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2009 Year Review – The good, the bad and the ugly of the American political class

Throughout 2009, while citizens of the country and those who is faced with a terrible economy, foreign wars, the extreme partisanship and sniping of Congress, no improvements on the major problems facing this country, as the high national debt, high unemployment, failing public schools, widespread drug problems, rising health care costs and other aspects important, what the politicians were concerned? Looking back in 2009, seems to have been three distinct categories of U.S. behavior class policy: the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Good

By all accounts, 2009 was a tough year in the U.S.. The good news is that in fact could identify some areas where the political class did some good things. The bad news is that it could only reach three examples where the actions of the political class taxpayers and citizens had in mind when you run your actions:

1) The first example is based on personal experience. I live in Pinellas County Florida and in the last four years my property taxes are down by one year the base year. They have fallen so much they now pay 40% less in property taxes today than four years ago I paid a significant portion of this reduction occurring in 2009. There are probably a number of factors, both political and not politicians, who have entered this decline, but the end result is that they have fallen significantly. And here's the good news: I have yet Protection police, I have yet fire protection, schools are still open, the parks remain open, most libraries are open and roads and traffic lights are still in good shape. This is a test that in a very local level, may be an excess of waste removed without substantial government reduction of protection and essential services. The primary word in the preceding sentence is essential.

2) The second example comes from the U.S. Senate and was a suggestion, and the formal proposal to the Senate by Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. His reasoning: because the federal government paid about 60 billion U.S. dollars of money U.S. taxpayers to acquire a 60% stake of General Motors and theoretically save it from bankruptcy, not every American taxpayer the opportunity to license shares and partial ownership of GM and not the bureaucrats in Washington? After all, since the government is able to operate only because they get taxpayer money, if the government acquires ownership of a private company, does not mean that the taxpayers of the company, as it was his money? Senator Alexander was the only politician this year that showed that understands the relationship between taxes and public spending. Give individual citizens GM shares more interest would ensure that GM made ahead, and that every citizen would have a stake in their survival, giving GM a better chance of survival than the property is government. Unfortunately, the senator's suggestion was not approved by the Senate.

3) The latest example comes from a small town in southern Florida, Miami Gardens. Last year, Miami Gardens city government took the following actions:

• The payroll of the city grew. Most of all rest of the country increased unemployment.
• City employees still have cost of living increases and merit raises. Most parts of the country and wages were frozen or reduced wages.
• The city increased its financial reserves by about $ 300,000. Most of all parts of country, state and local governments is dipped into its reserves to cover operating costs.
• The city parks and schools updated April 17. Most other government entities were the reduction or elimination of maintenance projects.

How was he able to do all these Miami Gardens positive things in the light of a very, very deep recession and the fact that they are not residents of a city of rich? According to interviews with city officials:

• City employees share resources both personnel and other resources.
• The city hires only those people who really need to do the work that had to do.
• City officials say they have the ability and willingness to say "no" to non-essential projects and programs, stating that can not be everything to everyone.

Thus, like the first example above, Miami Gardens politicians have shown that the implementation a shed, the effective functioning of government is possible if they are respectful of taxpayer dollars. It only takes a little planning and the ability to say exactly No.

The Bad

In life you have to take the good and bad so now let's review some of the less glorious mischief class served with our policy in the second half of 2009:

