The thesis behind the current bail outs is that some companies are too big to fail. The antithesis is that the United States government is too big to succeed.

It is impossible to administer an organization the size of the federal government even with tools such as the fastest, most powerful computers running the latest, sophisticated, management software. Here are just a few components of our ponderous government:

·       Ownership of one million cars and 600,000 vehicles.

·       Thousands of aircraft, tanks, ships, rifles, canons, rockets, missiles, atomic bombs, air bases, forts, naval stations, buildings, post offices, ports of entry, parks, and on, and on.

·       There are 14.6 million people on the federal payroll according to a 2006 study by a New York University Professor Paul C. Light. His figures include not only civil servants, but also people in: government funded projects, organizations with public grants, the postal service, and military personnel. Obviously and unfortunately, that number has increased dramatically in the ensuing years.

·       Currently, there are approximately 478 federal agencies, services, commissions, administrations, bureaus, and corps. Many of these entities are redundant; for example, there are 19 defense agencies.

This overwhelming task is made even more complex by constant political micromanagement. No wonder the government fails.      

Government projects and agencies, almost without exception, are failures. Yet, unlike the public sector where failing entities close or are subject to bankruptcy, the Congress continues to throw tax payer money at these failures.

The United States Post Office loses money year after year in spite of continuously raising the prices of postage stamps. There is talk of cutting postal service to 5 days per week to reduce losses. No thought about reorganizing or even privatizing this service. FED EX or UPS could and would run the post office profitably.

FEMA, the Federal Emergency Agency, failed to perform, the very duties for which it was established, during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Amplifying the lack of accountability, Congress, which investigated the break down, only fired one individual. The government solution was to create another stultifying layer of bureaucracy to oversee FEMA and combine it with the CIA, FBI, and Homeland Security.

AMTRAK has lost $1 billion dollars in its 40 years of existence. Its budget increases on the order of 4 or 5 % annually. This year not only has its budget increased but it was awarded over $1 billion, from TARP, to upgrade its equipment.

The Obama administration promises that the recent stimulus packages will create 3 million jobs. Hopefully, that will prove to be true. It is estimated that these spending programs will require an additional 600,000 federal administration positions, adding to the federal government’s unwieldiness.

Almost every federal government agency has reoccurring errors and failures. The 2 major failures of the intelligence agencies: believing that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and not preventing the 9/11 catastrophe. The SEC didn’t prevent the banking and financial excesses, which led to this recession. NASA has one hundred astronauts on its payroll. The FBI lost lap tops with classified material twice. The Department of Defense cannot account for billions of dollars expended during the Iraq war. The passive, American public has been so conditioned to these lapses that they have come to expect government failures.

There are sufficient standards and regulations to prevent these mistakes. However, our government has grown so large that it can’t provide the necessary oversight that is necessary to succeed. Instead of working to minimize the size of the federal government and make it more efficient, politicians are adding more and more programs. These same government welfare, social, and business programs are run more efficiently and successfully by the private sector. The massive federal government is a good example of why socialism fails. It is impossible for one person or a group of individuals to run this many programs, let alone an entire country (socialism) because of the almost infinite number of management decisions and oversight required. 

Under the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration, Congress passed the Social Security Act (SSA) on August 14, 1935. This act established an insurance program for all workers under the age of 65 in commerce and industry (except railroad employees). The Federal Insurance Contribution Act (FICA) provided for retirement, disability, survivorship, and death by withholding funds from employees’ pay. In the succeeding years many amendments were added to SSA, some of which eventually made almost all Americans eligible. In 1977, the payroll tax was raised from 2% to 6.15%.  In 1950 the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) was made part of the program.

The 1983 amendment made Social Security a gigantic Ponzi scheme because the spendthrift members of Congress, in their insatiable search for taxpayer’s money to get re-elected, raided the Social Security Trust. The Social Security Ponzi scheme involves trillions of dollars making Bernie Madoff’s scam seem like he was stealing from a child’s piggy bank. This amendment allowed Congress to remove the excess money in the Social Security Trust Fund and replace it with non-marketable Treasury Notes guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. To further their insidious subterfuge, they made this indebtedness to Social Security and Medicare “off budget” to disguise the actual amount of the federal debt by making it look smaller - shades of the Enron accounting scandal. The unrepentant members of Congress even had the nerve to tax retirees’ Social Security income, undeserved, shameful double taxation.

