Middle Class Part 32: Issues Article 5; Welfare

(Note: I already have addressed the issues of Medicare and Medicaid and concluded that there are misallocations among those programs. If would guess that the total number of fraudulent Welfare outlays amounted to as much as 10%. Within that total is included the more granular Welfare components including food stamps, "temporary" housing needs, temporary assistance to needy families outlays and other Welfare-related programs. I would treat the Welfare component of money spent on education needs a bit differently, but would still deeply research how the money earmarked for that component were spent to the best end. I would expect that about the same total could be saved by auditing the military portion of the federal budget- a major outlay favored by republicans which I have already addressed (see part 9). Taking a bite out of 20% of the federal budget, giving 10% of that back to the taxpayer and spending the other 10% more wisely would provide the greatest good to the greatest number of people. So, as the summer Olympics are just about upon us- allow me to continue with one of my favorite events- synchronized brow-beating of the two major political parties- indirectly this time, and focusing on the democrats who are most to blame for the present condition of the Welfare system, that is until I drown in the Beijing smog.

I suppose: I would also suppose that someone would question my forwardness and remark on the audacity that someone could suppose so much being equipped with so little knowledge. I would counter that a government's audacity precludes all types of comments and am surprised that all of the inhabitants of the country which it governs could continue to live under its auspices while collectively knowing as much as they do.

I would also guess: that both the Welfare caseworker and the military strategist would dismiss the accusations of a novice who has not been involved in the day to day business of such weighty issues, so delicately balanced for the greater good. I would respond that it takes a pretty objective person, or more necessary, a set of objective individuals, to investigate the goings on in governmental offices all over the nation who do not have a level of involvement which compromises the principles or the provisions of the taxpaying American public. What can be easily identified is that the military and Welfare comprise two of the most exorbitantly funded components of the federal budget and that it is high time that both were investigated for fraudulent activity. If you see below, those who are fraudulently attempting to conduct Welfare business are being arrested and convicted and those who are hatching, directing and efforting Unconstitutional wiretapping schemes are being given congressional immunity. See Eric Lichtbau, The New York Times, July 10, 20080 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/washington/10fisa.html. Maybe we should arrest and convict some of those who perpetrate fraudulent military acts upon a largely suspecting public; hey, if there is a classic rock song about a pin-ball wizard (Elton John) anything is possible.

James Madison, our fourth president of the United States, wrote these words in Federalist Paper number 36: “Happy it is when the interest which the government has in the preservation of its own power, coincides with a proper distribution of the public burthens, and tends to guard the least wealthy part of the community from oppression!” I include this sentence among the many I will write below in connection with the overall sub-topic of Welfare. I do not agree with Madison’s ideas on the redistribution of wealth. Unfortunately, social Welfare often is the major governmental outlay which leaves the haves with the idea that the have nots are the beneficiaries of their labor . . . they aren’t wrong.

The less fortunate: The legitimate poor have not had fortune shine upon them to the same degree as have other economic classes and that should be taken into consideration before a couple of French words like a carte blanche dismissal of their needs or a laissez faire apathetic treatment of their condition is adopted and considered the best method for dealing with the less fortunate. A minor ailment may worsen or improve with time, but unattended diseases have a way of manifesting themselves in other people who may have previously supposed themselves immune. It may be best for each private citizen to reflect on what we would expect of others should we be destitute, physically unable to work, or in a financial pitfall of a situation that is none of our own doing. If a reader is unable to dually consider their own present comfortable economic life and reflect on the needs of others, I pity their ignorance as much as I do the indigence of the poor. Our beloved children may have, without our foresight, have been stricken with a malady which takes untold hours to properly address and unfathomable financial resources to combat. Such is life’s way; perhaps all who are not already poor will be able to avoid these types of adversities.

“Burthens”/Welfare defined: Surely two or three thousand experts would redefine what is meant by the term- “Welfare”. This one was taken from The Heritage Foundation: “the total set of government programs—federal and state—that are designed explicitly to assist poor and low-income Americans.” The same investigative body contends that Food Stamp and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) benefits constitute Welfare, but Social Security benefits do not. The scope, according to Robert Rector, who penned the article from the Heritage Foundation, from which I quote is vast: “The current welfare system is highly complex, involving six departments: HHS [Health and Human Services], Agriculture, HUD [Housing and Urban Development], Labor, Treasury, and Education. It is not unusual for a single poor family to receive benefits from four different departments through as many as six or seven overlapping programs. For example, a family might simultaneously receive benefits from: TANF, Medicaid, Food Stamps, Public Housing, WIC, Head Start, and the Social Service Block Grant. For more information see “The Size and Scope of Means-Tested Welfare Spending” http://www.heritage.org/Research/welfare/Test080101.cfm. [Note: The article is from August of 2001, but is still pertinent in terms of definitions and background material, though the federal and state budget information is dated.] Rector also writes that: “Some might think that [the] spending growth [of total welfare outlays] merely reflects an increase in the U.S. population. But, adjusting for inflation, welfare spending per person is now at the highest level in U.S. history. In constant dollars, it is seven times higher than at the start of the War on Poverty in the 1960's.” I am not sure this makes any more sense than my chocolate covered cake doughnut with sprinkles always preceding the coconut offering in the doughnut line-up at the breakfast counter in the cafeteria- there is an awfully strange co-dependency rule at work among the doughnut community and Welfare recipients.

Troubling numbers: Having glanced at a number of highly informative articles culled from various Google searches I have learned that determining how much money is devoted to Welfare spending is not an easy task, perhaps a bit more difficult than being a novice alligator sexer but twice as rewarding and less dangerous. Both are dirty businesses and I am probably not qualified to do either. Until I hit on “Welfare fraud” as a Google search I was hard-pressed to find instances of a misallocation of funds, similar to what I have been doing on a number of sub-topics to this point, including CEO pay,* military spending, etc., (i.e. those things which would generally fall under the overall heading of government waste). While it is clear that in terms of dollars, Welfare spending eclipses expenditures of any other single federal budgetary outlay, I think it will be a little more difficult to be as critical of that government program as I was upon the misallocations attributed to military spending because from what I have found the military funding excesses are at least twice as expensive to the taxpayer as the Welfare equivalents. If I am forwarded a number of articles or instances of misallocations where the Welfare system draws closer to the military in this area, I would be positively giddy. What I found after having spent twice as much time hunting for those instances as I had for the military equivalents is found below. Keep in mind that the federal government invites scores of immigrants who down the road, even the presently considered illegals, will have a shot at all types of Welfare benefits.** The government spends quite a great deal of money on a war in a region we are never going to control for a an inadequate peace. Those are two major failings of the federal government- to be so big and presume so much. Unfortunately, they have not been appropriately made aware of their elephant-ness- that the public is growing less tolerant of the oligarchy we continue to elect to office. I might be able to be effectively critical of the government if I knew the answer to one very important question- is sarcasm a renewable resource?

Probable potential I: One probable and two potential reasons for a relative dearth of examples of Welfare fraud as compared to its military counterpart- 1) the probable reason- Welfare was considered to have been massively overhauled under a democratic president in 1996, which may or may have taken care of some Welfare fraud- though not according to a couple of sources I provide below. How those reforms may have taken care of subsequent accounting practices, or minimized potential misallocations- ???.

Probable potential II: Potential reason for a lack of Welfare fraud/misallocations information- 1) we still have a print and electronic media bias toward favoring the unfortunate, in many instances giving them the benefit of the doubt when there is far too much doubt to give them the benefit of. As I conduct much of my research using the internet and the internet largely would make available either electronically published papers, newspaper stories, reports, investigations, I was bound to find fewer stories than I had expected. I do not have subscriptions to Time, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, etc. and so have likely missed out on a number of stories that could have contributed to the material I have been attempting to objectively present since May of 2007. A reader would note the complete lack of cited references to the above listed periodicals over the extent of my political jeremiad. Of course, holding to the widely held belief that the print media has a liberal bias, having a subscription to a number of magazines or conducting research inside the vacuum of widely circulated newspapers still would have left me wanting in the objectivity department, especially according to a conservative. 2) Another potential reason for a lack of insightful, well-documented, voluminous number of articles and stories relative to the bilking of the public by the Welfare industry is that in my internet article mining endeavors on the sub-topic of Welfare fraud, of the stories that I have found, the stolen or misappropriated dollar amounts have rarely been reported to have extended beyond $5,000 by individual fraudulent participants. I have never done a formal cost-benefit analysis on anything in life, excepting whether to sell my Star Wars toys, but the type of dollar amounts I found when looking into the government waste concerning the military, as objectively considered, was often ten times the outlay for as little in return. By return I mean- militarily- useless hardware or money lost to no-bid government contractors and on the welfare front- fraudulent payouts to those cheating the welfare system. 3) Of the fraudulent welfare stories I have found, many seem to indicate a city or county wide investigation. This is never going to get as much media play as a national news story which affects the whole country. This would make finding articles and stories more difficult, especially if the writers are more concerned or distracted by national stories and their own liberal bias. Ah, the media- often more annoying than a clam with high-blood pressure who annoyingly pronounces the -e- at the end of provolone. If aliens were to land here they would be too busy laughing at Sean Hannity's hairline and lack of objectivity to make him submit to an anal probe- quite a shame.

