Over the last few years, we have all heard complaints about the federal income tax code. Nothing notable has happened. The Post Office generates huge debt each year. The Postmaster General, the Congress and the President do nothing to develop a profit. Debates have been ongoing for years about abortion. Abortions continue and so does the debate. Death sentences of criminals are proclaimed by some to be repugnant even in the most egregious cases. Many of the same people that want to destroy an unborn baby that has done nothing wrong want to save the life of an adult that has done something wrong.
Government fraud in many agencies goes on unabated costing taxpayers billions of dollars each year and trillions over time. But we find time to sign executive actions that determine which public bathroom anyone can use. We have an education department that is insisting on spending billions of dollars on pre-school free school in spite of the abundant evidence showing that by age 7 there is no apparent benefit in learning habits or intellect among children that attended pre-school. Homicide news in urban areas has retreated to the inside pages of newspapers while victims seek help and are told by government we are working on the problem. The government is working on getting rid of guns and victim’s families are working on paying for funerals.
The Federal government runs a railroad called Amtrak that hauls passengers between various points of population concentrations in the US. Although it receives annual subsidies from the federal government (taxpayers), it also loses millions of dollars. The 2017 budget is over $98 billion for the DOT (Department of Transportation). So in addition to the budget to regulate the various functions of the department (airways, maritime, highway, railroad, etc.) the Amtrak operating division also incurs losses. In summary, some farmer in Acorn Acres, Maine is helping to pay for executives to enjoy daily round trip train rides between Los Angeles and San Diego.
The United States is an unmanageable bureaucracy. It is no longer being operated (managed) by the people you and I voted for and elected. The people we elect tell us what we want to hear and hearing it believe their false wisdom and delusional promises. But what we get on the day of inauguration and every day thereafter is rhetoric. The USPS is controlled by unions. The IRS is under union control. Impotent government officials have ceded control of entire agencies and much of government management to third parties. The TSA would need more money to handle a 10-person crowd for a three-pupil spelling bee. The budget increased $53 billion in May; total budget deficit is $479 billion, up 16% over the last year.
Only once in modern history have we heard of an elected politician doing something drastic about government union domination. President Reagan in August of 1981 fired 11,000 FAA employees to accomplish change. Robert McDonald, graduate of West Point and retired head of Proctor & Gamble was appointed Secretary of Veteran’s Administration in 2014. The only thing that has happened since then is we have spent millions of dollars to hire thousands of doctors and dentists. No one has been fired and wait times for veteran patients are longer than before.
Logic would tell us that large accounting firms, financial advisors and others whose paychecks would depend on new and different ways of receiving fees resist a simpler tax code. Postal workers would resist privatizing the USPS and would fight to prevent any change from their abundant retirement benefits.
The facts are that those driving the status quo in government mismanagement and control are the union bosses. Over the past decades these shrewd negotiators have twisted the minds and motivations of every level of politician and government employee to hand unions the keys to the cars and trucks and offices and operating areas of government. We are no longer a democratic republic but rather a public authority delegated to private interests operated by third parties. Public unions are now 35.2% of the workforce while private unions are 6.7%.
Are you afraid of hiring Donald Trump? So am I – but interestingly he may be our best hope of survival.
Dick Baynton