I spoke about this a bit the other day, but now that the dust has settled more details are necessary in regard to the Detroit bankruptcy. Darryl Parks during his Saturday program on 700 WLW did a wonderful couple of segments about the Detroit situation which deserves to be highlighted, and can be heard below. Darryl as he usually does comes to these types of topics armed with many facts and in this case many I did not know about the Motor City. I have family who lived in Michigan and worked in the auto industries who were big union supporters. Every year my family visited them at least once, so I learned a lot about Michigan during these childhood adventures, especially during the 70s and 80s when I was growing up. I watched firsthand the decline that Darryl Parks articulated during his program. I watched Detroit go from the richest city in the United States in 1965 to currently the poorest. I knew that Detroit was at one time a source of entertainment as The Lone Ranger radio program was launched from Detroit and the city still owns the rights to the Howdy Doody puppet. Detroit at one point in its very recent history was a center for art, entertainment, and manufacturing—which drove the entire economy. But what destroyed Detroit is a reoccurring theme everywhere in modern America, the notion of collectivism framed within the labor union movement which is failing on a massive scale. Click Darryl’s broadcast below to begin to understand how many labor unions are listed as creditors in the Detroit bankruptcy and it will quickly become clear how destructive unions have been on the American economy, the role they’ve played in wage inflation, and the way they’ve prevented the proper management of Detroit’s resources.
When Michael Moore made his first big film Roger and Me, I enjoyed it as I shared with Moore a love of the Midwest. His film was about the decline of the auto industry in Flint, Michigan and the loss of entire neighborhoods becoming a gigantic ghost town. But Moore lost me all those years ago in 1989 when he assumed that General Motors CEO Roger Smith had a duty to the people of Flint to give back to the community his large wages so that fewer jobs would be lost. Moore’s position in the film was typical of most union households in Central and Lower Michigan from the 70’s to the 90’s that was raised on soft communism disguised as American patriotism. Moore’s beliefs were harder than socialism, and shy of Russian, or Chinese communism but were certainly anti-capitalism in their nature. Moore failed to understand that it was capitalism that brought jobs to his town of Flint which is just north of Detroit. It was communism that had infiltrated the labor unions and made Moore believe that Roger Smith owed Flint, Michigan anything.
The film launched Moore into the national spotlight as a left leaning media was hungry to team up with someone who could capture their instructed beliefs into a film format. But the parasitic nature of the type of contracts the unions negotiated for themselves continued. Jobs left the Detroit area for destinations that were not friendly to labor unions, like China, and Mexico, countries already utilizing a social philosophy of socialism and communism. I liked my family members, but found myself in contention with the adults who had cars in the driveway with bumper stickers stating, “Buy American” which was a typical union slogan at the time even though the Japanese were making better cars cheaper. Their assertion was the same as Michael Moore’s, and that was people had an obligation to buy an American car built with union labor because of some misguided patriotic duty. All those elements never added up to my mind, even at the ages of 8 through 15 when my years in Lower Michigan were most active. No matter how much the adults from that side of the family yelled their philosophy never made sense to me.
When I was 18 years old I worked in a metal stamping plant while I was majoring in economics in college. The economic professors didn’t seem to understand the real world of manufacturing the way I did because I worked in a real metal stamping plant known as the meat grinder at the time. I saw many very serious injuries and I learned quickly that the parts we made at this facility required salesmen to sell them to a distributer somewhere in the world and that purchasing had to find the metal coils somewhere so we’d have materials enough to manufacture the goods. I worked with some tough, rough neck people and fights on the shop floor were common. When I first started at this place a man older than me by about 10 years picked a fight in the break room. I launched a full can of Coke at his head and luckily missed his forehead by only a few inches. The can exploded against the wall and after the man saw how serious I was about winning the fight decided to befriend me, and we remained friends for all the years I worked there. There were many other fights that involved serious cuts, broken bones, knocked out teeth and eyeballs that were actually removed from their sockets. The foremen would look the other way, especially in my case because I without question out produced everyone in the building. My manufacturing rates were very high. I didn’t work so hard because of fear for my job, or to earn praise from the foremen, but because I enjoyed it. I liked working fast—I enjoyed pushing myself with sweat pouring off my body. The fights came from the workers who were trying to unionize this facility and wanted to bring me in line with everyone else.