• Ginny Brown-Waite, a Florida congressman, is actively investing in bank shares while she was sitting in the House banking committee to determine which banks got what levels of ransom money and support from American taxpayers through of the federal government. This is a blatant conflict of interest. Ordinary Americans would probably have gone to jail for insider trading if they did the same thing, apparently, the conflicts of interest and insider trading activities do not apply to members of Congress.
• Senator Hillary Clinton apparently does not understand the theory of conflict of interest. She helped pass a bill allowing a developer of shopping centers in the state New York to receive preferential tax treatment, shortly after the developer made a significant donation to the foundation of Bill Clinton.
• Hawaiian Senator Daniel Inouye helped staff a bank in Hawaii receives money from the rescue of the FDIC after the FDIC determines the bank was worth saving. It turns out that Senator was heavily invested in the bank and began to lose a lot of money unless the bank was saved by the American taxpayer.
• Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut received campaign donations from Fannie Me and Freddie Mac two things wrong here. First, Dodd was chairman of the Senate banking committee in charge monitor the activities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a case of logging a conflict of interest. Secondly, how two federal organizations that exist today only because of taxpayer support and the recovery of money is to use public money to support specific candidates for office? Should not government organizations remain non-partisan, not a piggy bank for politicians who are supposed to oversee?
• Former Congressman William Jefferson of Louisiana was convicted of taking bribes and was sentenced to 13 years in prison. You may recall that Mr. Jefferson was caught with bribe money frozen in the freezer of origin. This continues the hall of shame the tradition of the political class, which recently has included Congressman Randy Cunningham, who was sentenced to eight years in prison for accept $ 2.4 million in bribes, Congressman Bill Ney, who was sentenced to two and half years in prison for taking bribes, Congressman James Traficant was convicted seven years in prison for taking bribes, and most of former governors of Illinois who are serving time in prison, served time in prison, or soon could face imprisonment.
• 60% of members of Congress sitting on the Armed Services Committee received campaign contributions from the same companies that previously earmarked pork barrel budget money for.
• Congressman Charles Rangel of New York is being investigated for a number of ethics violations including but not limited to, the non-declaration of rental income, certain assets and other income.
• In the area of "who really cares about this bill," Rep. Anna Eshoo of California and his staff are working on federal legislation to adjust the sound volume on TV commercials. Never mind that viewers can mute the sound, change the channel, leave the room to get something to eat, fast forward DVR on their computers, or simply ignore the TV for 60 seconds. Why work in Iraq, Afghanistan, rising deficits, unemployment, failing public schools, etc, when the commercial TV theme sound volume is so urgent?
• In the same vein as the contribution Ms. Eshoo of America, Congressman Jim Moran and his team are investigating whether the TV ads referring to a specific male health problem should be prohibited. I did not know this was so important either. As with Ms. Eshoo, let's ignore the real problems facing the United States and work on issues commercial television.
• And it never ends. Congressman Thaddeus McCotter and his staff is working on legislation to provide up to $ 300 a month in tax deductions for the unemployed do not have to put their pets up for adoption. Perhaps if his staff and they were working on how to get work in the United once again, no need to ridicule this program would never be able to monitor and full of fraud.
• Worse than the individual People's Congress and its staff working on trivial bills, what about an entire House subcommittee worked on legislation to force the NCAA to go to a playoff format to determine the best Division One college football team? Where this issue since the vast majority of Americans today? Probably not that high.
• The wall on the border between Mexico and the United States was the work of the Congress. A 2009 report documented that the construction of the fence is seven years late, will cost 6.4 billion U.S. dollars to maintain the fence in the next twenty years ($ 870.000 day!), and there have been at least 3,000 violations of the fence that illegal immigrants were able to enter the country despite this nearly one billion dollars.
• The new downtown Washington DC visitors was completed, but only after they delayed the construction budget by 50%.
• California Congressman Henry Waxman was quoted as saying: "I certainly do not pretend to know everything in this bill," referring to the top mass and legislation trade is likely to Congress in 2010. The worrying aspect of this is that Waxman is the official co-author and writer of the bill!
• Recently, who could forget the blatant bribery recently passed health care reform bill required where a handful of Senate Democrats were able to to get the breaks of individual states to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars in exchange for their final vote for this bill.

If these actions were not serious and far reaching, it would be funny. Conflicts of interest, trivial projects and waste of money, sad but true in 2009.

El Feo

It has been said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. However, it is difficult to find much beauty in any of the following projects funded by the federal government, and that residues of federal tax dollars on local projects that contribute nothing to solving the major problems facing the national country today. Beauty is only in the eyes of the politicians in turn that waste from these taxpayer dollars to support their efforts for re-election:

• Exhibits at the Teddy Roosevelt Inaugural Site Foundation – $ 150,000
• Restoration of Portsmouth, New Hampshire Music Hall – $ 1,000,000
• Restoration of the Uptown Theatre in Philadelphia – $ 350,000
• The construction of the Monroe County (Kentucky) Market Farmers – $ 250,000
• Murphy Theatre Restoration in Ohio – $ 250,000
• Restoration of the Slater Mill in Rhode Island – $ 194,000
• Pregones Restoration in the Bronx – $ 150,000
• The construction of the road to Santa Ana River in California – $ 100,000
• Funding for the Myrtle Beach International Trade and Conference Center – $ 100,000
• Funding for the Washington area (state) Opera – $ 200,000
• Funding for the Montana World Trade Center – $ 134,000
• Funds Institute for Arkansas Commercial Driver Training – $ 200,000
• Funding to study and educate citizens about the role and importance of the Senate U.S., based in Massachusetts – $ 18,900,000
• Funding for the Brown Tree Snake program, the funding that is embedded in 2010 Defense Department budget – $ 500,000
• Renewal of the Ritz Theater in Newburgh, New York – $ 400,000
• Renewal Small Theater Lardeo Laredo, Texas – $ 200,000
• Expansion of Bristol Street in Santa Ana, California – $ 350,000
• Construction a bicycle lane in Puerto Sanilax, Michigan – $ 250,000
• Funding for the Museum of Aviation – $ 350,000
• Funding for the Prize Food World in Iowa – $ 750,000
• Issues such as Medicare claims, for example, the payment of blood glucose strips for impotence sexual – $ 47,000,000,000
• Government waste due to improper payments in all departments of the Federal Government – $ 98,000,000,000
• The conversion of 21 cabooses in a caboose motel in Pennsylvania – $ 500,000
• The funding of a remote Pennsylvania Airport which serves about twenty passengers a day – $ 200,000,000
• Funding from state of the art of radar remote control system for airport Pennsylvania has never been used – $ 8,000,000
• The financing of a border checkpoint remote Montana, on the border with Canada which is responsible for about three passengers a day on average and less than $ 200 of goods per day on average – $ 15,000,000
• Funding Society for Traveling Polynesia Hawaii – $ 238,000
• Funding for the Laboratory of Animal Forage Research in Kentucky, 1.6 million U.S. dollars
• Funding for Hog odor and Manure Management Research in Iowa – $ 1,790,000
• The funds for the rehabilitation of oysters in Alabama – $ 800,000
• Support the health and economic development activities for the Arctic region – $ 19,600,000
• A loan to a California company to develop and build an expensive hybrid sports car …. Finland – $ 529,000,000

