Government: Accountability Abrogated

Dick-Baynton-Print-MugIn December 2013, a 46 year-old Mexican national named Jose Luis Ramirez-Dorantes was sentenced in a San Diego federal court to 55 years in prison for killing Border Patrol agent Robert Rosas in 2009. Two other defendants were sentenced to 56 years and 40 years of incarceration. A fourth defendant is awaiting sentencing and the FBI is offering up to $100,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a fifth person.

Recently, Manuel Osorio-Arellanes was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment for the murder of Border Agent Brian Terry in December 2010. Of the five men involved in this shootout that resulted in Terry’s death, two others are in custody in Mexico and two remain fugitives.

There are important differences between the murders in California and Arizona; the gun that fired the round that killed Brian Terry in Arizona was from the USA. Yes, that’s right, an illegal gunrunning scheme thought up by some government official trying to emulate that iconic crime solver of TV fame Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife created ‘Fast & Furious’.

In spite of Congressional hearings and the availability of some of the world’s best investigative organizations no one in government has been held accountable. We don’t even know what genius hatched the ‘Fast & Furious’ scheme. To top off this mystery we have a President and an Attorney General who were obligingly unaware that such an illicit consortium existed.

For the second time this year and more than 20 times since it became law, the President has delayed or otherwise changed provisions of Obamacare. Critics say the President has no authority to make changes to existing law. A few days ago the Wall Street Journal carried the headline, “Health Law to Cut Into Labor Force.” The article says that by 2021 the total number of hours worked in the U.S. will effectively eliminate the equivalent of 2.3 million jobs. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had earlier forecast the loss of 800,000 jobs (at $20/hour that would reduce the economy by over $33 billion).

Three days after the forecast of 2.3 million job losses over the next seven years, another WSJ headline blared, “Slow Jobs Growth Stirs Worry,” referring to the slowest two consecutive months of job growth in three years.

According to the CBO, employees will be working fewer hours to take advantage of greater subsidies for health insurance. Some employers will decrease working hours to escape the mandated healthcare coverage. This will force employees that want coverage onto the insurance exchanges while younger workers will pay the penalty and do without insurance until they become ill, then sign up for healthcare. Recall that the law requires insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions. Other taxpayers will help pay the premiums for the pre-existing conditions.

The Democrats in their warped gyroscopic spinning have hailed these reduced hours as a positive breakthrough. Now we are hearing a new expression called ‘Job Lock.’ This means that workers can quit their job and get another job or leave the workforce and let others do the work while they receive healthcare subsidies. CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf has said that the healthcare law is a disincentive for employment.

On Tuesday, the House approved a suspension of the debt limit for one year. On Wednesday February 12 the House passed a 1,582 page bipartisan budget in the amount of $1.012 trillion, funding the government for the next 8½ months. This first budget in several years will reduce the federal budget by $23 billion over 10 years. This means that if we stay on track, we can balance the budget in just 754 years. For the first four months of fiscal 2014, the budget deficit is already $184 billion.

The preceding narratives all focus on one riveting fact, the wrong people are running our government. Accountability is a solemn obligation but repudiated by many of our political leaders. A nation of people accountable to government where government is not accountable to the people is a nation in decline.

– Dick Baynton

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