The college professors had no advice for my young mind as they leaned toward labor’s position in the matter when I asked about it. Their arguments I know now were Keynesian in their nature and rooted in European socialism, but at the time, I assumed they knew what they were talking about. Because of the economic professor at the college I was attending I tried to understand the union mentality so I listened to the advocates instead of fighting them. This led them to ask me to present a list of union demands to the company president. Even though everyone in the company was much older than I was, they wanted an 18-year-old kid to approach management and negotiate on their behalf. So I did.
I sat across from the President and gave him the grievances from the workers but as I sat there I saw the man who ran the company with his hands that were too smooth from lack of work, a belly that was too fat from eating in too many nice restaurants and was having an affair with his secretary who was half his age. But I also saw a guy who was taking all the risks in the company. If sales were down, it was his fault. If supply could not be meant, it was his fault. If he didn’t grease enough wheels at OSHA politically, then it was his fault. In essence I felt the grievances from the workers were stupid, short-sighted and childish. At the end of the day the “workers” were able to go home and forget about the work they did while the president was always tuned in to what was happening, even when he was on the golf course—because he was the risk taker. For the employees to declare that their labor was worth the same as those who took the risks it was preposterous.
I gave the demands back to the union organizers and told them I would not represent them. They attempted to reorganize without my help and fell flat on their face. Whenever they tried to cut back on their labor hours to force reductions in manufacturing rates the foreman would give me extra overtime to cover their slack. When they tried to paint me as a “scab,” we went out in the parking lot and solved the problem, and a lot of people got hurt. But I never yielded my beliefs on the matter and everyone ended up shaking hands in the end, even over broken bones and busted lips. It was these types of people who made America a manufacturing powerhouse—but only as individuals. The collectivism of labor unions destroyed this trait, which makes America less competitive globally, which is why the labor movement was introduced to America by European insurgents wanting to level the playing field for all economically. And this is what happened in Detroit. The unions got what they wanted and nobody fought them on it. When the companies gave a little, the unions asked for more. The companies became frustrated and just packed up and voted with their feet and behind them all the competent workers left to follow the jobs and Detroit went from being the wealthiest city in America to the poorest in just a few decades of bad policy and bad social philosophy.
To this very day I despise labor unions because they fight against individual responsibility and merit. They are simply gangs of thugs who attempt to extort away from the companies they work for values they have not earned. Collective bargaining is the absolute dumbest idea in economic theory. All people are not of equal value, some workers are faster, stronger, smarter, more efficient, more technically savvy—and they are not all deserving of equal pay. To force companies or governments to pay wages on collective bargaining takes away the incentive of the very good to perform well, because slugs, malcontents, and the ungifted receive the same wages for doing much, much less. This is what killed manufacturing in Southern Michigan and more specifically destroyed Detroit.
The disease of economics that destroyed Detroit is the same idiocy that is at work in our public schools, the IRS scandal, and virtually every branch of government as it is only in the public sector that unions have managed to survive as they have embedded themselves on financial supply that cannot pack up and move out of the country to flee the parasites of economics. This put the burden on tax payers to cover the labor costs and in Detroit’s case, smart people moved leaving behind a city of dependents that did not pay taxes. In just the last five years Detroit went from having a balanced budget to being billions of dollars in the hole—because they do not have a tax base to support their unionized legacy costs. They ran tax payers out-of-town with tax rates that were too high and attempting to sell the concept with “shared sacrifice” which is to say, “wealth redistribution” stolen from the earned and given to the unearned.
Detroit is the first major city in modern America to see such an impact of their mismanagement, but many cities are short in toe. Michael Moore in his film Roger and Me stumbled around revealing his utterly failed philosophy about the way life works as his arguments are only based on observations and not the cause. Further, Matt Damon’s new film Elysium set in the year 2154, where the very wealthy live on a man-made space station while the rest of the population resides on a ruined earth, never really covers what ruined earth. Damon like Moore has been given the progressive task to communicate the union message to mainstream America which continually falls short on logical thinkers who know better. In Damon’s film he takes on a mission that could bring equality to the two polarized worlds. The nature of the story might as well be the same as Detroit versus the suburbs where smart people of value flee the type of people who make themselves social parasites and consume much more than they contribute productively. Progressives somehow think the math will just work out in the end, but it never does. Even as a child I saw what was happening to Detroit and I wanted no part of it in my life—and I have lived by those terms. But not everyone is as combative as I am on issues they believe in, and most will think what I do, but they will not fight. They will simply pack up and move to someplace else that offers less imposition on their lifestyles, which is the root cause for why Detroit has failed as a city. Detroit imposed themselves on the productive, forcing them out-of-town leaving behind only the destitute like Michael Moore to look about their neighborhoods and wonder what happened. The only word their failed philosophies have for the tragedy is “greed” but it is much more complicated than that. The real villain is “financial incentive” and in the case of Detroit, the lack thereof.
