anniversary of His Holiness the Dalai Lama being forced into exile and calling for a sustained multilateral effort to bring about a durable and peaceful solution to the Tibet issue. Apparently they called for a multilateral effort but provided no insights on what that effort would be. Probably because they have no clue what to do here.
• Recognizing and commending the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Cornell University for the success of the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity on the 5th anniversary of their successful landing. First machines to suck up Congressional time.
• Supporting the designation of Pi Day. As a math major in college, it brings a tear to my eyes that all powerful Pi, the cornerstone to figuring out the area AND circumference of a circle has at long last been recognized by the Congress of the United States. I would love to you who thought up and sponsored this idea, devoting Congressional time to a Greek alphabet letter.
• Major Ed W. Freeman Post Office. Third naming of a building sucking up Congressional time.
• Specialist Peter J. Navarro Post Office Building. Fourth naming of a building sucking up Congressional time.
• John Scott Challis Jr. Post Office. Fifth naming of a building sucking up Congressional time.
• Supporting the goals and ideals of National Womens History Month. Nice thought but what about working on fixing the rising health care costs first?
• To support the goals and ideals of Professional Social Work Month and World Social Work Day. Nice thought but how about fixing the failing public schools problem first?
• Lance Corporal Drew W. Weaver Post Office Building Designation. Sixth naming of a building sucking up Congressional time.
• Stan Lundine Post Office Building Designation. Seventh naming of a building sucking up Congressional time.
• Expressing support for designation of the week of March 1 through March 8 2009 as School Social Work Week. Also just missed on this effort from a timing perspective. This resolution was passed two weeks after the week getting supported had passed.
• Recognizing the 188th anniversary of the independence of Greece and celebrating Greek and American democracy. Not the 50th, not the 100th, not the 200th or any other typical milestone, Congress decided to weigh in on the 188th anniversary.
• Recognizing the 30th anniversary of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. Nice thought but how about working on peace treaties between Israel and the rest of the Arab world?

A lot of these are noble thoughts and I am sure many of the individuals and organizations were thrilled to have resolutions passed in their names. However, I bet they would be more thrilled and would likely trade in their resolutions if Congress and the ruling political class got together to solve the bigger issues first, the ones we listed in the first paragraph above. As mentioned many, many times in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," we have to get government so much smaller and focused in order to not only reduce our taxes but to get them focused on solving the major problems facing America today. Naming Post Offices, honoring Greek letters, etc. will not make a difference in the lives of most of the 300 million Americans living today.

The sad thing is that the above efforts all occurred in just one month's time. Can you imagine how many hours and dollars of staff and elected officials time is spent over the course of twelve months?