Medicaid rules moratorium: Read an Associated Press article from April 23, 2008- “House Votes for Moratorium on Medicaid Rules” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24280912/ to find out that some members of congress are more concerned than others about the Bush administration’s estimate of saving the treasury about $13 billion over five years and $33 billion over 10 years by curbing waste and abuse in the state-federal partnership that provides health coverage and nursing home care to the poor.” Medicaid, you will remember, is just one of the many components of Welfare. One republican Midwest governor said that “ ‘It is an absolute farce for anyone to argue that all of those dollars are being appropriately spent and that Congress ought to just walk away from these issues,’ ” (i.e. from taking measures to stop short term rules from being implemented which would curb Medicaid spending). I agree with the republican and would also agree with a founding member of the country who would be identified as a democrat- James Madison, who in Federalist Paper No. 38 wrote- “A GREAT and INDEPENDENT fund of revenue is passing into the hands of a SINGLE BODY of men, who can RAISE TROOPS to an INDEFINITE NUMBER, and appropriate money to their support for an INDEFINITE PERIOD OF TIME.” The capitalization comes directly from Madison. Now, he happened to be referring to the congress under the confederacy of states prior to the implementation of the Constitution. Hm, this is interesting- have I mentioned that the same, still rather INDEPENDENT body of men, voted to fund the military to the tune of $162 billion, which brings the total combined expenditure on the Iraq and Afghanistan war theatres to about $850 billion? I was pretty sure that I did- see “Bush Signs $162 Billion War Spending Bill” Associated Press, June 30, 2008- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25457283/ for yourself. I believe I have already included a couple of caveats about the war’s duration, initial intention, the other ancillary beneficiary measures that were included in that most recently approved war provision bill- such as the doubling of GI college funding, unemployment benefits- etc. So, I won’t take space at this time to again praise the inclusion of those associated measures, but this bill went through a majority controlled democratic congress. Madison would be disgusted. Given the deteriorating efficacy of the federal government, this fact is also not so surprising- that the legislative and the executive branches have continued to so wittingly unite on the issue of military expenditures to the domestic detriment of those who pay their salaries. So, our beloved Constitution, has not protected us from that abhorrent practice of detouring the public’s money and bypassing the public’s will. But at least we have allowed it to do so ambiguously, and so we feel relieved, much like when we are convinced a stray dog does not love us anymore but will not tell us why.

Expectations and hypocrisy: I had expected to discover a great many more instances of Welfare fraud and neglect given the numbers of enrollees, the amount of the federal budget which goes to fund the unfortunate (21%/$561 million in 2007), the confusing nature of the Welfare system generally, and the fact that the program is monitored by human beings. I do not want to be the hypocrite in seeming to favor the gross felony of misallocated Welfare money over the grand larceny of an exorbitantly funded military. It comes to that- I don’t know that Thing 1 caused all that much more damage than Thing 2 in The Cat in the Hat. What’s that- I already used that metaphor to represent the democrats and republicans (see part 15)? Damn. Other more recent and notable hypocritical acts- Jesse Jackson who has called for a boycott of Seinfeld DVDs because of Michael Richard’s (Kramer) racist nightclub tirade in 2006, but who has recently called Barack Obama the N-word, or the Sierra Club who has recently partnered with Clorox, against whom they have been fighting for decades seem a bit more deplorable. It is tiring being the Consumer Reports for the voting public almost all of which are not aware even of my insignificance. Sometimes that means ranking a disgusting, hardly model behavior over a brand of misappropriations the military and the Welfare community would, ignorant of the greater good, eagerly and pugnaciously defend. I am struggling to rank welfare fraud and misallocation as highly on my list of concerns as government waste earmarked for the military. It should be made clear that the money wasted by the federal government on the military and that lost/wasted on fraudulent welfare recipients are both major issues. My ranking the military, considering the obviousness and extent of the problem (in terms of total monetary loss), as a larger concern than welfare fraud, would surely be spotlighted by conservatives, should anyone even know I exist, as an indication that I am a socialist in disguise. That would be the type of reactionary (lack of introspective nature) response I would expect. For centuries messengers have been killed for their bad timing, for being in the line of fire, for their objective assessments, for the news itself and for unwittingly delivering a message that ordered their own death (see the biblical story of David, Bathsheba and Uriah). Certain members of the citizenry of this country have a way of punishing those who objectively dole out information, should the recipient of this news be able to link the news with their being made to suffer- however remotely . . . for many seek to play the victim. I think we see this within the congressional halls, NFL- spy-gate scandals and on into street violence issues where murderers and child rapists go free, because the unwritten code of the streets is not to snitch. Funny thing- while I begin to detail the welfare fraud below and having already written about military waste, CEO pay, necessary costs, social issues and immigration concerns, I would still count campaign finance as the #1 political issue in this country, the one that most directly affects nearly every other issue and probably the one which would be the easiest to solve.

Welfare fraud I: An unidentified county total of $211,000 in 2006 was linked to 84 convicted offenders. My math is pathetic, but I think that amounts to only about $2,500 a person. If 50-80 offenders were convicted in each county in the United States, I doubt that a liberal could defend Welfare against the charges of the military. To be sure, figuring on who is the least guitly from a government waste perspective, (the Welfare or the military) as I had done above, I admit, makes little sense. [Source for the information included above is from a writer who works for The Post-Journal- I have no idea with what city or state such a paper may be affiliated. The post was in connection with the rising costs of living which in turn, it is supposed, potentially puts more pressure on social services to make the ends meet.]

Welfare fraud II: “6 Held in Welfare Fraud Scheme; Inquiry Uncovered Worker Bribes” Thomas Morgan, July 12, 1991- (very long URL). One suspect received monthly checks totaling “as much as $118,000 since 1986.” Note the year of the article, which predates the 1996 Welfare reform. Again, I may be up against one or more of the roadblocks I identified in the Reasons for lack of examples paragraph above. Morgan writes- “An investigator assigned to the welfare agency found more than 800 cases . . . in which payments and food stamps were improperly disbursed. These claims cost the city as much as $9.3 million.” Starting to add up.

Welfare fraud III: “Former Social Worker Indicted for Welfare Fraud and Perjury” from Kentucky, April 20, 2006- do a search on the title of the story. The suspect in this case used her deceased mother’s food stamp card, was indicted on “30 felony charges of welfare fraud [for having] misappropriated over $1,500 in state welfare benefits and one felony charge for first degree perjury.” At the end of the story this appears, to give some context to the problem- “The Special Grand Jury has recently returned indictments against seven state welfare workers for stealing more than $250,000 from the state welfare system. Over the last two years, the Attorney General’s office has filed felony charges against 28 welfare caseworkers, charged with stealing more than $800,000.” Excellent!

Other random Welfare information: There are five degrees of welfare fraud; it is unclear how many degrees there are of military fraud. Child Welfare, child abuse and substance abuse are almost synonymously linked to Welfare generally. Some states that have instituted diversion programs offer lump sum payments or have welfare recipients work for their checks by cleaning streets, or parks, or offer “personal responsibility” contracts which are plans for a recipient eventually finding permanent employment. I wish I knew how certain states defined “eventually.” Like- eventually . . . the world will end and certain arthropods who have been designated for insect-reassignment surgery will be made the beetle it was born to be, meanwhile; conjoined barnswallows will be taught to fly; and welfare money hijackers will no longer receive a government handout. (By the way- check out the “Conjoined Barn Swallows Found in Arkansas” story at http://msnbc.msn.com/id/25772658/ to see that I don’t just make all of this stuff up.)

Random Welfare info. Part II: In a 2001 survey- 57% of Americans say Welfare encourages more women to have more kids than they would have without welfare. I would not necessarily expect that number to rise when people learn that immigrants are eligible to begin receiving Welfare benefits five years after coming to our country. The reason- immigrant women, and men, seem to have kids as a matter of course, with little concern about the financial drain a newcomer might place on the taxpaying public. Yes, there are white and black women making the same horrible decisions; exactly my point- let us not continue to let the horse out of the barn (see part 22). Strangely, certain members of the executive and legislative branches over the past 43 years, since Welfare’s inception, who have been repeatedly elected to political office, also seem to be little concerned about that financial drain as well. Folks, it is just going to get worse- “Obama, McCain Expand Courtship of Hispanics” by Larry Rohter, New York Times, July 17, 2008- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25713058. But often we’re more distracted by Nigerian email viruses asking for money for bulldog puppies (look it up), the secret life of Anne Hathaway’s former love, the names of the Pitt-Jolie twins, or how to get to a major highway on a weekend to meet friends for dinner when all potential access points are closed,*** than about these political issues that never go away.

Random Welfare info. part III: This just in- Welfare creates a cycle of dependency. The poor could and do work jobs that do not pay enough to support a family and so they keep gaining Welfare benefits. Some websites, such as United Council on Welfare Fraud- (UCOWF) have numbers people can call to report suspected Welfare fraud. The chances there will be a setup like that for military fraud is less likely than California being a red state in the upcoming presidential election or that albino crickets will become the major distribution company for sleep-number beds. Substantiation of child and substance abuse allegations are vital issues concerning the sub-topic of Welfare; keeping a family together is considerably less-expensive than foster or institutional care and that can continue to enable an adult to abuse their children, themselves and the Welfare system.

