No One Ever Is To Blame

Posted on July 13, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard 1

U.S. Capitol, Senate Office Buildings It must be great to work for the federal government.

The pay is outstanding – the CBO says wages and benefits for almost all federal workers are much higher than for the same jobs in the private sector. Federal employees get extra paid days off, like extra holidays, personal leave time, snow days, sick days, etc. They get full pay for not working whenever the President chooses to shut the government down rather than live within a budget. They can take early retirement from their federal jobs after 20 years if they are 50 years old.

Heck, while private sector managers work 45 – 55 hours per week, the upper-half of the federal food chain works only about half-time. I have offered a standing challenge for many years (and done the exercise myself many times): pick any manager-level federal employee, at random, from the government phone directory and call his or her office after 2:00 pm on Monday through Thursday, or after 12:00 pm on any Friday. You will never, never, never reach that person. Never. Try it!

But the best thing of all about working for the federal government is: nobody ever gets fired. Once you land a federal job, you will get your full paycheck, pay raises, ever-growing benefits, and bonuses for the rest of your life, no matter how poorly you perform. Turnover is virtually non-existent. Even the guy who was written up for farting at employees 61 times in 17 days was not reprimanded.

Jeff Neely, the GSA executive who helped put together the million-dollar conference in Las Vegas for his 300 hard-working office jockeys, is a rare exception – he actually got fired. But he was reinstated eleven months later with full back pay.

My Congressman, Mick Mulvaney (R-SC), at one of his outstanding recent town hall meetings, told us, “The Veteran’s Administration has 330,000 employees and only about 500 have been fired in the last ten years.” Meanwhile executives in the VA received bonuses based on fictitious reports about their pristine performance while soldiers died waiting for health care. Director Eric Shinseki was powerless to fire anybody, and committed political hara-kiri by resigning.

Congressman Mulvaney told another stunning story about a meeting he had with an upper-level HUD executive. He was grilling her about some problem in her agency, and she was having none of it. “Don’t give me a hard time,” she said. “I don’t make that much money and it doesn’t matter whether I do a good job or not.” She had absolutely no fear of discipline from a United States Congressman. Is that job security, or what?

And it’s not just the mid-level federal employees who are totally unaccountable. When pressed for evidence that she knew would implicate her in a world-class corruption scandal, IRS director Lois Lerner made up a story about seven simultaneous hard-drive failures that ate her e-mails. The odds of that happening are one in 79 billion. Nobody has been held accountable.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is made of Teflon, too. She never has recanted the lame excuse that terrorists murdered our Libyan ambassador and his brave defenders because they were upset about a Hollywood video. One of the terrorists admitted planning and executing the Benghazi attack, but knew nothing about any video, and the CIA was listening in on terrorist phone activity during the attack, which never mentioned any video. She still deflects questions about her failure to provide adequate protection after it was requested, saying “what does it matter?” And nobody has even asked yet why the ambassador was in Benghazi in the first place. Not only is she not accountable for the fiasco, Clinton is the current leader in the 2016 presidential race.

President Obama carries a long list of excuses for the many failures of his administration. Most of them blame his predecessor. The latest failure is the border crisis that resulted from his open invitation to illegal immigrant children to enter our country and enjoy the amenities. When he finally did go to Texas to meet with Governor Perry, who is trying to deal with the situation, he spent most of his time shifting the blame.

I seldom agree with John Boehner any more, but I jumped up and cheered when, in utter exasperation with the Obama administration, he cried, “He’s been president for five and a half years. When is he going to take responsibility for SOMETHING!”

But hey, it’s the government. No one ever is to blame.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Doctor says you’re cured but you still feel the pain
Aspirations in the clouds but your hopes go down the drain
No one ever is to blame.

Howard Jones – No One Is to Blame

I want to thank all the many great songwriters and performers who inspire and enrich my blog topics. This is one of the best “fits” – music to message – yet, I think! Here’s a great live performance by Howard Jones, very much enjoyed by his audience.

Hooray! Liberal Democrats Might End Their “War on Children”

Posted on July 7, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard 2

illegal-immigrant-children-packed-like-sardines

Photo courtesy Breitbart News

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson (D-Texas) handed out lollipops to the hordes of illegal immigrant children squished into detention centers in Texas this week. Is this an omen?