There is a lot that is very wrong about the recent revelation that Lakota West High School math teacher George C. Merk paid $66,173 by the tax payers was placed on a 45 day license suspension beginning over the summer months. The teacher admitted to inappropriate communication with students of a sexual nature which was revealed during a conference with district staff Jan. 11, 2012, concluding with a consent agreement dated June 26, 2013. That is a long-span of time to resolve one human resources issue. Merk’s five-year teaching license was suspended from June 12 through July 26 but he is clear for 2013-14 school year. This case does not surprise me as I have verbal confirmation of many such stories, and usually the press does not investigate them. However, in this case, Michael Clark broke the story in the Cincinnati Enquirer which did surprised me as it required a public records request to get to the facts. As the story broke, both the Enquirer and the Journal had well-written stories which explained the facts in great detail by Hannah Poturalski and Michael Clark that was a great service to the community, and can be seen in their entirety below for the convenience of the curious investigator complete with original links to the stories as they appeared in online form.
Michael D. Clark reports: in The Cincinnati Enquirer
A Lakota West High School math teacher’s license has been suspended for “inappropriate” communications with students, including exchanging recollections of sexual experiences and orientation.
But the teacher, George C. Merk, will return to the classroom at the start of the school year next month.
Merk, 41, was previously suspended without pay in March 2012 for 10 days for what Lakota Schools Superintendent Karen Mantia described as “unacceptable, insubordinate, deceitful and unprofessional” behavior.
According to a Feb. 15, 2012, reprimand issued by Lakota officials, Merk “admitted” to communicating with students via text messages, and other means, of disallowed subjects, including:
“(Students’) sexual orientation and their sexual experiences.”
“Your sexual orientation and your first sexual experience.”
“You denied receiving a picture of a condom box through text message from a student.”
Mantia wrote: “This behavior is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
A report on Merk’s behavior and suspension was then submitted to the Ohio Department of Education’s Office of Professional Conduct for further investigation. That investigation ended last month under a consent agreement between Merk and the ODE.
The agreement, obtained by The Enquirer through a public records request, revealed that Merk agreed to have his teaching license suspended during the summer break for 45 days, ending July 26. Moreover, he has to complete 24 hours of training “on appropriate teacher-student boundaries” by Sept. 1 and he will no longer “communicate with current students using social media or by other electronic communications.”
Merk’s actions were not considered criminal and did not initiate an investigation by West Chester Township Police, police said.
Merk, who previously taught at Wilmington Schools, declined to comment.
His attorney, Julie Ford of Dayton, said, “(Merk) signed the consent agreement not because he believes he was guilty of any wrongdoing but to put this matter behind him and avoid any delays in the renewals of his current teaching licenses.”
“Both the Lakota school district and Ohio Department of Education are satisfied with this resolution, and Mr. Merk looks forward to resuming his teaching work in the fall,” Ford said.
Diane Brunsman, Lakota’s executive director for human resources, said “the findings of the Ohio Department of Education investigation are not grounds for termination.”
Both Brunsman and Mantia declined to comment further.
Merk was hired by Lakota in 2002 and his current salary is $66,173.
A review of Merk’s personnel file since 2002 showed no indications of previous transgressions and overall he has received high performance reviews by Lakota officials.
Under the state agreement, Lakota is also required to submit “detailed reports” every three months for the next two years to the ODE on Merk’s conduct.
A Lakota West High School teacher whose teaching license was suspended for actions with students described as insubordinate and deceitful by the district will be returning to the classroom this August.
George C. Merk, 41, of Loveland, was placed on a 10-day unpaid suspension in March 2012 following an internal investigation by school officials. He has since been approved for teaching math in the 2013-14 school year at a salary of $66,173.