These are only a couple dozen programs that waste hard earned taxpayer money. The draft 2010 budget law with more than 11,000 programs in any other, though Obama was running for president to keep the number of pork projects, how are you well below 2,000. The reasons that we have the state and local governments handle state and local needs. There should be the role of the federal government to finance local bike routes, expand local roads, renovation of the theater Forward etc time, money and resources of the truly national problems like the two wars that are currently involved in, the high Federal deficits, high levels unemployment, Social Security and Medicare heading for insolvency, failing public schools, high rates of drug addiction and associated crime problems, the lack of a strategic national energy plan, etc.

So why the political class to spend / waste time and money on these issues with clarity and local needs? Help to ensure re-election trying to prove to their own voters who are experts in stealing money from other U.S. taxpayers and channel in their districts sending and receiving states. Remember, the government pays for nothing, which funds programs with tax money taken from all U.S. taxpayers. Thus, the path to Bicycles in Michigan is being funded in part by the taxpayers of Arizona who will not race that way. Traveling Polynesia Society is being funded in part by Vermont taxpayers will never get any benefit of the Company.

Long ago, the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of everything this country enduing and freedom, was in great need of repair and renewal. The country rose to donate private funds to restore this national symbol. If the Statue Freedom decades ago not merit federal funding of several, why farmers markets and bike paths that deserves federal support today?

This theft of money from national taxes, possibly hiding a dangerous reality. It may be that this generation of politicians, and those who have been immediately before them, do not know how to solve the real problems facing the U.S. national today. In the 1960s, Nixon declared war on drugs but we still have a major drug problem in this country. In the 1970s, Carter was president when the energy crisis experienced, but still have no national strategic energy program in place. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration found the danger of our lack of school systems public, but today many of our public schools remain. In the 1990s, despite numerous calls alarm (first attacks on the World Trade Center, U.S. Embassy terrorist attacks in Africa, the USS Cole attack, etc.) still do not have the terrorist threat in the control, as evidenced by the nearly catastrophic failure aviation safety in the Christmas Day KLM flight in Detroit.

Therefore, it may be that our current policy working wasteful programs and a local waste and worry about the volume of sound in television commercials, because they are incapable of doing anything else. If they were, many of our national problems have been addressed and resolved now. That's why the following steps should be taken to begin to reverse the "bad" and "The Ugly" and expand "The Good" for the political class:

Step 1 – start to reduce federal spending by 10% per year for five years to begin to avoid the wasteful, but Waste politically convenient local money.
Step 2 – allow only citizens to contribute to political election campaigns, as many of programs are really a waste bribes, the address of taxpayer dollars to companies, unions and pressure groups to get grants reciprocal campaign for the campaigns of incumbents reelected.
Step 3 – Congressional committee and subcommittee members to keep responsibility for their performance, them out of committee posts when their efforts are unsatisfactory and wasteful.
Step 4 – Establish term limits for all senators and congressmen allowing them to serve not work forever. If the President, the elected official world's largest, has its limits within less important Senate and House Representative seats must also be limited in the length of term.
Step 5 – no federal money could be used in any program or project unless materially affects a substantial number of residents in at least five states, ie, spending federal tax dollars on national needs, allow governments State and local governments and private citizens to manage local needs.

While "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" made for a good Clint Eastwood, who has for an effective and efficient governance. Let's hope 2010 is better and that somehow some of the previous steps this year to take over, resulting in a 2010 list of programs unnecessary costs and negative political antics is far smaller than in 2009.

Note: Only credible known sources news is used for the information contained in this article. These sources include, but are not limited to, the New York Times, the St. Petersburg Times, CNN, the Associated Pres, The Week Magazine, and the reason the magazine and includes personal opinions or information from highly partisan sources. For detailed information on sources, please go to www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com where all these facts and figures have been previously identified and discussed.

Visit our website at www.loathemygovernment.com to learn about "I love my country, loathe my government – Fifty First steps to restore our freedom and destruction of the American Political Class. "

About the Author

Walter “Bruno” Korschek is the author of the new book, “Love My Country, Loathe My Government – Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom and Destroying The American Political Class”, a blue print for reversing the loss of freedom in America and addressing the real issues facing Americans today.

Cleveland, OH: Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation Center Southern California