Random Welfare info. Part IV: Medicare is a rather massive portion of the federal and state outlays which falls under the broad Welfare heading. Read Paul Krugman’s New York Times article on universal v. privatized Medicare coverage that pits democrats who favor the doctors getting paid for services rendered v. the republicans who favor a middle entity of an insurance company brokering medical coverage. Pay attention- republicans will always argue against the creation of more layers of government, but apparently on the issue of privatized medicine- that is ok. I am not arguing against privatized medicine, but the fact that an insurance company would help us better manage the health care of 304.7 million people including 47 currently uninsured (of which at least 10 million should not be included in that number- see part 26)****- hahahahahahaha. We may need their help, but not in their bloated-overlord state as currently constituted, but rather with some objective fact-checkers keeping them from overcharging, under managing, etc. You can privatize health care without the insurance companies holding all of the cards. Having a health care system which only included the insurance companies as the governing body would be like being on a deserted island and storing all of the drinking water in the same place, it isn’t safe or right; don't put all of your eggs in one basket is just one cliche I would reference to illustrate the point. Survivors should learn to hedge their bets a little better. Krugman writes of a “veto-proof majority” for which the senate democrat’s most recognizable charicature- gimpy, geriatric Ted Kennedy cast a punctuating vote in favor of the bill taking the Medicare issue one step toward universal coverage. Somehow I have visions of Alec Guinness falling on the detonator in order to blow up the bridge in the final scene of "Bridge on the River Kwai." What else would you expect from a Kennedy? (For the article see http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/24538369.html?location_refer=Commentary. The article appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Opinion Exchange section [OP2] on July 13, 2008. Krugman gives the reader some background on how Medicare has worked in the recent past and does so in relatively few words . . . amateur- the real key to writing is to bore your audience into submission and give a mole diptheria with the best of comedic intentions.)

Random Welfare info. Part V: I could probably make this into a five part sub-topic by attempting to find fault with the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), how SCHIP was designed to help working families who earned too much to qualify for Medicaid, the caseworker and social worker’s roles in subjecting the taxpayer to fund those who may be abusing the Welfare system, state-varied minimum requirements which must be met by potential recipients according to Welfare cap eligibility stipulations considering how many dependent children a potential recipient might have inconceivably parented, what employment-seeking measures recipients might have to go through to justify being on the government dole, what unbelievably minimal proof of citizenship requirements must be met in order to receive cash assistance, what disabilities a beneficiary might need to claim to get benefits, what TANF means***** a detailed listing of medications for their chigger and swimmer’s itch-ridden beagle. I could spend paragraphs distinguishing between the greater federal and state outlay in the form of different types of handouts- in-kind, (i.e. health care services) or earned income tax credits (i.e. cash). I could write about the role the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has in enabling Welfare recipients. I could make Dennis Miller-like analogies about the continued enacting of supplemental and qualifying sub-programs that fit neatly under the broad heading of Welfare- such as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, the Aid to Families with Dependent Children supplemental act or the Suck our Middle Class Children’s Educational Fund Away Association. I was going to make a remark about certain Welfare recipients having children born to them with a .23 blood-alcohol level, but that seemed exessively insensitive. No wonder why I would promote forced adoptions- see part 30. I don’t want to make light of the situations of millions of Welfare recipients. The federal government matching the states earmarked dollars for Medicaid ranges between 50 and 83 %- I could spend a paragraph there; potential middle class health care tax credits- there is two paragraphs. I have chosen only two sources that seem to provide enough information to put this problem in context, unfortunately for the resilient who would rather walk across the Sahara dragging a dead camel than read the rest of this post, there is quite a bit of information contained in each source:

Cato Handbook for Congress: http://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb105-25.html. [Note: the date of origin of this document is likely about 1997 or ’98.****** Clinton is mentioned as the president with no mention of Bush and Rudy Giuliani is referred to as the mayor of New York, a position he held until 2001.] These pieces of information are delivered in the course of the report- and keep in mind this is post-1996, after the Welfare overhaul, but perhaps not long enough for Cato to have all of the facts:

- Welfare has been a $5.4 trillion failure since its 1965 inception (through the late 1990s);

- Nearly 32 percent of births are illegitimate; in 1960- just 5.3 percent; (not speculating on the reason why- that is off topic)

- “Children raised in families on welfare are seven times more likely to become dependent on welfare than other children”; (the Spartans were dependent on the grease ant to demonstrate the persistence of valor in a fight against a homeowner who has caulked the hell out of countertop seams and window cracks in order to keep the vermin at bay . . . the grease ants- not the Spartans)

- indicate that Welfare is directly linked to crime (ah, good old meta-politics- see part 31);

- the 1996 reform was ineffectual overall- it ended “welfare’s status as an entitlement [which means] Spending on the program is not subject to annual appropriation but rises automatically with the number of people enrolled.” Meaning, after the ’96 reform, Welfare was not subject to rise automatically, but must rather be appropriated for, which is good news considering the illegitimacy issues and the immigration issues the nation faces (i.e. the drastic population increases of the past 15 years will not determine the overall Welfare outlay, but rather the politicians who are in charge of appropriating the money- hint, this is still not good news);

- There is no evidence that workfare programs work (so that Welfare could be treated more as a supplement to income derived from employment). These are referred to as “make-work” or public service jobs. The overriding point, and this could be easily associated with what everyone knows about how education and training equate to better jobs which pay more- but cleaning grafitti from a subway wall does not teach someone how to be a computer programmer, so that the cycle of dependency can be ended;

- “Most audits [of block grant programs] have shown little or no increase in administrative efficiency . . . past block grant programs have seldom achieved savings of more than 5 percent.” (That would seem to shoot down my theory of auditing the welfare system in order to show how fraudulently the money is being spent. But, that would not be my only approach.); Those justifying all Welfare allocations and those desiring the government to absolve all ties to the poor would both contend they invented logic and objectivity. Those two sides would likely argue about which is the best setting on the hose sprayer attachment. But in the rational world, neither would have any more hand in negotiating a fair dollar amount to be distributed to the poor in any form of Welfare which exists than is necessary;

- “A 1995 study by the Cato Institute revealed that the value of the total benefit package received by a typical welfare recipient averaged more than $17,000, ranging from a high of over $36,000 in Hawaii to a low of $11,500 in Mississippi. In 9 states welfare pays more than the average first-year salary for a teacher. In 29 states welfare pays more than the average starting salary for a secretary. In 47 states welfare pays more than a janitor makes. Indeed, in the 6 most generous states, benefits exceed the entry-level salary for a computer programmer.” (I don’t want to quibble, but hopefully they mean that the Welfare recipient receives that amount in the same state in which the programmer is employed and that they did not compare across states. Special note: I would ask the Cato institute to conduct another survey after the 96 reform law before including this in such an informative work.)

- The estimated annual cost to the economy (in 1996) was $600 billion which cannot be used to provide individuals with opportunities by creating jobs, which would more naturally and with less dependency, aid the poor;

- The report also minimally refers to Welfare’s social pathologies, exemptions of 20% of the Welfare population in terms of the amount of time one can collect Welfare benefits, and the reform law (of 1996) having made “a half-hearted attempt to deal with illegitimacy—allowing states to end benefits to teen mothers and to women who have additional children while on welfare.”

- Not to be forgotten- taxes. The Cato report indicates that “A 1993 World Bank study . . . found that countries with low taxes had higher economic growth, more investment, greater increases in productivity, and faster increases in living standards than did high-tax nations.” America, there is no doubt, is a high tax country. The report identifies a particular area where a benefit might be derived from lessening the tax burden- those who would like to start a business. It costs an employer $5,400 just to hire an additional worker. It was estimated that “every dollar of taxes raised by the federal government costs the economy an additional 18 cents, leading to an annual loss of $200 billion from our gross national product.”

Cato’s solution: The federal government should simply stop paying Welfare benefits. Wrong! The Cato Institute would probably just tell a blind man he should have his retina regenerate- see, it can’t. So, here is my initial stab at resolving the Welfare problem using Cato’s metrics and problem solving genius- poor people, just stop being so bereft of cash.

Another proposal: 1) Audit the entire Welfare system. 2) Give responsible black, white and legal U.S. ethnic citizens tax incentives/breaks/credits to start their own businesses in inner cities. 3) Send in caseworkers and social workers to the homes of Welfare recipients and track the potential fraudulent misallocation of money to those who are not as wanting. 4) In order to obtain Welfare benefits, people must be working- whether this comes in the form of public service- ala picking up parks or monitoring crime on city streets armed with cell phones in order to report illegal activity while it is happening, or in a more skill-acquiring platform if work is to be had.

CalWORKS article: In an August 16, 2007 post from a senator Dennis Hollingsworth of CA with the heading “Senate Republicans Fighting Waste, Fraud and Abuse in Welfare System” (do a search on the title) can be found the following facts:

- if new reforms were not enacted, CA would have been “subject to fines of at least $150 million by [2008]” (for the below- CalWORKS is what CA calls its state subsidized Welfare matching agency);

- “ ‘Rather than providing better benefits to households that include drug felons, fleeing felons and undocumented immigrants, this proposal [which identifies the most needy recipients of Welfare benefits] limits their benefits to that of other CalWorks recipients who are complying with the work requirements.” Way to put the hammer down- stop “undocumented workers” from getting more than legal citizens who are felons- that is really hard core. Part 5 of my Welfare plan would be to provide free clams to otters convicted of breaking the unwritten rule of swimming too soon after their crab dinner. Course, they swim while they are eating dinner, so this might be a hard rule to enforce. I would also discontinue benefits to fleeing felons or undocumented workers, which would mean a more stringent approach to identification provisions- see part 27.

