Both sides in the battle over the farm bill have tried to dupe Americans. Democrats claimed the legislation would gut the food stamp program. Republicans argued rural farmers would go bankrupt. The truth has been missing in action during the debate that concluded last week with the House rejecting the bill.
The bill's defeat came after defections by both parties. Support from Democrats and Republicans evaporated because there was not enough pork in it to satisfy either side. That's saying something considering the 629-page legislation was stuffed with a myriad of projects to reap political benefit.
The maneuvering over farm legislation began when Democrats insisted on calling the law the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2013. In past years, it was simply referred to as the Farm Bill. The spiffy new moniker was supposed to fool uneducated and uniformed Americans.
Implementation of the legislation would have cost taxpayers nearly $1 trillion over 10 years. The final price tag was $940 billion. Although both sides griped about cuts in food stamps and crop subsidies, actual expenditures would have topped the previous farm bill.
There were sweetheart subsidies and crop insurance for the sugar, dairy, peanut and cotton industries. One subsidy would guarantee farmers of Japonica rice protection against falling market prices. This particular sticky rice is used in making sushi rolls.
Subsidizing farmers seemed like a good idea when it began in the 1930's. But today taxpayer dollars are often wasted on large companies and urbanites turned farmers, such as millionaire performers Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi, both beneficiaries of huge subsidies.
There were scores of research programs included in the bill, investigating everything from biomass feedstock development to speciality crops. Millions of dollars were earmarked for pilot programs to deal with a variety of issues, including feral swine and famine in the Horn of Africa.
Major expenditures for things that had nothing to do with farming or nutrition were crammed into the bill. For instance, millions of dollars were designated for distance learning, rural energy savings programs, broadband access and business loan support.
It is laughable to call this a "farm" bill when very little in the legislation involved actual production of crops.
The 800-pound gorilla in the legislation was food stamps, which accounts for 80 percent of the bill's expenditures. Democrats whined about taking food out of the mouths of babes. Yet the legislation would have maintained the historically high levels of spending on the program.
In President Bush's last budget, the federal government spent $39 billion on food stamps. Costs have more than doubled under Obama. Last year, the food stamp program gobbled up $85 billion in taxpayer dollars with no end in sight.
Today nearly 48 million people in the nation receive food stamps, known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). That is almost one out of every six Americans. The Obama Administration has orchestrated historic growth by relaxing standards and recruiting beneficiaries.
The result has been record waste and fraud. Hard working Americans are picking up the annual $2.2 billion tab.
The farm bill deserved to be rejected. However, in all likelihood Democrats and Republicans will craft a back room deal to resurrect the legislation. That is the kind of bipartisanship that will bankrupt the nation unless it is stopped.
Monday, June 24, 2013
Monday, June 17, 2013
Unintelligent Intelligence Bureaucracy
Public disclosure of the National Security Agency's sweeping surveillance of telephone records has sparked a national debate over the right of privacy versus the need for security. While an important issue, it ignores the larger question of cataclysmic U.S. intelligence failures despite vast troves of data.
Lost in the firestorm over government snooping has been the continuing intelligence breakdowns since the nation's worst catastrophe on September 11, 2001. Recent reminders of bungling by intelligence agencies are almost too numerous to list.
For starters, military intelligence failed to make the connection between the alleged Fort Hood shooter and known terrorists. Foreign intelligence analysts were caught off guard by the revolts in Egypt and Tunisia. Despite warnings from the Russians, the intelligence community failed to act against two men accused of the Boston Marathon bombings.
Don't blame these fiascoes on the men and women who gather intelligence. In every instance, including the infamous attack of September 11, the country's intelligence community had picked up signals and information that were either ignored, discounted or lost in the unwieldily bureaucracy.
The nation should be focused on a broader debate about systemic problems that dog the more than 1,271 government agencies that work on counterterrorism intelligence. An alphabet soup of organizations are involved, including the FBI, NSA, CIA and DOD.
The problem is the gigantic government bureaucracy that has been constructed to oversee the nation's intelligence programs. For example, the Department of Homeland Security, created after 9/11, added another layer to an estimated 854,000 government and private sector employees engaged in intelligence work.
Like all government bureaucracies, the result has been delay and distortion of information as it is filtered through the sprawling intelligence apparatus. There is redundancy, waste and duplication on a massive scale that costs taxpayers an estimated $75 billion annually, more than double intelligence spending pre-9/11,
The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 was supposed to fix the colossal bureaucracy. The law was designed to enhance information sharing, promote cooperation between agency directors and improve the nation's ability to thwart acts of terror on U.S. soil.
However, adding a bunch of boxes on organizational charts only exacerbated the complexity. U.S. intelligence remains discombobulated by overlapping responsibilities, bureaucratic rivalry, high turnover and muddled understanding of how each agency fits into the overall mission.