During a conference with district staff on Jan. 11, 2012, Merk reportedly admitted to:
having text message communication with students regarding sexual orientation, first sexual experiences and other personal issues
failing to report a student was bullied
providing a student with his cell phone number through a Facebook message
posting Facebook statuses about students’ academic levels and disparaging Lakota West High School administration
receiving a text message from a student offering to buy him an iPad
denying having received a picture of a condom box in a text message from a student.
“This behavior is unacceptable and will not be tolerated by Lakota Local School District employees,” wrote Superintendent Karen Mantia in a formal reprimand from Feb. 15, 2012. “Mr. Merk, your actions described above were insubordinate, deceitful, unacceptable and unprofessional.”
The district then submitted a report to the Ohio Department of Education’s Office of Professional Conduct. As part of the investigation, Merk entered into a consent agreement — dated June 26, 2013 — with ODE that outlines several stipulations.
The terms of the agreement include:
Merk’s five-year teaching license being suspended for 45 days, from June 12 through July 26
detailed reports on Merk’s conduct will be submitted to ODE every three months for two years
completing 24 hours of training on appropriate teacher-student boundaries
not communicating with current students using Facebook, text messages and other electronic means.
Merk’s attorney, Julie C. Ford, of the Dayton firm Doll, Jansen, Ford & Rakay, said her client fully cooperated with the investigation by ODE.
“Mr. Merk was not accused of having a sexual or otherwise inappropriate relationship with any students; at most, the school district concluded he had discussed topics that might have been considered inappropriate,” Ford said.
The investigation ended last December, but a proposed penalty wasn’t reached until the end of the 2012-13 academic year, she said.
Ford said her client didn’t attempt to negotiate a lesser penalty or go through a full hearing process before his current teaching and principal’s licenses were to expire at the end of June.
“He therefore signed the consent agreement not because he was guilty of any wrongdoing but only to put this matter behind him and to avoid any delays in the renewals of his licenses,” Ford said. “Mr. Merk continues to be a model teacher and employee at Lakota. Mr. Merk looks forward to resuming his teaching work in the fall.”
Merk joined the Lakota teaching staff in 2002, after six years teaching at Wilmington City Schools. Merk’s personnel file at Lakota doesn’t include any other disciplinary or performance issues.
“Mr. Merk is an outstanding teacher who takes great pride in his profession,” reads an evaluation dated May 16, 2013. “He goes above and beyond the district’s expectations, and his students are successful as the result of his efforts in the classroom.”
Now that this story is out, I will have a lot more to say about it in subsequent articles. But the gist of the situation is this– George C. Merk is not worth $66,173 as a public employee and I resent having to pay such people so much money with my taxes. People like him are low quality personalities who are instructing kids to be low-quality adults. The very nature of Merk even desiring to inquire about the sexual nature of his students as a 41-year-old man is disgusting. In a sexual context people are often attracted to others who share their intellectual values even though much is focused on physical attributes. Merk’s tendency to desire juicy gossip about the sexual nature of his students indicate that Merk intellectually is equal to his students, which disqualifies him as any kind of intellectual leader by my measure and he should be terminated from the Lakota school district. Teachers should not have access to students outside of a classroom whether it is Facebook, Twitter, or any other social network tool, because as instructors, teachers should be operating at a superior intellectual position.
However, as critical as I often am of the Lakota school board, and Superintendent Mantia, they have no real control over any disciplinary action against Merk because the Lakota math teacher is protected by his labor union—which is why his punishment was just silly words issued by Mantia and his suspension was carried out when the school was already shut down for the summer. The teachers and their labor union run the asylum where the Zombies of Lakota know that bad behavior cannot be punished, yet the tax payers are “forced” to support such behavior through force with their property values just because the school exists near their homes.
The punishment to Merk for his disgraceful actions is essentially nothing but a little embarrassment. He has still been paid a salary that is 20 to 30% more than the average Lakota resident for a job that is only active for 7.5 to 9 hour per day, five days a week, nine months out of the year. Merk does not appreciate his job otherwise he would not have engaged in the behavior outlined above displaying a low intellectual understanding of sexual context that is closer to high school kids with thriving pituitary glands not yet acclimated to adult life. George Merk, and people like him should not be in a class room because they lack the intellectual high ground with their students, and have lost their ability to teach. A teacher is not an equal to the student; they should be the type of people students aspire to become. When a teacher demonstrates that they are no better than the rest of the puberty bound young people, then moral authority is lost, and instruction is nearly impossible. Worse than that, the people of Lakota should not be forced to pay for such employees with tax increases and social extortion.