- In 07-08, “the estimated average monthly caseload is 459,000 for CalWORKS” the CA state equivalent of the federal Welfare program;

- only 20% of CalWORKS recipients met work requirements in 07;

- “ ‘Project 100’ [is] a pilot program aimed at identifying welfare cheats and removing them from the caseload. The program stops fraud before there is a need for costly criminal action. In San Diego County, Project 100% has since its inception identified welfare fraud in approximately 20% of welfare applications and saved between $2.7 and $4 million every year.” And for those who would contend that big picture $2.7-$4 million isn’t that much- consider that is one county in one state of the country on one issue- the sub-topic of Welfare. Imagine the amount of tax money we would not need to be paying in if we called all agencies to account for their misallocations;

- One more thing- a republican senator attempted to expand Project 100% statewide, but it was defeated by democrats in committee. Democrats- you are more annoying than the guy who always has to pass gas to make water . . . (i.e. urinate). If it is true, that we spend two weeks of our lives looking for things we’ll never find, hopefully that rabid badger pet of mine is gnawing at the sub-floor of the democratic national convention in Denver and about to chew off the ankles of those who would have voted down this measure. Democrats are like Eddie Murphy- they have found a way to play even more lame roles in politics and life than Murphy has played in his last ten movie failures, excepting the Shrek movies where he played an ass. Number of democrats who have played an ass? Let's just find out who voted against the Project 100% bill- I don't have that much time.

Facts of life: Was a horrid sitcome. People should become aware that not everyone in the nation will be provided with the same opportunities, but there is some fluidity among generations. There are driven individuals who step on the shoulders of their ancestors to attain a height from which the fortunate have never dreamt they might fall. There will always be impoverished peoples and always be rich, and always be middle class citizens. The gulf between these classes need not be fostered by either a complicit or an unwitting government. The idea of haves and have-nots is an unreasonable notion in the mind of a liberal, but it is the way of the world. The best that can be hoped is that the government does not usher more favor upon the rich, for it is already their country; likewise, the government should not consider the poor in one of two extremes- either favor the poor’s indulgences or forsake the poor, matching their indifference.

Personal story: I have a friend whose mother was on Welfare when he was a kid. Three children caught up in a divorce, whose mother and father simply could not make it work economically post-divorce is what I suspect was generally the issue. Perhaps all that kept my family from suffering the same fate (of being on Welfare) when I was young is that my sisters were no longer dependents and had moved out of the house providing for themselves. My mother worked two jobs to support me and my dad worked odd-jobs and struggled to provide enough alimony. Teens these days who are in upwardly mobile households who are given cars in anticipation of their 16th birthday cannot possibly understand the types and level of destitution that exists in this country. I would offer that as I was not paid much of a wage when I started working, I gave my father his own used television for christmas one year- not a joke. I cannot stress enough that I am not comparing my life as a teenager to anything resembling true want and squalor- far from it. But I have what is a healthy and not a cowed empathy for the poor.

How bad is it: Fathers are being evicted from minimalist housing projects, struggling to find employment so that their two kids can get a quality education; older women travel about an hour, round trip, to find healthy food in a supermarket across town because nothing in the immediate vacinity sells anything but chips, candy bars, and soda. The young children shoot baskets into trash cans in fenced off courtyards just feet from squad cars cruising past them with sirens howling. Yeah, I watched CNNs special report- “Black in America” which aired on Wednesday night- (July 23, 2008). And that isn’t even the half of it. No, the nation’s ills will never be completely resolved and not even an idealist can pretend to have this as a realistic goal. But we clearly are not doing all we could to investigate the most obvious reasons of why that would be.

In summation I: Taxpayers pay into a Welfare system that may be overfunded, that may overfund some beneficiaries while under-funding others. Not a great combination. Because we are being fleeced like sheep- (our sheepishness need not be restricted to an election cycle) in so many areas we need to begin to find at least two areas in which we will no longer stand it. One area should be a resolution that would appease conservatives and one area should appease democrats. Given the number of uninsured or underinsured in this country, excepting those that choose to be or who should not be here to begin with, we literally cannot afford to make these types of economic mistakes for the benefit of any class of people, especially the poor. Why even have Welfare if the benefit is not obtained by the people for whom the system is most in place to help? The whole sub-topic of Welfare seems to have the croup.

In summation II: I don’t have all of the answers, nor do I even have all of the questions. I don’t know how much someone must suffer in order to become eligible to receive Welfare benefits, no matter the type. But I know there are PLENTY out there who suffer enough to expect some form of economic respite. I don’t know a lot of things, like why the public, in 1909, was so opposed to putting portraits on legal U.S. tender, or why people care more about waiting in line to get the latest iteration of the iPod, or why a restaurant in Minneapolis (Zelo’s) most visible signage, marking the entrance to their restaurant would appear on a folding chair that seats the valet parking guy . . . who, when he is unoccupied would be concealing it. But I do know that we are wasting billions of dollars on Welfare that ought to go back to the people who have worked for the money- rich and poor AND middle class.

Concluding Note: If anyone who actually made it this far and is still conscious is wondering exactly where I might be advocating on the part of a policy perspective- I would fall right in the middle, because that is where the most realistic, rational and fair solutions are to be found. Most of the tough issues are like that. Why just simply keep giving the poor billions of dollars in federal and state money and continue to enable them to live off of taxpayer’s labor; why decide to discontinue funding completely when there are so many that clearly need the assistance? Isn’t the best option a blending of the two? The taxpayers await a resolution that is a compromise between the best principles of each side rather than the Frankenstein monster equivalent over which politicians pat each other's backs.


* The amount of money the government allows CEOs to gather, in terms of stock options, protected money, etc. once they have laid off thousands of workers is not a waste?

** Robert Rector’s article for The Heritage Foundation from December 3, 2007 “SCHIP Bill Increases Illegal Immigrants’ Access to Medicaid and Undermines Welfare Reform” (http://www.heritage.org/research/healthcare/wm1714.cfm) states as much. Rector indicates some major ways in which immigrants will be able to circumvent existing Welfare laws, with illegal immigrants increasing fraud because of an allowed bypass of multiple forms of documentary evidence proving their citizenship and the weakening of the 1996 Welfare reform laws by legal immigrants who had to wait five years to gain Medicaid, SCHIP or other welfare program assistance. “Applicants who claim citizenship and possess a valid Social Security number are deemed eligible if they appear to meet the Medicaid income limits.” Providing a “valid” SSN has not been proven to be all that difficult- look it up. (Note: I briefly looked into whether the latest version of the SCHIP bill was still dead and it appears so, as of January 23, 2008. Don’t worry, Miracle Max, from “The Princess Bride” movie (a role played by Billy Crystal) thinks it is "only mostly dead" and will at some point resurrect SCHIP, which is short for- State Children’s Health Insurance Program [Reauthorization Act of 2007]. It appears to be harder to kill than Jason from the Friday the 13th movies. Sometimes these things just never go away; a baseball stadium bill passed both houses of the Minnesota state legislature in 2006 after about 14 years of constant whining by those who own, run and follow the team. The Metrodome, which still currently has the Twins as residents, was deemed insufficient for baseball about 12 years after the first game was played there. It is reported that at the signing of the Medicare bill by President Johnson in 1965, Harry Truman complained that his neighbors grandchildren did not have Medicaid insurance because their parents made too much money . . . and thus the idea for SCHIP was born. “Inconceivable”- another famous line from “The Princess Bride.”

*** All of 35Ws (Minnesota) on ramps were closed this past weekend due to construction after last year’s bridge collapse. Jesus! A duck deliriously doped up on beak-cancer medication, that tested among the most ignorant of the web-footed fowl brotherhood would not have made such a nonsensical decision, but probably has already decided to vote for an independent this election.

**** See http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html. Estimating the calculation of births, deaths, international migrants (legal or illegal is not differentiated on the site), there is a net gain of one person every 10 seconds.

***** Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

****** Surely there is a more recent, more comprehensive, report available somewhere, but about all that would change is the estimated wasted dollar amounts due to Welfare’s substantially fraudulent persistence.

Middle Class Part 31: Issues Article 4; Meta-Politics, Political Shape-Shifters and the Quoting of Historically Relevant Dead Guys

“If you are not getting as much from life as you want to, then examine the state of your enthusiasm.”
- Norman Vincent Peale

I can consider the above quotation in the context of many things- athletics, politics, movies, wait service at a restaurant, christmas presents, service on a furnace/air conditioner unit that is two years old, vacation destinations where the overall cost is balanced with the return of life-long positive memories, the petting of a dog-in-law though you are allergic to pet dander, how often one would desire that it rain after having planted 15 shrubs in a remodeled front entry-way, life’s expectations in general, the expected life-span of a compact fluorescent light bulb after having named it, being able to spot the siberian tiger at the Minnesota zoo, and the list goes on. There are a myriad of life’s endeavors where expectations must be managed in order to determine their overall worth. Considering the subject matter of my previous posts, I better just stick to how the above quotation might introduce this installment’s particular material. Readers should be mindful of my insistence that there is not much separation between the politicians sent by voters to government centers, state capitals and Washington D.C. in an effort to solve the issues and the issues themselves, so as I addressed some issues last time, I will again turn to the politicians tasked with the chore of deliberating upon them, before finishing with a couple of issues which politicians have created of their own accord.