Ushering in a new intelligence director won't solve the problem. Changing the cultures of huge organizations requires more than a new face at the top. The problems are embedded in the vast agencies staffed by longtime government employees whose allegiance is first to their boss.
Americans like to think of their national intelligence agencies in almost mythic terms, thanks to television and movies that celebrate their victories. A more valid comparison might be the U.S. Post Office, a bureaucratic nightmare that strangles innovation.
The crux of the problem is not too little information and data. As recent revelations have documented, the United States mines massive amounts of data from a plethora of sources. But what good is all that information if it never reaches the right person at the right time?
Mountains of data won't keep the next terrorist attack from happening. America must untangle the organizational octopus clutching its throat and streamline intelligence gathering to facilitate quick decision making and faster response to threats.
Lost in the firestorm over government snooping has been the continuing intelligence breakdowns since the nation's worst catastrophe on September 11, 2001. Recent reminders of bungling by intelligence agencies are almost too numerous to list.
For starters, military intelligence failed to make the connection between the alleged Fort Hood shooter and known terrorists. Foreign intelligence analysts were caught off guard by the revolts in Egypt and Tunisia. Despite warnings from the Russians, the intelligence community failed to act against two men accused of the Boston Marathon bombings.
Don't blame these fiascoes on the men and women who gather intelligence. In every instance, including the infamous attack of September 11, the country's intelligence community had picked up signals and information that were either ignored, discounted or lost in the unwieldily bureaucracy.
The nation should be focused on a broader debate about systemic problems that dog the more than 1,271 government agencies that work on counterterrorism intelligence. An alphabet soup of organizations are involved, including the FBI, NSA, CIA and DOD.
The problem is the gigantic government bureaucracy that has been constructed to oversee the nation's intelligence programs. For example, the Department of Homeland Security, created after 9/11, added another layer to an estimated 854,000 government and private sector employees engaged in intelligence work.
Like all government bureaucracies, the result has been delay and distortion of information as it is filtered through the sprawling intelligence apparatus. There is redundancy, waste and duplication on a massive scale that costs taxpayers an estimated $75 billion annually, more than double intelligence spending pre-9/11,
The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 was supposed to fix the colossal bureaucracy. The law was designed to enhance information sharing, promote cooperation between agency directors and improve the nation's ability to thwart acts of terror on U.S. soil.
However, adding a bunch of boxes on organizational charts only exacerbated the complexity. U.S. intelligence remains discombobulated by overlapping responsibilities, bureaucratic rivalry, high turnover and muddled understanding of how each agency fits into the overall mission.
Ushering in a new intelligence director won't solve the problem. Changing the cultures of huge organizations requires more than a new face at the top. The problems are embedded in the vast agencies staffed by longtime government employees whose allegiance is first to their boss.
Americans like to think of their national intelligence agencies in almost mythic terms, thanks to television and movies that celebrate their victories. A more valid comparison might be the U.S. Post Office, a bureaucratic nightmare that strangles innovation.
The crux of the problem is not too little information and data. As recent revelations have documented, the United States mines massive amounts of data from a plethora of sources. But what good is all that information if it never reaches the right person at the right time?
Mountains of data won't keep the next terrorist attack from happening. America must untangle the organizational octopus clutching its throat and streamline intelligence gathering to facilitate quick decision making and faster response to threats.
Monday, June 10, 2013
The IRS: The Worst Is Yet To Come
Americans worried by recent revelations of Internal Revenue Service abuses have even more to fear when the federal government launches Obama Care on October 1. The potent agency will assume the role of chief enforcer for the president's health care mandate.
Surly IRS agents will have blanket power to snoop into Americans' medical records, impose hefty fines and penalties, award tax credits, collect taxes and distribute millions of dollars to people who require subsidies to pay for health coverage.
When Democrats designed and passed into law Obama Care, they handed over extraordinary control to the embattled IRS to strong arm citizens into acquiring health care coverage under the threat of monetary penalties.
In light of IRS scandals making daily headlines, Americans need to worry about the unprecedented opportunities for the arbitrary abuse of power. Texas Senator John Cornyn isn't waiting for the inevitable corruption likely to accompany enactment of the law.
The senator has introduced a bill, entitled "Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act of 2013," which would prevent the Secretary of Treasury or any agent, including the IRS, from enforcing Obama Care. The legislation deserves bi-partisan support and passage before the October 1 deadline.
Meanwhile, the IRS is building an evil empire. The agency has been hiring staff faster than Congress can keep track of the bodies. The IRS already has 700 employees working full time on Obama Care. Even that cadre of agents is not enough. The agency wants another 1,954 employees.
At the end of 2012, the agency had one of the largest payrolls in the federal government with 97,717 employees.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates the IRS will spend $881 million of taxpayer's money to implement the law. However, former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman begged Congress last year for another $13.1 billion for next year. No decision has been made on the additional funding.