Could it be that LIBERAL DEMOCRATS ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT CHILDREN?

5-star liberal Nancy Pelosi (D-California) said, “If you believe as we do that every child, every person has a spark of divinity in them, and is therefore worthy of respect — what we saw in those rooms was [a] dazzling, sparkling, array of God’s children, worthy of respect.”

What’s that, Nancy? Year after year, liberal Democrats have waged a WAR ON CHILDREN.

Millions of babies (babies are children, aren’t they?) died as Nancy and the liberal Democrats promoted abortions and fought tooth-and-nail every attempt to save unborn and about-to-be-born American babies. 1,350,000 per year. One killed every 24 seconds. War on children.

Graduation rates continued to nosedive as schools failed yet another generation of children by wasting their valuable time on social nonsense and political propaganda pumped into the curriculum by liberal Democrats. The world-competitive, productive, job-ready curricula of physics, advanced math, history, and grammar has been crowded out of our childrens’ class schedules by gay rights, global warming, and diversity/victimhood. War on children.

And what could be more damaging to a child than knowing that his mother is not willing to provide him with food? Liberal Democrats believe schools must provide breakfast, lunch, and in some cases weekend and summer meals to children because otherwise they would go hungry in spite of $400+ per month food stamp subsidies. Failure to feed one’s child is egregious, criminal negligence. Liberal Democrats not only tolerate this abuse, they encourage and subsidize it. War on children.

Our children face a bleak future, because our liberal Democrat leadership does not think our economy matters. We could be the energy leaders of the world, with full employment, low costs of production and consumer prices and a growing economy. But the liberal Democrats are willing to forego the prosperity of future generations to preserve their political power. War on children.

But now, NOW! Suddenly liberal Democrats love children. Their immigration / border policies have resulted in a “humanitarian crisis”. Now we must care for the children. My God, man, have you no heart!? They are just children! You can’t turn them (and their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts, drug dealers, gang bangers, terrorists, and lepers) away from our border! They need our government support! They depend on us! And they will VOTE for us!

Isn’t it reassuring that finally, after all these years of WAR ON CHILDREN, the liberal Democrats have had a change of heart?

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Some day, yeah
We’ll get it together and we’ll get it all done
Some day, when your head is much lighter
Some day, yeah
We’ll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun
Some day, when the world is much brighter

Ooh Child (Things Are Gonna Get Easier) – The Five Stairsteps

Thanks to “Soul Train” and Don Cornelius for presenting so many great musical groups! I have not had cable or satellite for a couple of years and I catch Soul Train on the Bounce channel every once in a while . . .

Don’t Back Down, Mississippi

Posted on June 26, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard 1

Mississippi Conservatives, I urge you – DO NOT VOTE FOR THAD COCHRAN in the general election.

At some point we have to take a stand. We have been patient. We have been loyal. We have held our noses and voted for weak, establishment Republicans only in the hope that they might be marginally better than the Democrat opponent.

We have been threatened and bullied and cajoled to “take one for the good of the party.” The establishment Republicans have counted on hard work, funds, and votes from conservatives for a long, long time. They think we will have to vote for them no matter how many times they spit on us.

No more!

Over the last few election cycles the establishment Republicans have withheld funds from conservative candidates – case in point: the GOP failed to support Tea Party favorite Ken Cuccinelli in the Virginia governor’s race, handing a narrow victory to unqualified, ethically-challenged and beatable Democrat Terry McAuliffe. It gets worse.

The insider Republicans have consistently bad-mouthed the Tea Party movement, the last and only hope for honesty in government and economic survival for the nation. They have pulled out all the stops to harm conservatives in every way possible. It still gets worse.

Now the establishment Republicans have signed a pact with the devil. They took out Tea Party candidate Chris McDaniel by playing the race card to entice low-information Democrats to vote for insider Thad Cochran in the Republican primary runoff election for Cochran’s US Senate seat. This is the last straw.

“It’s too early right now to get those raw emotions out of the way,” McDaniel told Hannity. “… They used everything from the race card to food stamps to saying I would shut down public education. … I’ve fought for this (Republican Party) all my life, but they abandoned us, made fun of us and ridiculed us and brought in 35,000 Democrats to beat us.” — the Clarion Ledger, ‘McDaniel Still Pondering Challenge’, 6/25/14

For those who missed it, let me break it down. Republicans leaders reached out to Democrats – to defeat a sharp, young, conservative Republican – to protect a weak, squishy, entrenched old Republican – by claiming the Tea Party candidate is a racist – like all Tea Party supporters – and that he wants to prevent them from voting [somehow].

