Government Screw-Ups

We voters have been objecting to congressional screw-ups for decades. And now, due to congressional meddling we find ourselves in a 2nd Great Depression. The Meltdown of 2008 was caused by a combination of the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, HUD lawsuits, Fannie, Freddie, Barney, Chris, FASB, the Fed, AIG, big Banks, Mortgage Loan Companies, unregulated derivatives, credit default swaps and leveraging 30:1. The primary cause of the mortgage default explosion that caused this Depression had its roots in housing anti-discrimination enforcement. Banks were not approving mortgages for people who were not credit-worthy, so the federal government stepped in force the banks to lend to these folks. The Fed artificially held interest rates at below-market levels and speculators entered the housing market. Housing prices rose in response to the lower interest rates. Concurrently, the SEC failed to detect the Bernie Madoff ponzie scheme despite their audits. Throughout this period, big Banks believed they would be bailed out if the “house of cards” collapsed. We bailed them out with the TARP. This has not been fixed.

Earlier, congress went into a scramble to promote alternative fuels, so farmers grew corn to turn into ethanol. We later learned that ethanol was corrosive and would destroy automobile parts. In the meantime, we experienced a famine in the third world, directly traceable to the ethanol fiasco. Not long ago, gasoline prices rose to $4 / gallon. Democrats blocked drilling for U.S. oil and gas and I believe this is still going on. This has not been fixed.
In prior years, after 3 Mile Island, the Hudson River catching on fire, acid rain and the hole in the ozone, the Environmentalists got some traction. The auto safety fanatics joined them and they all went after the auto industry. The auto industry went into a financial meltdown due to union pensions, retiree medical, union work rules and competition, despite their ability to move plants to Mexico after NAFTA. Most other large manufacturers moved production to Indonesia, Mexico and other countries in their flight from unions and higher U.S. manufacturing costs. This has not been fixed.

Today, we continue to fight congress to prevent more “ready – fire – aim” screw-ups. Our current battles include stopping costly bills like Healthcare, Cap & Trade and Card Check. Green jobs is a joke. Solar and wind cost 5 times more than nuclear and coal. Climate change is a hoax. Light Rail is the dumbest, most expensive boondoggle yet. So far, we have squandered $4 trillion on bailouts, given away $26 trillion through the FED and are facing a $100 trillion unfunded liability. We’re broke and congress is still scrambling to spend more money. This has not been fixed.

The only thing we can do is to drop the scrambling and concentrate on drastically reducing our national debt. At the same time, we need to kill Healthcare, Cap & Trade and Card Check, rein back the EPA and repeal the Community Reinvestment Act and HUD non-discrimination rules and other job and economy killing laws. We need to convert all government pensions to age-weighted defined contribution plans, freeze all government hiring and stop bailing out the States and everybody else. After that, we need to restrict campaign contributions to only registered voters in the candidates’ city, district, county or state. Remember, this Depression will continue and demand will not return until Obama and the Democrats stop and reverse federal spending.