Spending might be the least concern for Americans.
Leading the IRS enforcement effort will be Sarah Hall Ingram. If her name sounds familiar, it should. Ms. Ingram once served as commissioner of the IRS organization charged with overseeing tax exempt organizations. During her tenure, conservative groups were targeted for harassment.
Imagine Ms. Ingram at the head of a policing organization with the power to selectively levy penalties against groups and individuals. That should have a chilling effect on every American, Republican or Democrat.
It should be clear the IRS cannot be trusted to have any role in Obama Care. The agency should be stripped of its broad current powers, instead of being given new authority to extend its reach into medical care for Americans.
Democrats are sure to balk at any move to eviscerate the agency. But Americans have the right and the duty to send elected officials a strong message that they will not tolerate the IRS' heavy handed role in their lives any longer.
Surly IRS agents will have blanket power to snoop into Americans' medical records, impose hefty fines and penalties, award tax credits, collect taxes and distribute millions of dollars to people who require subsidies to pay for health coverage.
When Democrats designed and passed into law Obama Care, they handed over extraordinary control to the embattled IRS to strong arm citizens into acquiring health care coverage under the threat of monetary penalties.
In light of IRS scandals making daily headlines, Americans need to worry about the unprecedented opportunities for the arbitrary abuse of power. Texas Senator John Cornyn isn't waiting for the inevitable corruption likely to accompany enactment of the law.
The senator has introduced a bill, entitled "Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act of 2013," which would prevent the Secretary of Treasury or any agent, including the IRS, from enforcing Obama Care. The legislation deserves bi-partisan support and passage before the October 1 deadline.
Meanwhile, the IRS is building an evil empire. The agency has been hiring staff faster than Congress can keep track of the bodies. The IRS already has 700 employees working full time on Obama Care. Even that cadre of agents is not enough. The agency wants another 1,954 employees.
At the end of 2012, the agency had one of the largest payrolls in the federal government with 97,717 employees.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates the IRS will spend $881 million of taxpayer's money to implement the law. However, former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman begged Congress last year for another $13.1 billion for next year. No decision has been made on the additional funding.
Spending might be the least concern for Americans.
Leading the IRS enforcement effort will be Sarah Hall Ingram. If her name sounds familiar, it should. Ms. Ingram once served as commissioner of the IRS organization charged with overseeing tax exempt organizations. During her tenure, conservative groups were targeted for harassment.
Imagine Ms. Ingram at the head of a policing organization with the power to selectively levy penalties against groups and individuals. That should have a chilling effect on every American, Republican or Democrat.
It should be clear the IRS cannot be trusted to have any role in Obama Care. The agency should be stripped of its broad current powers, instead of being given new authority to extend its reach into medical care for Americans.
Democrats are sure to balk at any move to eviscerate the agency. But Americans have the right and the duty to send elected officials a strong message that they will not tolerate the IRS' heavy handed role in their lives any longer.
Monday, June 3, 2013
Holder: The Albatross Around Obama's Neck
Eric Holder is the 82nd person to hold the job of U.S. Attorney General. He is turning out to be the worst. The attorney general has only one equal: John Mitchell, who was found guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury in 1975. He served 19 months in prison for his crimes.
Holder hangs by a thread to his job despite revelations that the attorney general sought to criminalize the news media's pursuit of information leaked by government sources. The widening scandal threatens to engulf his boss, President Obama, whose ratings have nosedived.
In the latest survey conducted by Quinnipiac University, fewer than half (49%) of Americans believe Obama is "honest and trustworthy." That figure was 58 percent in the last poll on the same question in 2011.
For now, Obama stubbornly supports Holder in the face of growing news media outrage over the attorney general's heavy handedness in spying on journalists. As a result, Obama's bromance with the media has been strained after a four-year honeymoon marked by the absence of journalistic scrutiny.
In an attempt to restore media trust, Holder offered to meet with reporters about the controversy but declared the session "off the record." The New York Times, a staunch Obama advocate, demurred. The Associated Press, an Obama shill, declined to participate. Fox News and others followed suit.
This nose thumbing of an Obama confidant would have been unthinkable a year ago. But even the liberal media organizations are feeling jilted after Holder's witch hunt to suppress news coverage and intimidate journalistic enterprise.
Under Holder, the Justice Department has prosecuted six former or current government officials for leaks. That is twice as many as all previous administrations combined. Holder's unbridled attempt to stalk journalists recalls the Nixon Administration's notorious hunt for those who leaked the Pentagon Papers.
Like Nixon's former AG Mitchell, Holder also struggles with the truth. He is the master of parsing his words to obfuscate. In a recent appearance before a House committee, Holder claimed to be unaware of any "potential prosecution" of the press.