They (Haley Barbour’s Super PAC) robo-called black Democrats with race-baiting lies.

They printed race-baiting flyers.

Can you vote for a man – and a party – that will resort to these tactics against their own fellow Republicans? If you do, you are perpetuating and encouraging such despicable acts. We should no more vote for a Republican liar and race-baiter than a Democrat liar and race-baiter.

And black voters, why don’t you join us! We in the Tea Party movement know how you feel – the politicians we have supported have disrespected us and only made things worse, not better. We want the same things you do – an economic future for our children, good jobs and a government that is functional and solvent. One that works FOR us, instead of the other way around. Stop falling for all the lies! You are better than that!

Mississippi, please stand your ground. You will be blamed by the establishment for all kinds of terrible things, but don’t back down. We can’t let them get away with this – again! Don’t vote for Cochran.

Tom Balek, Rockin’ On the Right Side

Hey baby! There ain’t no easy way out.
Hey yeah! Stand my ground.
And I won’t back down.

Well I know what’s right, I got just one light.
In a world that keeps on pushin’ me around,
I will stand my ground. And I won’t back down.

I Won’t Back Down – Tom Petty
with Ringo Starr, George Harrison, Jeff Lynn and Mike Campbell

There Must Be One Honest Democrat Out There

Posted on June 23, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard 3

honesty Several years ago, while on a long drive, I tuned in to National Public Radio’s afternoon talk show featuring Diane Rehm. I nearly wrecked my truck as several Democrats fervently defended government officials and scientists who were caught fabricating weather data and computer models to make it appear that man-caused global warming was real. They forthrightly stated that lying was the right thing to do if it achieved the results they sought.

Democrats routinely approve of dishonesty. There is no longer any question that many Democrats will say anything, do anything that will keep them in power. Part of the vaunted Cloward-Piven strategy, and the teachings of Saul Alinsky in “Rules for Radicals“, the playbook used so effectively by the Obama administration, is this tenet: “The end justifies the means”. They believe it. Honesty and playing by the rules does not matter, as long as you win.

Conservatives like me can’t understand it. We value honesty. It is the bedrock on which civilization is built. Relationships, societies, commerce and governments can not function without trust based on honesty.

But liberal Democrats don’t see it that way. It shocked the conservative world when our president looked squarely into a television camera and said, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” and then later admitted that he did. As stunning as his lapse of morality was, what really blew us away was the unanimous dismissal of his dishonesty by Democrats. They justified their support of a proven liar on the grounds that they generally agreed with his politics, and found him to be “cool”. Conservatives asked, “if he would lie to his wife and family, and openly lie to the American public, how dangerous is it to believe anything he says as the leader of the free world?”

When a Republican is caught in an outright lie or an illegal or immoral act, he or she is removed. When a Democrat is caught in an outright lie or an illegal or immoral act, his party and the complicit media circle the wagons and often will tell more lies aimed at baffling the dumbed-down, undiscerning populace – case in point, the Obama Administration’s ham-handed Benghazi Lie.

In an attempt to justify dishonesty, Democrats frequently turn to the only example they can think of by a conservative: the claim that President Bush lied when he said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. They stop short of admitting that he based his concern on intelligence that was acknowledged by every official in the U.S. government, including their own Democrat leaders. And Bush may yet be proven right – just this week our state department reported terrorists gained control of one of Hussein’s poison gas factories.

The level of dishonesty and immorality in American government during the Obama era has reached epic proportions. When Nixon was found to have lied about a rather minor, but nonetheless illegal and immoral campaign activity, and then tried to cover it up by erasing taped evidence, he was unceremoniously thrown out of office by officials and supporters of both parties.

This week we are told that Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS, directly after being questioned about illegal targeting of conservatives during a campaign, had a computer malfunction that caused the loss of smoking-gun e-mail evidence from her and six other officials, and that in spite of legal requirements, department policy, and common practice, no backups exist. Just “Oops, you’ll have to trust us.”

And NOT ONE DEMOCRAT will question her honesty. Not one is bothered by the stench of corruption.

