I was intrigued by a CBSNews.com story yesterday that said
a 17 year old Ohio high school senior was going to run for an open House
seat in the state legislature. The story was intriguing most obviously for
its unconventional aspect -- this kid is 17 -- but also for something
the young man said about his political allies, the Democrats.
"I was initially a Democrat following in the footsteps of a guy's life
that I studied, and that was John Kennedy," said candidate Derrick Seaver --
who won't even be old enough to vote for a few months. "Through the years I
found the Democratic Party (my emphasis) to be better handlers of
people's money. I appreciate their stand on a lot of civil
liberties-type things, social issues."
Well, look -- it's understandable for this kid to think the Democrats have
cornered the market on compassionate "civil liberties-type things" and
"social issues" because there isn't enough alternative media out there to
address these issues with even a modicum of truth.
But the Democrats have been most responsible -- not for fostering better
social programs -- but for enslaving generations of poor and
conditioning them to depend upon government for their livelihood. By
accomplishing this, these "champions of civil rights" have done no service
to their vast constituency of minorities, many of whom are -- finally --
waking up the realization that liberal government "social" programs are
anything but a bargain.
What is most interesting, though, is this young waif's belief that
Democrats have been better stewards of the people's money. That is so
naive it is laughable, in an innocent kind of way; I'm sure the kid just
doesn't know any better. If he wins his election, he will learn,
though.
If you're still a Democratic stalwart and believe that the Party of
Clinton, Kennedy (Ted, that is), Schumer, and Feinstein (not
"Einstein") are better CPAs and money managers than other politicos, you
should examine a story in Wednesday's Washington Times. Though the liberal
establishment press rarely scrutinizes their liberal congressional and
federal brethren this way, indeed it is they who are most
guilty of frittering away the fruits of the people's labor. Worse, the
establishment press is guilty of prodding (or shaming) government liberals
into giving away more of the people's money.
In any event, the Times story chronicles how the House Budget Committee,
chaired by Republican John Kasich (pay attention, Seaver -- Kasich is from
Ohio), has found billions of wasted dollars in "hundreds of
examples of abuse and waste of taxpayer dollars in government agencies, and
fraud perpetrated against the federal government."
Surprised? As if this hasn't happened before -- and what has been done
about it? In a budget of nearly two trillion dollars annually, it is
irrational folly to presume that every dollar is wisely spent, much less
accounted for.
Regarding their findings the Budget Committee, which "based its study on
inspector general and General Accounting Office investigations as well as
independent sources," discovered much of the fraud, waste and abuse had been
perpetrated in programs designed to help (who else?) poor people.
Terry Holt, Mr. Kasich's spokesman, described the amount of waste as
"appalling," and I have no doubt that it is -- but then again, I think a
$2-trillion annual budget is appalling.
"For example, in Baltimore," the congressional study found, "the public
housing authority bought eight new Chevy Blazers as take-home cars for top
managers, hired a security firm that employed 29 convicted felons, and sold
more than $25 million worth of contracts for building repairs to their
friends and relatives."
"In spite of these disclosures, the study said HUD went on to give the
housing authority $115 million to build new apartment units," the Times
reported.
Though many states have switched from paper food stamps to electronic
food stamp programs, "In New Jersey, 16 persons who owned 10 food stores
illegally trafficked an estimated $6.5 million in benefits from 920 food
stamp recipients," the Times said. "Three years after the fraud was
uncovered, only 582 of those recipients who participated in the fraud have
been suspended from the food stamp program."
The committee's study also found that "the Department of Housing and
Urban Development (HUD) wasted $18 billion and let public housing
neighborhoods 'fester with crime and drugs,'" (pay attention, gun
manufacturers) that "the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program is
losing $1 billion a year to fraud," and that "the Medicare program made
'massive overpayments' totaling $12.6 billion in one year."
There are more examples. According to the committee's study, there are
"hundreds" more, in fact.
Are the young Mr. Seaver's Democrats solely to blame? No -- Republicans
have been mightily guilty of helping liberal Democrats perpetuate and, in
many instances, increase the funding over the years to these same
programs they are now complaining about.
But clearly the Democrats are responsible for the creation of most
of these programs. FDR, JFK (Seaver's hero), and LBJ are all jointly
responsible for expanding these bureaucratic boondoggles -- ironically, the
same presidents Veep Al Gore, leading contender for the Democratic
presidential nomination this year, calls his political heroes.
So in essence, the Democrats are most responsible for
wasting your tax money on frivolous and expensive government programs that
don't accomplish -- and will never accomplish -- what these "champions
of compassion" said they would. Consider that after 32 years of LBJ's "war
on poverty," there are still millions of poor Americans consigned to
living in dangerous, drug-infested government housing projects; if
LBJ's scheme had worked, you'd have thought housing projects -- nay, poor
people -- would have been a thing of the past by now, after three
decades.
They're not though, are they? The reality is no amount of liberal program
money has helped reduce poverty in this country by any appreciable
amount.
But "giving more money to the poor" sure makes a great campaign issue,
doesn't it Mr. Seaver?
See what I mean when I said you were naive?
All told, the billions wasted per year by our government probably wouldn't
amount to much more than $10 per American, but that's not the point. What
is the point is that this government of ours has no right to waste
even one dime of our money; furthermore, if "billions" of wasted dollars can
be found, I'm certain a good accounting firm could likely find tens of
billions or even hundreds of billions of wasted dollars every year.
Sadly, President Bill Clinton's administration was against a tax cut last
year that would have returned about ten dollars a year to taxpayers, so the
reality of it is, we didn't get that cut not because "the government can't
afford it," but because even such a small cut would have obviously cut into
the bureaucrat's "waste" fund.