Later, it was learned that Holder personally signed an affidavit accusing Fox News reporter James Rosen of the criminal charge of being a "co-conspirator" in the leaking of sensitive material involving North Korea. The House Judiciary chairman pointed out the "contradiction" in a letter to Holder.
Contradiction is just Washington-speak for perjury. Holder lied. The Justice Department is now arguing that Holder was not referring specifically to the Rosen case. It is a pathetic attempt to defend the indefensible. Even for this administration Holder has stooped to new lows in opacity.
His leader President Obama decided the best way to get to the bottom of this rancid scandal is to ask Eric Holder to investigate Eric Holder. This is classic Obama. The appearance of openness passes for the real transparency Obama promised. His duplicity is beginning to rile Americans.
The president's job approval rating numbers are underwater. The Quinnipiac poll found more people have a negative view of Obama's performance than positive. Just one month ago his approval-to-disapproval percentage was 48-45. Now 49 percent of voters have a negative view of Obama.
The narcissistic Obama can take solace in the fact that Holder's numbers are even stinkier. Only 29 percent of Americans approve of the way the attorney general is handling his job. A New York Times columnist rated Holder a "weak" attorney general.
With calls for Holder's resignation echoing even among Democrats, Obama is faced with a term-defining choice. Should he force Holder to resign or continue to allow his friendship with the attorney general to cloud his judgment?
If Holder clings to his job, the president risks further alienating news organizations and journalists. That could result in more damaging media coverage. However, a worse scenario for Obama would be watching Holder end up like John Mitchell, disgraced and imprisoned.
If that happens, Americans may be treated to the spectacle of an embarrassed president shuffling into the White House press room and declaring, "I am not a crook!"
Holder hangs by a thread to his job despite revelations that the attorney general sought to criminalize the news media's pursuit of information leaked by government sources. The widening scandal threatens to engulf his boss, President Obama, whose ratings have nosedived.
In the latest survey conducted by Quinnipiac University, fewer than half (49%) of Americans believe Obama is "honest and trustworthy." That figure was 58 percent in the last poll on the same question in 2011.
For now, Obama stubbornly supports Holder in the face of growing news media outrage over the attorney general's heavy handedness in spying on journalists. As a result, Obama's bromance with the media has been strained after a four-year honeymoon marked by the absence of journalistic scrutiny.
In an attempt to restore media trust, Holder offered to meet with reporters about the controversy but declared the session "off the record." The New York Times, a staunch Obama advocate, demurred. The Associated Press, an Obama shill, declined to participate. Fox News and others followed suit.
This nose thumbing of an Obama confidant would have been unthinkable a year ago. But even the liberal media organizations are feeling jilted after Holder's witch hunt to suppress news coverage and intimidate journalistic enterprise.
Under Holder, the Justice Department has prosecuted six former or current government officials for leaks. That is twice as many as all previous administrations combined. Holder's unbridled attempt to stalk journalists recalls the Nixon Administration's notorious hunt for those who leaked the Pentagon Papers.
Like Nixon's former AG Mitchell, Holder also struggles with the truth. He is the master of parsing his words to obfuscate. In a recent appearance before a House committee, Holder claimed to be unaware of any "potential prosecution" of the press.
Later, it was learned that Holder personally signed an affidavit accusing Fox News reporter James Rosen of the criminal charge of being a "co-conspirator" in the leaking of sensitive material involving North Korea. The House Judiciary chairman pointed out the "contradiction" in a letter to Holder.
Contradiction is just Washington-speak for perjury. Holder lied. The Justice Department is now arguing that Holder was not referring specifically to the Rosen case. It is a pathetic attempt to defend the indefensible. Even for this administration Holder has stooped to new lows in opacity.
His leader President Obama decided the best way to get to the bottom of this rancid scandal is to ask Eric Holder to investigate Eric Holder. This is classic Obama. The appearance of openness passes for the real transparency Obama promised. His duplicity is beginning to rile Americans.
The president's job approval rating numbers are underwater. The Quinnipiac poll found more people have a negative view of Obama's performance than positive. Just one month ago his approval-to-disapproval percentage was 48-45. Now 49 percent of voters have a negative view of Obama.
The narcissistic Obama can take solace in the fact that Holder's numbers are even stinkier. Only 29 percent of Americans approve of the way the attorney general is handling his job. A New York Times columnist rated Holder a "weak" attorney general.
With calls for Holder's resignation echoing even among Democrats, Obama is faced with a term-defining choice. Should he force Holder to resign or continue to allow his friendship with the attorney general to cloud his judgment?
If Holder clings to his job, the president risks further alienating news organizations and journalists. That could result in more damaging media coverage. However, a worse scenario for Obama would be watching Holder end up like John Mitchell, disgraced and imprisoned.
If that happens, Americans may be treated to the spectacle of an embarrassed president shuffling into the White House press room and declaring, "I am not a crook!"
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