Professor Elam

Tuesday March 8, 2011

Congress, our national Asylum for the Incompetent

Mark Twain

Senator Scott Brown, R MA, has introduced a bill to provide, yes, you and I with a

itemized receipt for our 1040 tax returns. Click to see how we could waste more money. 

Dear Senator Brown:

The competition for the worst current idea in the Senate or Congress is always fierce. 535 nice looking (thanks to the Congressional Barber Shop. located I understand handily near the House and Senate Floor, all the better for CSPAN soundbite) politicians are always vying to appear to be doing something. THe Bridge to Nowhere was a landmark though it may be overtaken by the idea of the F 22 and F 35 fighters, gee do you think those will help the Libyan rebels?

However your idea of having the government hire, I am sure all existing bureaucrats are way too busy to attend to this,  more IRS types, people to prepare receipts for our 1040s is surely a front runner for Dumbest Idea. 

Just this past month the GAO" published a report on duplication of Federal Programs.  The list of Directors, Asst Directors, Asst Vice Associate to the Undersecretary of the Advisor to the Council on Seeking More Advice, ad nauseam, is endless. Are you doing anything about that?  Apparently not. 

Just this weekend Chris Wallace asked DIck Durbin, R IL if less than one third of one percent was the best budget cut he could come up with. Durbin refused to answer, he won't cut anything in the domestic economy, no matter how poorly the money is employed. Funny he did not ask the Republican if the best he could do was a 4% cut. And that would just be in the deficit, not the budget. 

Scott, there are websites with debt clocks ticking as I write, the number is now over $14 T. The idea of your replacing Ted Kennedy was to do something about it, not report on it, and certainly not to create more govt to report on govt spending for goodness sakes.  We taxpayers are more than weary of learning the average Fed worker makes $125 K a years with benefits. And to do what?  

Let's see we have 

An Energy Dept that produces no Energy

An Education Dept that educates no one

An Agriculture Dept bigger than ever at an all time low in the number of American farmers

A Transportation Dept that transports no one

And so it goes

how is NPR by the way and why are we subsidizing a radio network when everyone else in radio works for a living?  Just wondered

Let's see the $61 B out of a $1.5 T deficit amounts to 4% of the deficit. Wow you Republicans are sure deficit hawks!  I mean this is showing those free spenders in Congress, right?

How about eliminating all Fed Cabinet offices except the original four, let those Depts defend themselves. Every day business eliminates thousands of jobs, now 8 Million and counting the last few years, but that never happens at the Fed Govt, why not?

by the way, I looked at your Comment Site and funny thing, no place to comment, just a place to donate. 

I'll pass, get to work, for a change. 

Dennis Elam

Taxpayer