It is hard for me to accept that there aren’t still a few honest Democrats out there. There must be. Believing that every single Democrat accepts dishonesty is like believing that every single voter in 59 Philadelphia precincts pulled the lever for Barack Obama.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Honesty is such a lonely word.
Everyone is so untrue.
Honesty is hardly ever heard.
And mostly what I need from you.

Honesty – Billy Joel

How E-mail Works – THE IRS IS LYING

Posted on June 22, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard 2

photo credit (AP/Carolyn Kaster)

Many of you already know the nuts-and-bolts of how e-mail works so you understand that Lois Lerner, the IRS, and the Obama Administration are caught in yet another bald-faced lie when they say her e-mail files are missing. If you are in this category, you may skip this article and move on to something productive.

I did not intend to write about the IRS scandal because I thought the “big lie” is just so obvious that everybody will see right through it and justice will prevail. But the controversy goes on. The corruptocrats are betting they can get away with their contempt of congress, the law, and the taxpayers because there are still enough people who (a) don’t care and (b) don’t understand. I can’t do much about (a), but I can help with (b).

Let me explain in layman’s terms why it is impossible for Lerner’s IRS e-mails to be lost forever.

Let’s say Yahoo is your mail service provider. When you write an e-mail and press the “send” key, the e-mail file goes through the internet to Yahoo’s mail server (a large computer system specifically designated for handling e-mails). A copy of this file is then routed through other internet computers to the recipient you specified. The file remains on Yahoo’s mail server disk drive, and is also copied to other Yahoo drives for backup protection, permanent storage, and to free up space on the main mail server. Yahoo keeps many copies of every e-mail you send, and they are retained forever.

Conversely, when someone sends an e-mail to your “@yahoo.com” address, Yahoo’s mail server forwards a copy of the e-mail file to your computer, and saves the file on several of its own disk drives.

You might be thinking “Yeah, but what if I delete the e-mail?” Well, it won’t show up in your list of e-mails any more, but trust me – it’s still there on Yahoo’s drives. There is considerable controversy right now over who owns these e-mail files, whether they can be processed and the information from them sold, and whether the government should be allowed access to them. Do not assume that the content of your e-mails will not be seen by other eyes, or that when you delete an e-mail, it is gone forever. The big e-mail providers will never destroy any data that has profit potential, and that includes your e-mails.

The process is the same for government computers. Just change the “@yahoo.com” to “@irs.gov”. The federal government’s mail servers have multiple backup copies of every e-mail received or sent by everybody who works there. And outside mail providers have copies of the same e-mail files that they processed on the way to and from their mail clients.

One IRS spokesman said that e-mails are only stored on the federal government’s mail servers for six months and are then deleted. This contradicts the government’s own policy, which states that the retention requirement for most e-mail records is permanent. Further, it instructs employees:

Once you determine that an e-mail message is an official record, you should ensure that it is kept in an approved file system that satisfies the requirements for recordkeeping set out in points 1 to 5 above. You may, of course, retain your personal copy in your personal e-mail, but you must ensure that the record is placed in an approved file system.

The government contracts with a private data security firm to provide and manage the file backup system. The defense that Lois Lerner lost her e-mail to a “hard drive crash” on her personal computer ten days after her department was implicated in the scandal, is moot. And how can we be expected to believe that e-mails from six other key IRS employees were lost at about the same time? How many times does lightning strike the same spot?

Where is the DOJ? Where is the FBI? Where are the terminations, if not criminal prosecutions? This is an outright, in-your-face assault on the taxpaying citizens of the US. We can’t allow government employees, and the elected officials who direct them, to break the law and cover their tracks without repercussions. When will we say enough is enough?

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Lerner is not the first person to have problems with the mail . . .

Return to sender, address unknown.
No such number, no such zone.
We had a quarrel, a lover’s spat
I write I’m sorry but my letter keeps coming back!

Elvis Presley – Return to Sender

Illegal Immigration – Problem Solved!

Posted on June 16, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard 1

We conservatives are repeatedly blasted in the press for being too rigid in our positions. They say we impede progress because we refuse to negotiate with our political opponents. Today I am going to reach across the aisle. I’m now willing to compromise with the liberal Democrats and the spineless, shivering Republican leadership in Washington, DC. (I’ll probably skip Eric Cantor, no time for lame ducks.)

