Government
© 2014
Rick Adamson
By Rick
Adamson 6.27.14
Reagan’s First Inaugural: “Government is not
the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
I am an independent voter who
leans libertarian. I believe that most, if not all, of our problems in the
Country can be traced back to FedGov and its mismanagement of just about
everything is touches. I believe in:
1. Limited Government
- limited government (including term limits for Congress),
- personal responsibility and
- a hand up not a hand out.
FedGov
Bureaucracy: A system
of governance that places power and control in the hands of certain individuals
and organizations by emphasizing, mediocrity, inefficiency and ineffectiveness
while promoting the self interest of its participants at the expense of those
governed. A system that, once put into place, is very difficult to dismantle.
Examples are Congress, the Executive branch of FedGov ,
VA IRS ,
among others. Do you think that these organizations meet this definition? All of FedGov’s departments and agencies do.
Government makes everything complicated when there is no
need for complication. Why? It’s about
control, power and taxes. The Internal
Revenue Code is a complicated mess as are most other federal agencies. Why?
Because they can get away with it.
The Fair
Tax would essentially eliminate the IRS
as we know it, but there is much opposition largely due to fear of losing power
and control.
Mike Huckabee likens the IRS
to the Gestapo. [1] He said “the
criminal enterprise formerly known as the Internal Revenue Service… that is
able to crush any citizen, any organization. It is the one type of entity in America
where you are guilty until you can prove yourself to be not guilty” [2] and should be
eliminated.
It is, by the way, the largest police organization in the
world and employs about 90,000 people.
While attending a college orientation for one of my sons I
was introduced to the concept of helicopter parents. This refers to the parent
who hovers and flaps his wings while the kid lives in his shadow. This is particularly
prevalent at high-priced colleges, where parents feel obliged (or entitled) to
intervene on issues down to the candlepower of the light bulbs. Yes, helicopter
parent, your intentions are good, but that rotor of yours is causing a
din.--Felix Carroll, Albany Times Union, January 27, 2005
I feel that FedGov is a helicopter government. How do you feel?
We need to review each and every agency to determine whether
their missions are relevant today and, if not they should be eliminated. If so then determine whether they are
fulfilling their mission and whether they are important enough for us to borrow
money from China
to support it. Again, if not eliminate
them.
Too bad this administration has no experience in running
anything and, in fact, is not interested in cutting the size of Government. What
we need is a good turnaround guy or gal to come in and eliminate waste and
inefficiency. Mitt? That is what the man did for a living.
Limited government means smaller government but it also
means a more responsive and effective government. Following are a few things
that would help produce a smaller more effective government:
Party Politics
Both parties have perverted the system by emphasizing party politics over their work for the people. It is as if a personality will do anything to get their party elected no matter who or how bad the candidate is. For example, Bill Clinton appeared at the 2012 Democratic Convention and spoke highly of Barack Obama. He said such things as “no president could have solved the 2008 financial collapse in only one term”. Some people have said that Mr. Clinton’s appearance may have resulted in Obama winning a second term. The point is, Mr. Clinton hates Mr. Obama. So why in the world would he stand on the same stage with the president whom he despises? Party politics! Its disingenuous and deceitful. It misleads the voters in order to get their party’s candidate elected.
Don’t get me wrong, this crap goes on in both parties.
Add to that the additional perversion resulting from the use of lobbyist and you round out the mess which is our current political system. Lobbyists unduly influence our leaders because they are experts on the matters that are the subject of their efforts and they spin the information to the law makers in various ways depending on who pays them. They provide a disservice to the Nation and should be banned.
Congressional Term Limits
Both parties have perverted the system by emphasizing party politics over their work for the people. It is as if a personality will do anything to get their party elected no matter who or how bad the candidate is. For example, Bill Clinton appeared at the 2012 Democratic Convention and spoke highly of Barack Obama. He said such things as “no president could have solved the 2008 financial collapse in only one term”. Some people have said that Mr. Clinton’s appearance may have resulted in Obama winning a second term. The point is, Mr. Clinton hates Mr. Obama. So why in the world would he stand on the same stage with the president whom he despises? Party politics! Its disingenuous and deceitful. It misleads the voters in order to get their party’s candidate elected.
