The Back Alley Archives

I am sick and tired of politicians impugning the ethics of private individuals engaged in commerce. There are certainly a small minority of fraudsters in the world of business, but there is a supermajority of unethical people in Congress, arguably approaching 100%.

My latest evidence for such is this article in the Washington Post about the ethical bankruptcy of the Federal budgeting process. It is impossible to excerpt, but here is a representative example:[INDENT]
At the Census Bureau, officials got credit for a whopping $6 billion cut, simply for obeying the calendar. They promised not to hold the expensive 2010 census again in 2011.


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By law, the next census is not until 2020. There was never, ever going to be a census in 2011. But Congress claimed $6 billion in savings for not having one none-the-less. Here is more:[INDENT]
In the real world, in fact, many of their “cuts” cut nothing at all. The Transportation Department got credit for “cutting” a $280 million tunnelthat had been canceled six months earlier. It also “cut” a $375,000 road project that had been created by a legislative typo, on a road that did not exist....

Today, an examination of 12 of the largest cuts shows that, thanks in part to these gimmicks, federal agencies absorbed $23 billion in reductions without losing a single employee.


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You can impugn business ethics all you want, and I can add a few stories to yours, but I have worked at fairly senior positions in two Fortune 50 companies and as a worker bee in a third, and in all three it would be a firing offense to engage in this kind of Charlatanism.

Perhaps you can explain something to me.

As I understand it, congress, led by Obama and the Democrats, voted for a ONE-TIME "stimulus package" in 2009 that eventually cost about $830 billion. Since then, most of that amount (about $700 - $750 billion) has simply been added to the federal budget baseline! This is why Harry Reid has not allowed an actual budget to be passed: using a series of "continuing resolutions", he has put federal spending on autopilot, maintaining the heightened 2009 level. This extra spending is over 20% of the federal budget and explains why the Obama deficits were/are so gigantic.

First of all, do you agree with this characterization of what happened--and if not, what about it is incorrect?

If it is generally correct, how do you account for the deafening silence about this Great Budget Robbery? I can understand why Obama, most Democrats and other big-government types would want to keep quiet about it. But what about the Republicans in congress and the many conservative and libertarian commentators, blogs and other outlets? Why didn't they scream bloody murder (eg "Hey! That was a ONE-TIME, emergency waste-of-money, not something we repeat EVERY YEAR! Remove it from the budget now!")? Why aren't they screaming bloody murder now?

I feel like I've been transported to Bizarro World. Since 2009, the feds steal over $700 billion annually and no one seems to notice. What the hell is going on?