Of course I will have more to say on this issue, but for now just the contents of Merk’s actions should be considered with the punishment he received—which is to say virtually nothing. When Merk’s attorney Julie C. Ford stated that “He (Merk) signed the consent agreement not because he was guilty of any wrongdoing but only to put this matter behind him and to avoid any delays in the renewals of his licenses, she was saying that Mr. Merk did not recognize that he did anything wrong. When Ford said Merk was not accused of having a sexual or otherwise inappropriate relationship with any students; at most, the school district concluded he had discussed topics that might have been considered inappropriate.” Merk and his attorney Ford in this case do not consider having text message communication with students regarding sexual orientation, sexual experiences and other personal issues to be inappropriate between a student and a teacher. Further, failing to report a student was bullied is not negligent behavior as indicated by Merk–or providing a student with his cell phone number through a Facebook message. Posting Facebook statuses about students’ academic levels and disparaging Lakota West High School administration is apparently acceptable behavior with these professionals based on their statements. It is also OK to receive a text messages from students offering to buy Merk an iPad which should be considered an obvious bribe. Those are the kinds of actions that Ford stated Merk might have performed inappropriately leaving the door open for anti-concept interpretation declaring innocence at the same time.
These are the types of employees that tax payers are told are invaluable to Lakota’s community. When the Levy Zombies take to the streets in the fall of 2013 for the November tax increase they are fighting for teachers like George C. Merk to continue the kind of behavior that occurred under the classroom tutelage of a Lakota West math teacher who will return to the classroom for the 2013/2014 school year. Teachers like Merk are more interested in being “cool” to their students instead of actually teaching them anything, as the boundaries between teacher and student have been intentionally blurred by a failed education system that produces teachers who would rather be 15-year-old kids than 41-year-old adults making $66,173 a year. The teacher is paid to be better than the children, so that students will try. The teacher is not paid to be one of the “cool guys” in an ocean of subservient children who would rather manipulate their way to a good grade instead of actually working for it. It is that second example that Merk is so guilty and the reason he should not be employed as a teacher in any public school anywhere.
Who cares what Eric Holder said about the George Zimmerman acquittal or Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law? Isn’t Holder a criminal? Isn’t he guilty of deaths from his own actions, and destruction of individual rights performed on a mass scale? If Holder were not the top cop of the United States Government wouldn’t he find himself in jail for the same types of crimes he accuses others of? Of course a criminal is going to wish that “Stand Your Ground” laws were obsolete, so that their crimes can be committed against others more easily. So his comments have no merit as he should be the one on trial, not George Zimmerman, who already had his day in court. But Holder’s foolish comments were not the most ridiculous comments that came forth in the wake of the Zimmerman murder trial in Sanford, Florida. The dumbest comments of all came from those crying for an end to racism in America upon the Zimmerman acquittal. Out of all the news outlets and commentators who make millions upon millions of dollars giving statements and providing opinions no one has delivered a way to rid America of racism when the accusations have been so extreme once Zimmerman was found not guilty. So I will provide the answer where others have failed.
The way to end racism is to stop using skin color as a weapon to advance collective causes and level the playing field for all individuals by allowing merit to determine all benefits in society. When any collective group demands “equality” they are asking for thuggish democracy to take away resources from someone and give to another so that all can have equal value. This allows people of low value to make themselves appear to have a higher value by lowering the value of others through legalized theft (income redistribution). People of low value may have such a status because they made bad decision in life—such as drinking too much, smoking marijuana so that they cannot hold good paying jobs that require drug tests, or having children where there is not a responsible male in a household to help provide family structure. People who do dumb things in their lives often seek the protection of social collectivism to hide their crimes and the only way vacant personalities can find value where they have squandered it away is to take it away from someone else.
Racism has given such collective groups the illusion of value. By seeking equality they really mean “wealth redistribution.” This is why such groups who advocate racial inequality always fail to identify the value of human beings as a criterion for equality. Rather the true meaning of equality is to allow all races, all sexes, all shapes, sizes, and backgrounds of all people to have equal access to success. Racial groups wish to stack the odds of success in their favor with democratic force through collectivism rather than individual merit. This is why racism advocates for more power and so-called “equality” do not support political candidates like Herman Cain, or Dr. Ben Carson. In the racism debate men who have achieved success based on individual merit no matter what their skin color are always overlooked, because the goal of the equal rights movement is not equal access to success, as men like Carson and Cain represent, but in the ability to level the economic playing field of society by cutting down the high spots and filling the low spots with displaced value.