Don’t get me wrong, this crap goes on in both parties.
Add to that the additional perversion resulting from the use of lobbyist and you round out the mess which is our current political system. Lobbyists unduly influence our leaders because they are experts on the matters that are the subject of their efforts and they spin the information to the law makers in various ways depending on who pays them. They provide a disservice to the Nation and should be banned.
Congressional Term Limits
Congressional term limits would greatly benefit the country
because the members would know that they would soon have to go home and get a
job, lol. WORK ! It would reduce the influence of lobbyists,
pork barrel spending and corruption (e.g., insider trading and leadership
PACs). It would reduce the member’s ever increasing need for more and more
power and their pandering for votes by providing hand outs which enslave
people.
Congress operates like a large service organization, i.e., a
law firm or corporation in that its members must first get elected (hired) then
they face intense competition for leadership positions and committee
memberships (promotions). It is a continuous
cycle of campaigning that only begins with the campaign for the seat. Once elected they campaign, back bite and maneuver
to attain higher and higher positions of power and control (promotions).
It reminds me of my time at a large accounting firm where
many of us were trying to serve our clients but where the fast track types were
more concerned with kissing the asses of their superiors in order to get that
next promotion.
As a result of the perpetual campaigning and maneuvering, the
members have little time to master the issues they face and, as a result, much
of their information comes from lobbyists.
The various lobbyists are experts with respect to the issues they
promote (albeit biased depending on who is paying them) and they sway and
influence the members to vote their way.
The “pork” results when one member agrees to vote for
another member’s bill in exchange for some future favor. It is not usually based on knowledge of the
issue but on political favors.
The leadership PACs are slush funds that the members use for
all sorts of personal benefits and are not subject to the normal rules that say
members cannot use campaign funds for personal purposes. The insider trading
allows the members to unfairly benefit by trading in the stock market based on
knowledge of pending legislation. If
this were to be done by private citizens they would be put in jail. Ask Martha
Stuart (who went to prison for insider trading) what she thinks about it.
Congress even has the immense responsibility of setting their own pay, deciding what their pensions should be as well as their health insurance and other benefits. WOW, I could go for that! Is it any wonder Congress has become an elite ruling class that bears little resemblance to the rest of us. I say, kick the whole bunch out!
Congress even has the immense responsibility of setting their own pay, deciding what their pensions should be as well as their health insurance and other benefits. WOW, I could go for that! Is it any wonder Congress has become an elite ruling class that bears little resemblance to the rest of us. I say, kick the whole bunch out!
The Executive Branch
The Executive Branch of FedGov falls under the purview of the President. The
executive branch includes the Vice President and other officials, such as
members of the cabinet. The cabinet is made up of the heads of the 15 major
departments of the government and 24 independent agencies. The cabinet gives
advice to the President about important matters. The Executive branch employs
2,770,000 people[1]
with an average salary of $75,000.00. One has to wonder what all those folks
do?
A 2011 Government Accountability
Office [3] report gave a sampling of what could be cut or consolidated. It
identified 44 overlapping job training programs, 18 for nutrition assistance,
82 on teacher quality, 56 dealing with financial literacy, more than 20 for
homelessness, etc. Total annual cost: $100 billion-$200 billion. Nobody has
taken the report seriously.
In addition, in 2013 the final Simpson-Bowles Plan was
released and it contained recommendations which would have saved $2.85 Trillion
over ten years.[4] Nobody
has taken the report seriously.
Additionally, Simpson said “the president told them (Simpson
and Bowles in a meeting where they presented a draft of their report) that he
would take no action on any of the Commission's recommendations and explained
his rationale in the following way - prior to his re-election and probably
after his re-election he would do nothing.[5]
Simply put, Barack Obama is a petty, petty man concerned
only with himself, his political agenda, and his "legacy" as he sees
it.[6]
Recommendation
Resolve to only vote for candidates that believe in term
limits, reducing the size of and improving the efficiency of FedGov and
balancing the budget.