At heart: I am an idealist. When something surprises me to the point of euphoria, I am a child; when something disappoints me to the point of disgust I am an ornery old coot. So, if at heart I am an idealist, I can be a pragmatist, even a pessimist (which often occurs when a person is overwhelmed by the sheer volume of life’s practical events seemingly decided negatively and in unison). A set of examples- I was absolutely giddy when the Patriots lost the Super Bowl and when the Red Sox beat the Yankees in the 2004 A.L. Championship series. I can be disappointed by the weak mix of a Captain Morgan and Coke I ordered. In all cases I measure the experience as it is presently constituted against my expectations and my previous disappointments. Sometimes my expectations are reasonable and sometimes I can be completely obstinate. Factors that might influence my mentality one way or another are many and certainly not worth getting into. Suffice to say, I feel I am being reasonable where my disappointment in the political direction of this country is concerned. I know that not every problem is solvable, but know too that plenty of them could be. In short, my expectations are not being met and with that, those issues are costing me money.

All covered: If one political side were to prevail on every issue, and all issues were resolved to just one party’s satisfaction- what a terrible country we would have. Each side is about half wrong on every issue and equally wrong in their approach to conflict resolution. Course, each side isn’t wrong if you ask a democrat or republican who think that all is right with the world. But I don’t live in their fairy-land America. Many, many people are concerned about the state of the country, just ask them. If they aren’t all that concerned then perhaps they live in an apartment, with few obligations, their daddy paid their way through college, bought them a car and probably still pays their car insurance, though they are 25. Career politicians, or even first-time elected officials, are capable of completely ignoring the views of the voter. I have given a number of examples of politicians generally who constantly make decisions that do not affect politicians at all, lest the residual effect of their re-election is a major concern. Ha. I have no other recourse but to dismiss people and their political views if they approve of everything, or nearly everything, their party of choice promotes. Such people are more unreasonable than my brand of idealist.

A saying in Latin: quis custodiet ipsos custodes- means “who will guard the guards themselves?” I know that we sometimes elect politicians on their merits, we elect them because they are armed with knowledge that we do not have in order to make decisions for us, sometimes to give us what we want or need and often enough to protect us from ourselves insofar as we would make decisions about how our tax money is spent that we would suppose are in keeping with our best interests. Unfortunately, we are not always aware of what our best interests are in the long run. More unfortunate still- the politicians we elect do not always know either. We elect them and pay them to know. In a way, they are our guardians- distributing our money to various local, state, national and international causes as they see fit, which in theory improves our way of life. It is the fitness of those decisions that can certainly be questioned. The question one asks about their merits, objectivity, knowledge, altruism and foresight, given that we have granted them the power to make important decisions certainly begs the question, (though it might not necessarily need to be phrased in Latin)- if they guard against our financial and political shortsightedness, selfishness, ignorance, etc. who guards us from theirs? Read the Lou Dobbs book- War on the Middle Class- chapters 3 and 4, pgs- 37-75, for more examples of the interconnection between politicians and lobbyists. He has saved me a lot of work.

So to has Jean Jaques Rousseau in words that echo a consistent representative government argument of Alexander Hamilton’s. The caveat being that Hamilton too quickly dismissed the “But” portion that Rousseau correctly includes:

“. . . it is the best and most natural arrangement for the wisest to govern the multitude, if we are sure that they will govern it for its advantage and not for their own. One ought never to multiply devices uselessly, or employ twenty thousand men to do what a hundred picked men could do much better. But it must be noted that the corporate interest begins at this point to direct the national energies less strictly in accordance with the general will, and that a further inevitable tendency is for a part of the executive power to escape the domain of law.” (Book III, chapter 5, pg. 115- Rouseau’s The Social Contract, published initially in 1762). Read up on corporate law on your own which is a topic I may include next time when I hope to get to Welfare generally. Also consider executive type law domain violations from part 12 and the wiretapping and EPA portions at the end of this number.

Liar, Liar: I hate it when people answer their own questions, but this might serve as a possibility for who might guard our guards- “New Anti-Terror Weapon: Hand-Held Lie Detector.” (MSNBC, Bill Dedman, April 9, 2008- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23926278). Just after political candidates complete a televised debate, they step down from stage and are all taken into different rooms by trained lie-detector specialists and administered a test based on their answers during the debate. Their proposed policy initiatives which they had already made public and any other subject matter fodder relevant to their political career, voting record, accepted amount of campaign finance money, etc. are all topics worthy of further investigation. If they are innocent, they will have nothing to hide. The “portable device isn’t perfect, but is accurate enough to save American lives by . . . narrow[ing] the list of suspects after a roadside bombing.” How about potentially bettering American lives by helping to ensure that voters are getting what they elected, not some quasi-humanoid with a dysfunctional conscience whose evil twin has stepped from some alien-pod form jettisoned to our country to take political office while we sleep. In order to determine if the person being administered the test is lying, a number of baseline questions are asked before hitting them with the important questions, courtesy of the article cited directly above- “ ‘Do you intend to answer my questions truthfully?’ ‘Are the lights on in this room?’ ‘Are you a member of the Taliban?’ ” Those would be the military questions, quoted from the article. The political candidate questions would be something along the lines of- Is the color of the tie you are wearing red? Did you tie that tie yourself? Did you wear it thinking it would fool millions of Virginians into voting for you for governor because it reflects your supposed patriotism? Have you ever lied to the voters in order to get elected? For Obama- are you certain it was your uncle who helped liberate Auschwitz? For McCain- do you really want to push for immigration reform or are you just trying to appeal to your republican base? All things considered, would you have voted for an immigration bill if there wasn’t a save the penguin from sexually aggressive and conflicted elephant seal attacks rider attached.” (see part 28). Let us not concern ourselves with the supposed historical inaccuracies of traditional polygraph tests. This could be made for TV drama. “Meet My Folks” was a reality television program which made the proper use of the lie-detector test. The administrator provided either a thumbs up or thumbs down verdict on whether a proposed romantic candidate was lying to the parents about his or her intentions with the parent’s offspring. I would care less about whether a political candidate had a real extra-marital affair with a campaign volunteer and more about whether they used taxpayer money to buy airline tickets to fund their secretive sexual encounters. I saw a show where a bride-to-be used the lie detector test administered to her best friend since the seventh grade and her own sister to determine who would be the maid of honor at her wedding. Both lied to her on a number of occasions as judged by the administrator of the test. Despite a couple of lies, she chose her sister, who admitted to either flirting with or kissing one of her old boyfriends- I can’t remember which. Hey, I am addicted to HGTV and had to change the channel. I want to be witness to the first kitchen makeover featuring a countertop surface that is not granite . . . I have priorities. Future groom . . . run! I once dated a woman so indecisive she nearly had to make a decision tree to figure out which kind of soda she wanted to purchase in the gas station.

Practical idealism: Pundits are always able to recognize but the voting sheep are not able to realize when issue flip-flop is happening for the benefit of garnering sheepish votes. Candidates pretend to change their views when they become the presumptive nominee of either of the parties so that they might gather more votes from the undecideds, and progressives. I would maintain that they do not gain votes from the true Independents because in order to be an Independent you must have made the decision not to fall for that fake sincerity crap. If a candidate were dressed as a bear and it approached the stream you, as a voting salmon, were swimming in and informed you that he wouldn’t try to gather you in with his paw, ensuring your safe passage up stream would you trust him? I wouldn’t. Candidates in primaries almost always seem to be either very liberal or very conservative during the primary in order to establish their political ideology to be widely accepted amongst their own party members, in order to be Lord of the Flies. Of course, the current version of McCain is quite a different animal, as I don’t know a lot of conservatives who are all that happy with him as their nominee, and weren’t all that impressed in the heart of the primary process. See the article “Conservatives to Battle McCain over Platform- Activists Don’t Want His Views on Warming, Stem Cells, Other Issues Adopted” Washington Post, July 6, 2008, where his positions on immigration and campaign finance are also being questioned by conservatives- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25561143/. Conservatives, you still ok with allowing unregistered republicans a vote in state primaries? One conservative, a director of energy and global warming policy, is quoted in the article as saying- “McCain ‘is really out of step with the strong majority of his party.’ ” Powell (see URL in the paragraph immediately below) writes of McCain having “shifted several positions in the Republican primary, taking conservative lines on taxes and immigration.” So, McCain changed some of his positions and it does not appear that his own constituency has bought those alterations- but I bet several million undecideds already have. Democrats have always been assured of Obama’s liberalism and that is exactly what scares an Independent. McCain at least has a long history of deal-brokering and though republicans may not like it, he has gotten some things done of which at least this Independent has approved. Obama's appeal to the Independent's and republican's in-name-only and undecideds is a mystery to me. But those are the people who are going to get fooled out of their vote by him which will swing the election his way.