Today I agree with the liberals: let’s continue Obama’s open-border policy. All the hordes of undocumented Central American and Mexican aliens walking across our southern border? Let ’em in, I say. The 60,000 helpless illegal immigrant kids expected to enter our social welfare system this year? No problem. illegal-immigrant-children

“Well,” you ask, “what are we going to do with all of these uneducated, destitute adults and wave after wave of homeless, hungry children?”

I have the answer! Let’s send them all to Washington!

We recently visited Washington, DC and saw hundreds of very large. solid federal buildings with plenty of space, good heat and air-conditioning, modern bathrooms and food facilities. Surely our liberal friends in Washington would have no problem inviting the people they so cherish to share their space, their food, and their bathrooms.

The Capitol building, for instance, has many large open areas. Since President Obama is pulling our armed forces out of the Middle East anyway, he could move all the unused beds and equipment from the barracks right into the Capitol complex, so the immigrants could share space with the congressmen and senators. Harry Reid would love having the kids running around and playing in the offices and chambers. Heck, Nancy Pelosi would probably volunteer to do some diaper duty in the nursery!

And on our visit we also saw many thousands of federal employees, almost all of whom vote for and support the liberal Democrats. I’ll bet they support open borders and unrestricted immigration, too. They wouldn’t mind giving up their jobs pushing elevator buttons, sweeping the halls, and queuing up lines of tourists to these poor, needy Central Americans, would they? Our federal government workers are so highly skilled and motivated that they could easily get jobs in the private sector.

Federal officials, you can stop busing load after load of illegal kids from Texas to Arizona. Just send them to Washington, DC where they will be wanted and loved.

And what a great example those compassionate DC people will set! Why, I’ll bet the Hollywood liberals will follow suit and open their homes and workplaces up to the incoming hordes of homeless immigrants, too. The new hombres y mujeres would be welcomed to take over all the jobs on the sound stages and studios, and the Democrats who currently work there could go milk cows in Wisconsin or something. I’ll bet some of the immigrants would make great actors and actresses, too. Who needs George Clooney and Tom Hanks? We can all read subtitles.

You know, I think I like this “compromise” stuff. The DC bunch can get what they want: lots and lots of illiterate future Democrats, right there in Washington, DC where they can be cared for and controlled. Meanwhile, out here in the states we can have jobs for our taxpaying citizens and balanced budgets in our governments.

Problem solved! Send all the illegal immigrants to Washington, DC where they can live together with their superheroes.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Tell me why, tell me why, tell me why
Why can’t we live together?
Everybody wants to live together!
Why can’t we live together?

Santana – Why Can’t We Live Together?

Meet Virginia! Eric Cantor Points the Way for Weak Republicans

Posted on June 10, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard 2

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was defeated Tuesday by a little-known economics professor in Virginia’s Republican primary, a stunning upset and major victory for the tea party.

Virginia voters showed their INTELLIGENCE tonight as they rejected incumbent house majority leader Eric Cantor’s re-election bid.

Cantor epitomized the Republican incumbent inside-the-beltway-I-got-mine-now-I-am-going-to-hold-on-to-my-perks fraternity. The Republican leadership (Boehner-Cantor-McConnell) have insisted on capitulating to the alpha-male Democrats on Capitol Hill, in abject defiance of their grass-roots conservative base. They have repeatedly “assumed the position”, thinking it would protect their cocktail-party invitations with the DC elites and the flow of funds to their executive PACs.

Wrong. Fail.

This is nothing less than a stunning repudiation of amnesty – deficit spending – and capitulation to an overreaching imperial Obama administration.

Congrats to the “political novice with little money” Dave Brat.

So do ya still think the Tea Party is DEAD?!! Meet Virginia!

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

She never compromises, loves babies and surprises
Wears high heels when she exercises
Ain’t that beautiful
Meet Virginia

Meet Virginia – Train

Another “BFD” for Obama – How Many More BFDs Can We Take?

Posted on June 3, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

smug_obama I have reported to you Rockers many times that I am on the President’s mailing list. I get an e-mail almost every day, usually just to ask me for five dollars.

Most of the time it provides me amusement. Today, not so much. I got four letters from my friend Barack and his operatives today. Yes, one of them asked me for three dollars. But the other three were back-slapping, high-fiving, chest-bumping celebrations of Obama’s latest and greatest attack on our economy and citizens.