2. Personal Responsibility
We have a cultural problem in our country in that many
people believe that FedGov can solve their problems. Well it can’t. Each individual must make
every effort to reach their highest potential given their talent and
intelligence. This means attaining a
skill or education that will allow them to get a job which will provided them a
happy, prosperous and meaningful life.
Too many times I hear people asking what the government can
do for them rather than what they can do for themselves, even if it involves
temporary government assistance.
Just think, almost 30 percent of our young people drop out
of high school. This is freely provided
under our system and therefore there is no excuse for it.
Many of these young people are the next generation welfare
recipients as the result of their poor decisions about skill development, such
as not finishing high school.
We must instill in them the notion that their poor decisions
will result in long hours and low pay and that the rest of us are not going to
subsidize their poor decisions.
The development of a skill (through vocational training or
higher education) has never been more important than now because many of the
low skilled jobs of the past have been outsourced overseas. We just do not have as many of these jobs
available. At the same time there are
millions of highly skilled jobs that are not being filled because we do not
have the required skilled workforce.
Just think, the largest non governmental employer in the U.S.
is Wal-Mart. That should tell our young people where the demand is for low
skilled workers.
There are numerous sources of assistance available for folks
who want to improve their skills, go to college or to obtain retraining.
Whats lacking is encouragement,
desire, motivation and determination.
On top of all of this, Fox news just reported that due to
the rapid change in technology, 47 percent of current jobs may be replaced by
automation within 20 years. Now if that is true what do you suppose all of
those people will be doing? They will have to be retrained for the higher
paying jobs like operating all of those robots. Or, they will be unemployed,
maybe forever.
A harsh way to put it is that there are fewer and fewer
places for the under skilled in our economy.
Where will you go and what will you do? Remember, bad decisions about
one’s skill development equal low pay and long hours!
Get off the couch and away from the I thing!
3. A Hand Up Not a Hand Out
I am not against worker’s compensation insurance, welfare,
Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. I
do believe that we, in this society, have an obligation to help the less
fortunate folks who are out of work and struggling.
In my view welfare and Medicaid are what they say they
are-welfare. On the other hand, worker’s compensation, Medicare and Social
Security are not. These latter programs
are to be paid for by workers or their employers. FedGov groups all of these programs under the
category of Entitlements although, as I have stated, I do not view worker’s
compensation, Medicare and Social Security as Entitlements.
Welfare
We need a welfare system to help folks when they are
down. It should be organized in such a
way that it helps people get back on their feet by providing for their subsistence
while they fix the problems going on in their lives. Such assistance should be provided for a
limited time and it certainly should not be generational in nature.
It should be provided in such a way so that it encourages
families to be families and discourages the breakup of the family unit.
The welfare system as we know it today originated in the
1960's pursuant to what was called the “Great Society”.[7]
President Johnson had many objectives in implementing the
Great Society. He believed that a highly successful and industrialized America
should be able to offer a better quality of life to all of its
citizens, regardless of race, class, and other factors that resulted in
prejudice. He wanted to eradicate that discrimination, declaring a war on
poverty. He recognized that in the South, racism was an extremely prevalent
problem. Johnson wanted all Americans to have the opportunity to succeed
without the major obstacles that stood in the way. In a way, Johnson
also recognized the increasingly materialistic nature of American society and
hoped that people would move away from extreme consumerism and bring back some
focus to the basic freedoms that many were denied. He hoped to bring
attention to important civil rights and social issues to make society
better overall. He believed that there was no better time for America
to make a move on improving social issues. In his own words, he believed
that “we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the
powerful society, but upward to the Great Society”.[8]
These were admirable objectives that most people agreed
with. Many good things came from the legislation that created the Great Society
including:
- War on Poverty: forty programs that were intended to eliminate poverty by improving living conditions and enabling people to lift themselves out of the cycle of poverty,
- Education: sixty separate bills that provided for new and better-equipped classrooms, minority scholarships, and low-interest student loans,
- Medicare & Medicaid: guaranteed health care to every American over sixty-five,
- The Environment: introduced measures to reclaim our heritage of clean air and water,
- National Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities: created with the philosophy that artists, performers, and writers were a priceless part of our heritage and deserve support
- Job Corps: provided enabling skills for young men and women,
- Head Start: program for four-and five-year-old children from disadvantaged families that gave them a chance to start school on an even basis with other youngsters and the
- Civil Right Act and the Voting Rights Act, among others.[9]
However, the administration of these programs, in
particular, the war on poverty, has been a disaster. These programs have morphed into 77 different means-tested
social welfare programs because the politicians in Washington keep adding
benefits and are reluctant to eliminate the programs that do not work because,
in the first place, adding benefits gets them votes and, in the latter case, eliminating
anything costs them votes. See the
discussion of term limits above!