Day of independence: I would hope that most voters (considering the numbers that vote for one of the major parties) should regret their vote about once every election cycle. A desperate man-whore probably has this same feeling of regret after waking up in bed next to some overweight woman seeking to draw him closer to her gunt the morning after committing to more than being her partner in the Scene It- Disney edition board game. Too many Long Island Ice Teas might do that to you. This is pure speculation- I thought a well-constructed analogy might help some people visualize my point more clearly. Allowing Independents and undecideds to vote in state primaries all over the country is a double-edged sword. This year, by having both McCain and Obama, the two candidates in the field who naturally appealed to the political middle more than any of the others at the outset, win their respective primaries, has kept a true potential Independent candidate from being able to justify their candidacy (Nader, Bloomberg, Dobbs, possibly even Paul, etc.) Though Obama was the noted most liberal of the senators in office, his mantra of change has appealed to DINOs, RINOs, IINOs (Independents In Name Only), undecideds, and 23-year-old Mississippians who have just learned they have had the right to vote for five years. McCain is perhaps himself a RINO, but we won’t know that for sure until he stops changing shapes attempting to appeal to the middle.

Mr. Shape-shifter: This article- “For Obama, a Pragmatist’s Shift Toward Center” by Michael Powell of The New York Times, June 27, 2008 (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25404397) is just one example of a candidate caught in the act between idealism and practicality. Consider some of the writer’s language- he uses the word “seemed” three times in the first three paragraphs to characterize Obama’s stance on the Supreme Court’s recent D.C. handgun ban ruling. Powell writes that: Obama’s “path toward the political center [is] marked by artful leaps and turns,” that “Mr. Obama has taken calibrated positions on issues . . . suggesting a presidential candidate in hot pursuit of what Bill Clinton once lovingly described as ‘the vital center.’ ” A presidential historian is quoted within the article as having said: “ ‘A presidential candidate’s great desire is to be seen as pragmatic, and they hope their maneuvering and shifting will be seen in pursuit of some higher purpose . . . It doesn’t mean they are utterly insincere.’ ” That hardly sounds like a promotional announcement for a candidate’s honest views; usually I shy away from voting for candidates who have all of the attributes of a shape-shifter. And here I thought shape-shifters were restricted to Native American literature and being considered dangerous mutants like the hot-evil (Rebecca Romijn) from the X-Men movies. Obama recently “backed away from his own earlier support for campaign finance spending limits” and “painted his decision to opt out of the campaign finance system as a reformist gesture, noting that most of his donors are not wealthy.”

Gist mill: Sir, you did not acquire a war chest in excess of $200 million because Ma and Pa Kettle contributed to your campaign. If you have acquired that much money because of the little people, there are more ignorami (which is the widely accepted plural form of ignoramus) than I had initially thought, who will be unleashed upon voting booths all over the country, which is almost as annoying as when teenagers drive to my house for candy on Halloween sans costume. Dude, the camoflauge gear you wear to play splatball is not a costume. Also, Mr. Obama, who would be financing your campaign if you accepted the $84.1 million . . . perhaps the public? See, I gleaned that from the name of the type of financing- it being called “public financing” and all. It actually comes from the $3 tax return check off and primary matching funds, where any individual can contribute their own money multiple times up to $250 of which can be matched by the federal government’s Treasury department for the purpose of campaigning. It is more intricate than this, but that is the basic gist. It seems that Teddy Roosevelt, a republican, was the first to propose the use of public financing. I wonder if the republicans considered that Unconstitutional back in the opening years of the 20th century? More information can be found at the Federal Election Commission site featuring this article- http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/pubfund.shtml. Within that link can be found this very valuable information:

“Minor party candidates and new party candidates may become eligible for partial public funding of their general election campaigns. (A minor party candidate is the nominee of a party whose candidate received between 5 and 25 percent of the total popular vote in the preceding Presidential election. A new party candidate is the nominee of a party that is neither a major party nor a minor party.) The amount of public funding to which a minor party candidate is entitled is based on the ratio of the party's popular vote in the preceding Presidential election to the average popular vote of the two major party candidates in that election. A new party candidate receives partial public funding after the election if he/she receives 5 percent or more of the vote. The entitlement is based on the ratio of the new party candidate's popular vote in the current election to the average popular vote of the two major party candidates in the election.”

So, perhaps it will eventually pay if more than two candidates are considered for the political offices up for grabs come election time. That does not seem like a wasted vote to me. But perhaps the die-hard democrats and republicans are like the pescatarian capuchin* monkey who would continue to acknowledge a wind-aided cherry pit-spitting championship. Freaks. Have you no sense of shame.

Price of hypocrisy: And see this article for more information on the hubbub about Obama reneging on his inclination to use public financing- “Public Financing? Obama and McCain Appear Split” by Jeff Zeleny and Michael Luo of the New York Times, April 10, 2008 (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/us/politics/10campaign.html. The article reveals that the price of hypocrisy is no less than the combined $95 million in campaign finance money Obama raised in February and March of 2008. To be fair, the article discloses that public financing of a presidential run has been made available to all comers since the 1976 election and that no nominees have elected to accept that bounty, which is adjusted for inflation. Also in the article- “Mr. Obama, who has shattered fund-raising records for candidates of either party . . . argues that his small contributors, many of whom have given again and again over the Internet, have injected a new democracy into fund-raising, with the result that a kind of ‘parallel public financing system’ has been created.’ ” Sure, by ‘democracy’ he actually means 'oligarchy' and by “parallel public financing system” he means- a complete set of hunyucks who are somehow distantly related to an alligator. In the article, evidence suggests that McCain could also be considered a hypocrite considering the waffling which took place over which centrist candidate would decide to accept public financing. All voters should beware the comeliness of the spider who traps you in a net you may already know is there, for the price of hypocrisy (for the candidate) is not in any way comparable to the cost of it (to the voter).

My solution for campaign finance reform**: 1) Empower the Federal Elections Commission to dictate that an inflation-based standard amount of public financing money will be made available to presidential, congressional, even state district candidates based on a set of criteria to be determined by a reasonable commission for the purposes of the public being able to avoid having the whims and passions of the rich donors dictate the types of policies which are initiated or proposed. All issues- foreign and domestic- from campaign finance itself, to farm subsidies, education, immigration, taxation, off-shore drilling, how to deal with China, co-sourcing, etc., need not be controlled or influenced by any group, the minority of billionaires who need another million to blow on private jets, or majorities of immigrants, working poor, or even the middle class who win the support of the public because they are one hell of a pity case. 2) Along with that FEC stuff I mention above- run public service announcements on behalf of each candidate clearly indicating where they stand on the issue, perhaps in the form of an info-mercial and give the voting public more information about where websites, news articles, etc. can be found that further break down the issues and the candidates. A component that also communicates the truth about a candidate’s voting record and whether and how they have reneged on past promises inadequately addressed by them during their legal, private business, legislative, presidential, or gubernatorial careers. 3) Limit the number of paid staff members each candidate can keep employed. No need to limit the number of volunteers, as compensating someone from the never chosen pool of public financing money (because they are volunteers) wouldn’t infringe upon the publicly allotted earmarked campaign money. Candidates can still run as many adds as they can pay for with the $84.1 million, and go on as many trips to certain states as they see fit. 4) Obviously, it takes more money to run a national campaign, so senators and governors would receive half of that total, or a total to be assigned by an independent agency. The issue of how a politician can, or should be allowed to finance a campaign is a more complicated issue than I just represented, but it is much easier to fix than education, health care, immigration, or the carbon emission/global warming/tax v. cap and trade issue.

Unconstitutional homeless sluts: That intro. phrase is just a little harsh. If anyone should find that the above proposals are Unconstitutional . . . tough! There should be no attempt to justify a massive waste of money, even one's own, on an election by drawing an inadequate connection to the ambiguously-written first amendment. I consider the exorbitant amount of money spent on an election a detriment to clean and fair elections and that priority takes precedence over someone's unnamed first amendment right to be beholden to those who finance their campaign. The politician who whines about his rights when he has been allowed to waffle and lie, with impunity and without shame, about any number of issues does not much concern me. Both major parties are like the homeless guy who stands out on the off-ramp street corner with a sign begging for money, looking down to make sure he is holding the sign right side up, which adds to his aura of desperation and banality. The candidate who wins your vote is like the slut who cheats on her man, who begs for forgiveness and knows she has pulled it over on you when you have given it to her.

Meta-politics I: At work in this country are any number of issues that are reported on all over the nightly and cable news programs. We citizens argue about them just as our politicians do. Almost any issue is connected to at least a few others and many issues have many issue relationships. I would make a Kevin Bacon- six degrees of separation allusion here but no one would value that. The solvency of social security may only come about with immigration reform; the price of gas is affected by oil futures, and the lack of refineries, the withheld decision to drill in Alaska or off the coast, or in the Dakotas, etc.; the Iraq war, Bush just signed the bill, will allocate an additional $162 billion, even while the next president is being sworn in and that alone affects a couple dozen domestic issues that could be bettered with those earmarked millions, not to mention sensible tax cuts for all economic classes. Welfare is undeniably tied to unemployment, children born out of wedlock to teen mothers and potentially to the dairy industry, because there are likely a few welfare recipients who are milking the system. Things are getting tense. The inflammatory language used to decry the solutions of our counterparts in any argument is nonsensical compared to the possibility of real issue resolution. Read the series of comments, which follow a carbon emissions tax v. cap and trade article, which reveal the wealth of disparagement that follows on the trail of any article whose author promotes either a liberal or conservative view. The comments are more valuable as issue fodder than was the article which precedes them- http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/1/30/17554/0835. These people are beyond worrying about tomato salmonella scares- they are like Touretted walking sticks competing with each other on the same pommel horse at the insect savant special Olympics. Everyone is impressed with what they know and how condescendingly they can communicate it, even me. I characterize such combative personalities as insects because we are hardly aware of our own insignificance or how futilely we shout down the ignorance of others. My friends, ignorance has a way of prevailing.