Here is one of them, from Jim Messina, Obama’s data-mining and mass-media guru:

Friend —

This is a BFD:

The New York Times is calling President Obama’s plan “the strongest action ever taken by an American president to tackle climate change” — he’s proposing new EPA standards to limit carbon pollution from existing power plants, the single biggest source of the pollution in the United States that causes climate change.

Listen, it should come as no surprise that polluters and groups that like things the way they are have already started fighting this with everything they’ve got. The best thing we can do is show just how many Americans believe this is the right thing to do.

Add your name right now — stand with President Obama and support aggressive action to fight climate change.

Announcements like this are why we all do this work. It’s proof that grassroots organizing really does pay off. Climate change activists have fought for years for EPA standards on carbon pollution — and this week President Obama is making it a reality.

This fight is about our future, but the effects of climate change are being felt right now — it’s linked to stronger weather, from more frequent and severe droughts to floods, storms, and wildfires.

It’s affecting public health, too. Over the past three decades, the percentage of Americans with asthma has more than doubled, and climate change is putting those Americans at greater risk of landing in the hospital. Over half of all Americans live in an area where air pollution levels are too often unhealthy to breathe.

But while we place limits on dangerous air pollution like mercury, arsenic, and lead, existing power plants have had no national restrictions on the amount of carbon pollution they can emit.

None at all — until now.

The President’s plan promises to cut carbon pollution from power plants for the first time, setting a new standard for action on climate change.

As I write this, powerful interests on the other side are lining up their dirty budgets to try to tear this down. They have plenty of allies in Congress that will try to stop us.

I’m asking everyone who cares about this fight to stand up and say so today — stand with President Obama and new carbon pollution standards.

The media will not let us forget for a moment that this is the first black president. Who cares. I’m more concerned that he is the first president to bypass congress with proclamations that are given the force of law. The first to openly flaunt the constitution and decide which laws will be enforced. The first to deny the sovereignty of states, not to mention citizen’s rights including the rights of private property.

Certainly Obama is the first president to repeatedly look directly into a camera (actually a teleprompter) and lie with impugnity. Calling carbon dioxide “carbon pollution” is so brazen that he must think we are all cretins. Claiming that the carbon dioxide that we exhale, and that makes all plant life possible, is causing droughts AND floods, storms AND wildfires, is an insult to our intelligence. Worse, he seeks to intentionally damage the well-being of all Americans. Why not just break our kneecaps?

Obama’s letter to me today said, “I’m not going to wait to take action on this.” The anointed one will accept no limits to his authority.

I thought Joe Biden’s BFD, ObamaCare, was an epically egregious assault on our economy and families. Now comes BFD number two, using the EPA to ruin entire industries, destroy countless jobs, and raise energy costs to crushing levels.

The next BFD will be complete amnesty and open borders – you can expect an executive order for this purpose the moment Congress leaves for summer recess.

I really wonder if the United States can withstand any more BFDs from the first BFD president.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Big Deal! So what? Who cares?
You just got lucky, that’s all
Oh oh, it’s a real big deal!
Oh, yeah!
Oh oh, it’s a real big deal!
Big deal!

Big Deal – LeAnn Rimes

Country gal Leann Rimes rocks it . . . Big Deal!

The Monster That Will Not Die! Export/Import Bank

Posted on May 30, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

godzilla The Monster That Will Not Die! Created 80 years ago by the hand of a single misguided man, it grew – and grew – and grew. And now it can’t be stopped!

No, it’s not Godzilla. It’s just another federal government program – the Export/Import Bank. FDR created the thing in 1934 by executive order to make loans to Russia and Cuba. In its early years it benefited the country by making loans to foreign governments and companies so they could buy exported US goods.

But like almost all federal programs, even if it is obsolete, corrupt and hemorrhaging money, it seems like it will never die. It will grow its budget every year, employ an army of faceless bureaucrats, and grease its own skids. You see, a government agency or program can only do one thing – spend the taxpayers’ money. Somebody receives or uses that money, and would not enjoy seeing the spigot shut off. So Congress is “encouraged” by these somebodies to keep re-authorizing the program.

The somebodies who benefit from the continued existence of the Export/Import Bank top the charts in corporate profits – Boeing, GE, Caterpillar, John Deere. Do these mega-monster companies really need taxpayer-backed loans to their less-than-creditworthy foreign customers?