Initially, like a Ponzi scam, Social Security had many more workers contributing to the insurance fund than there were retired individuals, creating large surpluses. Slowly, the demographics and the extension of life expectancy have reduced the proportion of contributors to retirees. We’re approaching the time when first Medicare and then Social Security will be paying out more money than is collected. Congress will lower the amounts paid out to retirees and raise the percentage of withdrawal of employees’ pay to compensate for these shortfalls. The result will be that individuals in the work force today, upon retirement, will receive less money than they contributed. Social Security isn’t insurance, it is another devious tax imposed by career Congressmen/women. The tragic irony of this debacle is if the Social Security trust fund hadn’t been replaced with paper, Treasury Notes, by Congress, the invested trillions of dollars of surplus in sixteen years would have earned enough money for the program to be fiscally sound with the ability to compensate for the imbalance of payouts far into the future.

Apathetic Americans meekly accept these scandalous transgressions by incumbent Republican and Democratic members of Congress and pay for the consequences. Our complacency encourages these career politicians to adopt even more grandiose schemes to produce additional money for their nefarious purposes. The next artifice is the carbon dioxide cap-and-trade boondoggle which will raise trillions of dollars for Congress to misuse. It is time to lock the barn door even though the horses have been stolen, otherwise the barn will be stolen.

These so called public servants are ruining our country. They should be put in jail or impeached; they certainly don’t deserve to be re-elected.

Americans have been brainwashed into accepting many misguided ideas. As we suffer through this recession, it is time to really assess how we’ve been mislead. Hopefully, upon recognition of this deception, corrective measures can be taken. 

Brainwashed Americans believe that our national problems are the fault of the other political party. This divisive polarization of the country allows career members of Congress to deflect attention from the poor job they are doing by blaming the members of the other opposing party. Consequently, everything is needlessly politicized to keep up this charade. Careerists piously claim to be public servants when in fact they are serving their personal ambition to make a career of politics. Make no mistake; these Republican and Democratic incumbents will do anything to remain in office, UNCONCERNED WHETHER IT IS BENEFICIAL FOR THE UNITED STATES.

Brainwashed Americans complacently accept unethical behavior, misdemeanors, corruption, and malfeasance by members of both political parties. The web site, www.crewsmostcorrupt.org, lists the 20 most corrupt members of Congress and documents their offenses. The Vice President’s son and his law firm represent all the class action cases brought to the State of Delaware, former Speaker of the House Hastert created an unnecessary highway to enhance the value of personally held real estate, 4 nominees of the Obama administration owe personal income taxes, Representative Rangel didn’t pay taxes on a rental property, Hillary Clinton’s highly profitable and questionable cattle investment, President Obama’s advantageous purchase of his residence, former President Clinton’s inexcusable pardons, Senator Dodd’s sweetheart mortgages on his homes are a few examples of detected inappropriate deeds. It’s frightening to think of all the other undiscovered misdeeds of past and present politicians. Some career politicians, like the Senator Stevens and Representatives Cunningham and Jefferson, arrogantly believed that they were above the law and were incarcerated. Incidentally, the good old boy, House and Senate Ethics committees didn’t even reprimand these men. The irony is that convicted Congressmen are entitled to collect their pensions.

Brainwashed Americans tolerate Congressional members’ irresponsibility. In the current $410 billion omnibus spending bill, there are 8,500 wasteful pork projects that cost approximately $32 billion. The overspending for these earmarks includes inane programs such as $1.7 for pig odor research, $2.1 million to the Center for Grape Genetics, and $6.6 million to conduct termite research. Even more disgraceful are those pork projects that are profitable for the members of Congress, their friends, and relatives. It is the height of irresponsibility, in these trying economic times, to waste tax payer money while adding unnecessarily to the next generation’s indebtedness.

Brainwashed Americans are in favor and accept entitlement programs believing that the Federal Government can provide for all their needs. This is a misguided and short sighted idea will eventually bankrupt the federal government of future generations. Actually, this is the path toward socialism or a theocracy, both of which are unsustainable. Social welfare states, like the European model, cause stagnation, high unemployment, lack initiative, lower living standards, and citizens’ complete reliance on their government.

 Brainwashed Americans believe that the Obama administration is acting to shorten the recession. Actually, they are prolonging this downturn in the economy by reckless spending on programs that will extend their majority role in the Federal Government. Most of the money approved by Congress has little to do with correcting the financial malaise but rather establishing their agenda. This tactic is used by both political parties. In the first term of the George W. Bush’s reign, the Republican Party attempted to accomplish the extension of their control when they were the majority party in Congress.

Career national politicians are ruining this country in their selfish quest to be re-elected. If you love this country, vote the incumbents out of office.