For another example of the invective-laden mental tennis match of discussing everything and yet solving nothing- please see an email exchange reproduced in the Minneapolis Star Tribune about a Big Stone II South Dakota power plant proposal that would use coal-fired power plant to serve the energy needs of 45% of Minnesotans as well as many South Dakotans. The story- “A Full-Tilt Battle Over Electricity” ran July 6, 2008 in the Opinion exchange section- http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/22887154.html?location_refer=Commentary:highlightModules:4. The two combatants are an attorney for five utilities companies advocating the necessity of the plant for the region’s energy needs and the executive director of an environmental advocacy group, who is concerned about the levels of carbon dioxide emissions. Both make multiple excellent points, which leaves someone desirous of a resolution frustrated until a duty-bound, impartial set of arbitrators can make an equitable decision. The reason I would continue to suggest a Supreme Court-like, somewhat Grecian super-judge method to many of our problems is because- of the three branches of government, the supposed impartiality of the judicial branch is certainly more respected than either the executive or legislative branches who are far more beholden to listening to the voices and money offered by potential vote-buyers. I am not proposing that the current Supreme Court decide the weighty issues that remain unresolved, simply that an arbitrator-like body, in possession of the opinions and facts is in a better position to make far-reaching, objective decisions fraught with a number of potential undesirable outcomes.

You cannot believe everything you read, especially given a political predisposition to be cowed, nor can all material be dismissed should it conflict with one’s views. It is difficult for an Independent to figure on a decision, but he is more qualified to do so than the average republican who would promote the building of the power plant and the democrat who would petition against its construction.

Meta-politics II: Behind the scenes in all computer programs there are meta-languages which consist of relationships between data components. The stuff and nonsense zooming around behind the scenes affecting the representation of data on our computer monitors, what font is represented, which formulas are suppressed, which text is displayed is referred to as metadata. It describes and defines the data by providing it with qualities and properties which affect relationships between data components which affects the data itself. Meta-politics, that stuff that goes on behind closed doors in a congressman’s office, in a subcommittee board room, at a ritzy restaurant blocks away from the nation’s capital or over the phone, with two lead negotiators a dozen states away, are things that the public may never know, nor should we need to. Many issues are associated with each other in a similar way to how XML or HTML, or any other computer coding, affects electronic data. This is just one published example- “Global Warming May Increase Illegal Immigration, Terrorism,” Associated Press, June 25, 2008- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25372743. These issues that never seem to get resolved are related in ways that some may not consider. Lower speed limits are tied to better fuel efficiency, fewer accidents, the frequency of our trips to the gas station, which equates to spending less money at the pump. The second consideration listed (fewer accidents), in turn, equates to lower automobile insurance rates. Bigger cars with more safety standards also cost the consumer more. If emission standards are set to improve, which would cause automobiles to go a greater distance on less fuel, this affects not only car companies, because they would probably have to adjust their fuel injection systems, or engines to accomodate an improved fuel, but oil companies as well. I don’t know how much of that $143 a barrel for oil is attributable to the future expected losses that oil companies assume is coming their way, due to the hardly diligent legislative pursuit of higher emission standards. That was kind of a joke. Cars and fuel would need to be modified in the event that widespread legislation is enacted, which will cause automobile manufacturers and oil companies to pass this cost onto the consumer, as I expect, they already have begun to do. Almost every issue has a price, an origin, a boiling point, and has a relationship with plenty of other issues, but can be reconciled with its polar opposite if the proper meta-political wrangling is done by citizens and politicians alike who guard against each other.

Words from Hamilton: I am reading the Federalist Papers and at quite an appropriate moment in my parade through the subject matter of this blog diatribe. I have been critical of various pundits, of talk show hosts, of George Will and Milton Friedman, and many others, but am not above granting them credit when they express their measure of reasonable thought, for many of those I have quoted are wise without being infallible and some have even been brilliant without ranking high on the integrity scale. Hamilton, a brilliant man, though altogether too impertinent as a pamphleteer, wrote this on the nature of issue resolution after writing of the deliberations of votes and the nature of majority and minority voting groups: “. . . tedious delays—continual negotiation and intrigue—contemptible compromises of the public good. And yet in such a system, it is even happy when such compromises can take place: For upon some occasions, things will not admit of accommodation; and then the measures of government must be injuriously suspended or fatally defeated. It is often, by the impracticability of obtaining the concurrence of the necessary number of votes, kept in a state of inaction. Its situation must always savour of weakness—sometimes border upon anarchy.” And that was just when he was trying to get Martha Washington in the sack when the rest of the initial cabinet was on recess. He also writes of the hindrances to necessary actions caused by a variety of issues, not the least of which is that old enemy of all governments, including this one in its infancy and extending into the present day- factions, which are, I imagine, largely what causes the gridlock of which Hamilton writes. The immediately preceding quotation originates from December 14, 1787 (Federalist No. 22).

In offering #23 of the Federalist Papers Hamilton writes: “It rests upon axioms as simple as they are universal. The means ought to be proportioned to the end; the persons, from whose agency the attainment of any end is expected, ought to possess the means by which it is to be attained.” Martha's seamstress abilities must have really turned this guy on. I can agree with the sentiment though, as I have demonstrated, (see part 28 and Rousseau's quotation above) not with Hamilton’s subsequent contention that the rich are less infallible than the poor when types of vices are taken into consideration.

Hamilton, in The Federalist Papers #21 wrote: “The natural cure for an ill administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men.” However, it is unfortunate that in this country, we have limits on the number of times we can affect this change and that far too few of a different brand of men than those we traditionally elect are available to hasten this cure. Hamilton’s just quoted words could have appeared in direct succession within a single number of the Federalist Papers if they were to carry the most weight and show the ineffectual side of the legislative body. In three successive papers Hamilton had hit upon a series of major failings of our current governmental structure—these being the nature of governmental representation, the assigned duties, the potential ineffectual nature of the performance of the duties and the proper course for people who have elected the representatives who are judged as having failed the public. Hamilton was good at recognizing the malady but not equipped to provide the remedy. Allow me to further detail how undeniably gangrenous the multitude of unresolved issues is making us . . .

“I’d gladly pay you Tuesday . . . (Pensions): This was the beginning of a common line of J. Wellington Wimpy’s from the Popeye cartoons. Ironically, this is the text that appears in the Wikipedia entry for J. Wellington Wimpy- “Wimpy is Popeye's friend. In the cartoons he mainly plays the role of the ‘straight man’ to Popeye's outbursts and wild antics. Wimpy is very intelligent, and well educated, but very lazy and gluttonous. Wimpy is also something of a scam artist and . . . can be shockingly underhanded at times.” Remind you of any career politicians you know? (See the wiretapping and Countrywide paragraphs below.) When I think of scam artist I think of three things- a car salesman, pigeons that wear sweater vests and refuse to pay spousal maintenance and politicians. Yes, yes, there are a number of very efficient, diligent, altruistic, commendable politicians, and it appears that I heard two very devoted, capable and benevolent ones speak at a Common Cause event the first week of June (Bob Edgar a former six term Pennsylvania house member and Mark Ritchie- current MN secretary of state), but there are also plenty of “shockingly underhanded” and “gluttonous” ones as well. Consider the story which I briefly touched on in part 29: “Growing Deficits Threaten Pensions,” by David Cho of the Washington Post, from May 11, 2008 (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24449812/. Cho writes- “The funds that pay pension and health benefits to police officers, teachers and millions of other public employees across the country are facing a shortfall that could soon run into trillions of dollars . . . State governments alone have reported they are already confronting a deficit of at least $750 billion to cover the cost of the retirement benefits they have promised . . . massive breach of faith with a generation of public employees . . . By their own assessment, state and local governments acknowledge that their funds for retiree benefits are increasingly falling behind . . . governments have been struggling to keep up with the promises they made . . . passing the bill to future generations by using sunny projections of what their investments will return . . .”

. . . for a hamburger today.”: Consider the Warren Buffett quote I included in part 29 about the “time bomb” of unrealized expectations of retirees as it concerns their earned pensions, a problem which current politicians are not interested in attending to. This is not unlike the time bombs which current politicians are not interested in attending to like- the probable insolvency of social security, medicare, medicaid, the skyrocketing gas prices and cost of health care, etc. Buffett wrote that the pension “problems will only become apparent long after these officials have departed.” Concerned with their own continued electability and perceiving that the bearer of bad news would be associated with the pension failure, hundreds of politicians are sacrificing the futures of even the current crop of middle class workers to say nothing about pension benefit insolvency in the future. I would rather a politician admit his or her failures and deliver me the truth. I have never failed to respect a person for being honest, even if I am the one they are being honest about. Infallibility is not a requirement I demand of immediate superiors, myself or the official a mass of people elect to political office. If this were so, and all people demanded such a character trait, we would be without representation in every office of government across the country. Members of congress, Mr. president, state officials on all levels, local magistrates- the job approval numbers show that we already don’t trust you, so pony up with the truth and address these issues now. This is a call to address all issues truthfully not just the advent of a pension nightmare. We, it seems, will be paying today and Tuesday/tomorrow for the gluttony and perhaps the not so shocking underhandedness of our elected officials.