Obviously we need a safety net that helps people when they
are down. But the benefits provided by these programs should not go on
forever. There should be work rules attached and retraining programs
available. No more of this multi-generational welfare or paying mothers to
have more babies than they can take care of (feed, cloth, shelter and educate) or to undocumented immigrant mothers who
have children in the U.S.
And recipients should never never receive benefits that exceed the
average pay for a working American.
These programs have resulted in a huge proportion of poor
children being raised in single parent families in which the father is not
present. This is because his presence jeopardizes the mother receiving her
benefits. This has contributed to the
high crime rates in many cities.
Everyone knows that kids do best when they are raised by both parents.
Our entitlement programs are on track to consume 80+ percent
of the entire budget by 2020, so we must get serious about reforming our
systems by eliminating fraud, duplication and failing programs. We should
realize that the current systems have failed us (they have not reduced the poor
population nor have they eliminated the ghettos in our major cities – despite
spending approximately $20 trillion on welfare since the Great Society came
into existence). Poverty today is about where it was in the 1960’s when many of
the current programs were put in place. We need to try a new approach like
developing programs that do not breakup families or enslaving folks to lifelong
dependence.
Congressman Paul Ryan has been studying the poverty problem for some time and for more than a year he has been conducting field studies in order to better understand the issues and try to come up with some solutions.
Congressman Paul Ryan has been studying the poverty problem for some time and for more than a year he has been conducting field studies in order to better understand the issues and try to come up with some solutions.
Ryan claims that the 50 year old war on poverty has been
lost. Probably due to inefficiency, duplication and complication that FedGov
brings to every problem it encounters. He wants to have FedGov oversee the
programs but to have the States run the day to day operations in exchange for
block grants. He thinks this gets the government closer to the people and he
also advocates assigning advisers to each case so as to assist the recipient to
move from where they are to where they want to go and ultimately off government assistance.
Here is a link that will help explain his proposal:
http://www.tallahassee.com/story/opinion/columnists/2014/08/13/jay-ambrose-gop-war-poverty/14023441/
I propose that we jump on these ideas give them a try. In addition, we should establish a National goal of having a job for every able bodied legal resident. Our goal should be to eliminate poverty for all who want to participate by providing job training and incentives so that everyone who wants a job can have one. If we could become satisfied that we have accomplished this goal we could then feel less sorry for those who remain poor and without work.
Worker’s compensation, Medicare and Social Security
Worker’s compensation, Medicare and Social Security
These programs are supposed to be paid for by workers or
their employers. They are not welfare
programs, not entitlement programs. The
problem with these programs is that they are actuarially unsound-which means
the benefits provided exceeds the funding provided from deductions from workers’
paychecks or payments made by employers.
As to unemployment benefits, I think we should attach a work
requirement because I know many cities and counties could benefit from having
the unemployed provide labor in some manner to help improve their
communities. You see FedGov does not
understand, because they are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, how
anyone could possibly survive on $400.00 or so a week when, in fact, there are
a lot of folks who are happy to sit on the couch and watch TV while receiving
their pennies. A work requirement would
accelerate their job search activities.
Why are these programs under funded?
Because the politicians in Washington keep adding benefits
and are reluctant to increase the amounts to be withheld from workers pay
(premiums) because adding benefits gets them votes and eliminating anything
costs them votes. As an example, people
receiving Social Security receive a cost of living adjustment each year but the
amounts withheld from workers pay for Social Security is not adjusted for the
increase in cost of the program. See the discussion of term limits above!
GOD bless America !