The Ex/Im marketing department says that the Bank helps US companies make sales to foreign entities who could not get financing in the private market. (Hmm, I seem to remember something like that a few years ago, when the housing bubble burst, nearly destroying our economy.) The Bank claims they do not compete with private banks, they merely make loans that the privates can’t or won’t. (How convenient that the government can create money out of thin air to loan to foreigners and does not have to worry about interest costs or defaults.)

Supporters of the Ex/Im have claimed that it returns profits to the government every year. But it turns out they have been cooking the books and are not playing by the same rules that private sector banks do. The Export/Import Bank holds about $140 billion in taxpayer-backed liabilities and is losing money. It is reportedly rife with corruption and ineptitude.

The Export/Import Bank no longer serves any public purpose. If your congressman votes to re-authorize this Godzilla in September, you should look at his or her list of campaign contributors. If Boeing, GE, Caterpillar, and John Deere appear on the list, maybe your congressman should not be re-authorized at election time either.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Oh no, they say he’s got to go
Go go Godzilla!
Oh no, there goes Tokyo
Go go Godzilla!
History shows again and again
How nature points out the folly of men
Godzilla!

Go Go Godzilla – Blue Oyster Cult

The Wizard of IM – Immigration, That Is

Posted on May 24, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard 1

wizard-of-Oz Tin Man: “If I only had a heart – I would see poor immigrant families risking their lives to follow the yellow brick road to prosperity in the United States. They borrow money from their families in Mexico and Central America to pay a “coyote” or some other shyster to get them over the border, and If they survive the trip, many end up working for slave wages and living in the shadows. Some fathers leave their wives and children behind, sending their pay back home to feed the family and pay off debt. Those who bring their families with them dodge immigration officials and hostile neighbors who don’t want them in their neighborhoods and schools.”

Scarecrow: “If I only had a brain, I would know that the US economy can’t afford the loss of millions more jobs. The huge influx of low-skilled immigrants only pushes down wage rates, and the cost of social services for them is unsustainable. And our open border allows more than just immigrants to enter the country – do we need more drugs, crime, and terrorism?”

Cowardly Lion: “If I only had the nerve, I would stop worrying about getting elected. I should be doing the right thing for the future of our citizens, their kids, and even our neighbors who want to live the American dream. I would come up with a plan that protects the security and prosperity of legal Americans, creates a sensible way for productive foreigners to share and contribute, and allows families to improve their lives through effort and ingenuity.”

Dorothy: “I think I’m still in Kansas. Why is everybody speaking Spanish?”

Wizard: “Don’t look behind the curtain! Nothing to see here! I uh, I’m the Wizard, and everything will be, umm, all right . . . oh blast it, I don’t know what I’m doing!”

Well, there’s the script. You can choose your own favorite actors to play the parts (I have a favorite for the Wicked Witch, too).

Unfortunately, there is no resolution to the plot. Everybody is looking at the symptoms instead of the cause of the problem.

It’s understandable that people want to move here – we have a rich history of opportunity and economic success due to our free market economy, honest government and commonly-held values. Even though these staples of our American heritage are at risk, enough of our founding fathers’ wisdom still remains to make the United States a leading attraction to the world’s strivers.

There is only one way this story can have a happy ending. We have to deal with the reason why Latin Americans want to leave their homes and move to the United States: their own governments are corrupt and dysfunctional.

What prevents our political leaders from devising a plan to help our North American neighbors improve their own nations? Cost can’t be the problem – we are apparently willing to risk all of our wealth – and that of our children and grandchildren – to allow them to move and stay here. It’s not that the people of other nations don’t want to be like us. If that were true, they wouldn’t be risking all to be here. And it can’t be that we don’t want to exert undue influence on how neighboring countries manage their affairs. We don’t seem to have a problem meddling in other parts of the world.

If we are going to spend a bazillion dollars accommodating people who leave their own countries to come here, why not try spending a half a bazillion to make their home countries livable? We might even find out that our neighbors can help US with some things if we treat them like friends instead of poor cousins. Obviously, some regime changes would be in order in some of these countries. Maybe even in ours.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man
That he didn’t, didn’t already have

Tin Man – America

Here’s a great clip from an amazing but somewhat overlooked duo – America. Enjoy.