Wimpy postscript: The Wikipedia entry for Wimpy indicated that the character served a much larger role in a comic that predated the Popeye strip and cartoon. Considering I have associated many politicians with a dated cartoon character that no one under the age of thirty would know (Wimpy), I may as well pine for the possibility of life imitating art as well (i.e. that politicians would also be restricted in their roles in our future tragi-comic political affairs).

Country-Wide impropriety: Not having been embroiled in politics my entire life, I would only be speculating on the possibility of corrupt politicians if I didn't know how to read- others who will vote for either McCain or Obama apparently do not have this BS vetting feature available to them. Thankfully, others with experience, insight, those with news article deadlines and nightly cable news programs are able to ferret out some facts. See this story “Countrywide’s Many ‘Friends’ ” Daniel Golden of Portfolio.com, June 12, 2008 (the URL is longer than the rinse cycle on my dishwasher- key in the title of the article). It concerns “two U.S. [democratic] senators, two former cabinet members, and a former ambassador to the United Nations” who “received loans from Countrywide Financial through a little-known program that waived points, lender fees, and company borrowing rules for prominent people” . . . [who] “received better deals than those available to ordinary borrowers.” Perhaps these ordinary borrowers could be included in the group who were given ridiculous total loan amounts with disastrous interest rate considerations (i.e. sub-prime loans) and that companies like Countrywide sought to gain back the money from the less fortunate that they had saved the V.I.P.s. Of course this is pure speculation on my part. I think it makes sense to give financial incentives to those who already benefit economically where financial position, salary, fortune, hard-work, genetics, socialization, dishonesty, complicity, negligence or plausible deniability are concerned. Genius! There are dollar amounts and percentages all over the document which clearly communicate when, how much, and in what ways certain V.I.P.s benefited. “The V.I.P. loans to public officials in a position to advance Countrywide’s interests raise legal and ethical questions.” Duh. “Countrywide is reportedly under F.B.I. investigation for alleged securities fraud, and [chief executive Angelo] Mazilo has drawn criticism for unloading $474 million in Countrywide shares between 2004 and 2007 as the housing crisis neared.” Politicians who are bright enough to campaign for these offices, pull facts and factoids from their brains in a machine-gun manner in the heat of a debate somehow are unable to connect those types of financial benefits to the appearance of impropriety? Inconceivable. These cats are getting so fat, they have stretch marks on their dress pants. Some might think those are merely pleats . . . try again. Fewer than an estimated 1.2 million homeowners will actually have their mortgage subprime interest rates frozen for five years. Give millionaire, or otherwise financially secure politicians who will always be employable as lobbyists (again, see Dobbs WMC chapters 3 and 4 referenced above) breaks on their mortgages while “the number of homeowners stung by the rout in the U.S. housing market jumped last month as foreclosure filings grew by more than 50 percent compared with June a year ago” makes all the sense in the world to me, whatever the reason for the foreclosure. (Source: “Foreclosure Filings Surged 53 Percent in June”- Associated Press, July 9, 2008- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25612487/.)

Governmental Protection Agency: For another instance of governmental corruption, please see this article- “White House Tried to Silence EPA on Emissions” by Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post, June 25, 2008- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id25379956/. The facts would take too much space to detail, especially when the crux of the claim against the government’s involvement in quieting the Environmental Protection Agency’s attempts to act on a “2007 Supreme Court ruling that the agency had violated the Clean Air Act by refusing to take up the issue of regulating automobile emissions that contribute to global warming” is included in the article’s title. So, given the EPA’s efforts to attempt to address the issue, it seems the Bush administration is more culpable at this point than is the EPA. For similar tactics employed by the Bush administration, see part 12. Again, I would advocate for an independent council that could act as a Governmental Protection Agency, that would research potential ethics violations, and make rulings that objectively addressed the negligence and complicit nature of our federal, state and local governments including the possibility that the vice president’s “office [allegedly] censored testimony by the head of the Centers for Disease Control that linked climate change to the public health crisis.” (Note: This text was included in an email sent to me from my limited association with Common Cause. I included “allegedly” in the sentence above because I have not verified this and do not want to take for granted that CC has.)

Dick Morris: Apparently has a new book out (“Fleeced”) which addresses these very types of issues. These types of problems are more interesting than discussions about improper tire inflation as it relates to fuel economy, the declining costs of lasik surgery on pet reindeer who gave themselves lymes disease or why George Clooney has decided to remain unmarried. If my approach has seemed a bit myopic- well, I will never let collective apathy get in the way of an over-written column. Morris contends that Barack Obama has claimed he is fiscally responsible, though Obama puts a tax cut disguise on a possible $1 trillion tax increase.

Anyone for wiretapping?: “The biggest telecom carriers in the nation participated in the program before it came to light and have since been deluged by nearly 40 lawsuits from customers claiming their privacy rights were violated.” (See the Washington Post article written by Jonathan Weisman and Ellen Nakashima, May 29, 2008- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24867416.) How much did setting up the wiretapping cost the taxpayer? Anyone have an idea how much potential lawsuits will cost the American taxpayer this time around? This time around? Sure, this wasn’t a precedent setting secretive, UNCONSTITUTIONAL (for all of you hypocritical conservative protectors of campaign finance reform- see part 20) wiretapping initiative. It seems that “Beginning in 1964 New Haven police persuaded executives of the Southern New England Telephone Company (today part of AT&T) to let officers monitor traffic on the phone company's mainframe . . . The cost of corporate cooperation in illegal surveillance is ultimately huge. In New Haven taxpayers in a cash-strapped city paid 1,200 victims $1.75 million, while the officials who ordered the operation remained immune. That's not just vast legal costs borne by the city and SNET. With a much-deserved lawsuit already filed in the NSA case, it is taxpayers, consumers and shareholders--not George W. Bush or telecom CEOs--who will eventually pay the bill.” See Bruce Shapiro’s article from May 24, 2006- “The Wiretapping Tango”- http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060605/shapiro. Plenty of people, usually conservative in nature, would be apathetic to such a maneuver, perhaps stating that they have nothing to hide, so go ahead and tap my phone for the common good, to root out terrorists. As a non-reactionary Independent who likes to look at the larger scale impact and not look at each issue in a vacuum, for consistency’s sake, I might say, I wonder what a conservative who might allow wiretapping would say to a non-smoker who doesn’t want his lung capacity infringed upon by someone else’s toxic cigarette smoke, sometimes these people/victims are as innocent as babes- “Carcinogens from Tobacco Smoke Found In Babies Urine”- http://quitsmoking.about.com/od/secondhandsmoke/a/NNALinUrine.htm.

Whine me: I heard another conservative talk-show host*** over the 4th of July weekend who possibly regrets being a late bloomer in the declam department, claiming he could have brow-beaten a wine conniosseur into submission claiming that cigarette and cigar smoking was no more harmful or obnoxious than wine consumption. I was led to believe that the conservative talk-show host objected to the opinions of his counterpart because of his liberal views. I have no interest in defending a liberal on every ground, and certainly not in the wearing of socks with sandals, but my good conservative hypocrite sir- I beg you- show me the numbers of drunken wine aficionados with the hazardous behavior of putting the lives of other people in danger, stubbornly maintaining their sobriety and continue to deny the effects of second-hand smoke. Besides, after you get done with your "whine" there isn't any left for the rest of us to drink.


* pescatarian- a vegetarian who eats fish; capuchin monkey- a small monkey not necessarily known for its ability to spit cherry pits for distance. Capuchins are considered the most intelligent of the New World monkeys (quite a qualifier) and are sometimes used by people who do not have the use of their upper torso. The monkeys look like a cross between Jay Leno, as they have white faces and head hair, excepting a dark tuft on top, and a shrinking Jewish man attending the synogogue wearing his yarmulke.

** This solution could just as easily have been provided in parts 19-21, but I did not have as much information, relative to campaign finance, at my disposal at that time.

*** Neither his name, the call letters or local station affiliation are all that important. It gets to the point, where I have begun to suspect that it is just one guy providing all of the banter, facts and conservative platform talk on all of the stations. They just alter his voice to sound like a completely different cartoon character pompously spouting information the grand poo-bah of conservativism bestowed upon him at the last tribal gathering. Employing that many conservatives to speak essentially the same words with that same level of vitriol would be a waste of controllable costs. Conservatives sound so awfully castrated when their frustration is matched against their hypocrisy. I have more respect for food storage devices, plates and cups that are only top-shelf dishwasher safe than at the impotent blow-hards who each received a “proud to pontificate” bumper sticker they’ll affix to their Escalades which were handed out at the last Republicans-R-Us gathering. The utility of the former- (the top-shelf dishwasher safe containers) though they await a purchase in thousands of home goods stores across the country, serve a better purpose melting on the bottom rack of my dishwasher than a conservative who molts his moral rectitude only to reveal a better version of himself . . . according to him.