To end racism tomorrow, all society would need to do would be to recognize the value of merit. Those who work to achieve good merit in their lives would all have equal access to value, while those who chose not to work in such a way would find themselves lacking. If the entire world functioned from a desire to be good ethically, morally, socially—good in every respect of the word, there would be no racism because there would be no advantage of one gang of thugs over another. No group would have dominance over any other, as they would all be irrelevant. After all, isn’t it the desire of the black groups to take power from the perceived, “white man” or the “white supremacists” to take power from the “one world order” or the women from the men, or the men from the women, or the children from their parents, or the public sector worker from the private—all the mentioned are aspects of society that are lacking individual merit and seek their value in the safety of collectivism. That is where the trouble begins and ends. The way to end racism is to judge others on individual merit, not by any group affiliation. When the incentive to gang rule is removed, the issue of racism will be put to rest.
In the wake of the Zimmerman verdict, gangs took to the streets at all political levels to exploit the tragic death for their own social positions, using democratic imposition to force rules on society that is ultimately designed to rob value from once social sector to provide another what it’s missing. The behavior is as stupid as a village of hunters and gathers fighting over the watering hole of an animal both are hunting, or a bunch of foolish Europeans fighting over one version of religion over another. Collective groups are the source of the trouble because they seek to hide individual merit behind their social blanket allowing poor behavior and decisions to be supplemented by the value of others in their group. In every case, such as the would-be criminal Eric Holder, or the members of the Black Panthers, or any of the radical demonstrators who took to the streets to vandalize property like a bunch of malcontents when Zimmerman was found not guilty—the demand is not for justice of a slain kid, the demand is for an improvement in social status without the work of actually earning it. Behind the actions of the hoards who are declaring “equality” are drug addicts, womanizers, jobless buffoons, welfare recipients, child molesters, victims of the molested, and a whole host of characters who are lacking personal value for one reason or the other and find it is much easier to steal value from others to fill themselves than actually doing the work of being good people of good merit. That is what racism is all about, and why it will never go away so long as groups of any kind are given sway over other groups in a perpetual battle for value that is unearned.
When The Lone Ranger is introduced as a young lawyer traveling from the East Coast by train the first bits of dialogue which come from Armie Hammer who was confronted by a religious group advocating Bible studies, was to hold up his copy of John Locke’s The Second Treatise of Government and declare, “This is my Bible.” Upon that startling declaration I immediately knew why the film reviews were so terrible as The Lone Ranger was in love with America, and was making no mistake about it. The film was setting out to attack many misconceptions about events which took place during a period of almost perfect capitalism in The United States, during the late 1800s. The Second Treatise of Government was one of the foundation books which people like Thomas Jefferson used to help shape the argument about the kind of country that America would be. Modern Americans who regularly attend Tea Party events know that John Locke is one of the philosophers who opened the door to the way of thinking that distinctly became freedom loving. To altruists, this is a major social danger as any message that exhibits freedom as one of the highest human endeavors also seeks to be free from social stupidity, the self-determined poor (lazy people), and the malcontents of civilization. Social progressives have desired for years to shape American thought into reflecting European sentiment of sacrifice, shared suffering, and a focus on the “greater good” while steering the educated masses away from a personal love of individual freedom. Opening the film with a direct node to John Locke was a bold declaration that I was surprised made it past the Disney executives screening the film. It’s possible that some of them did not know what the book meant to American foundation, but it is unlikely to have slipped by so many eyes without anybody knowing, especially Johnny Depp, who has been known to show up to film screenings showing his open support of Che Guevara. I thought the John Locke reference was quite extraordinary but the references did not end there so I know that it was not an accident.
The film continued on as a fantastic western that was often a cross between the old Sergio Leone westerns composed musically by Ennio Morricone and the hysterical romp through the old west that was touched on by Back to the Future III. The movie was very funny at times as Johnny Depp’s Tonto was brilliantly eccentric. The film was wonderfully photographed, evenly paced, and was very passionate about its subject matter. It was an unapologetic western that might have been an early episode of the TV show Davy Crockett, only with Industrial Light and Magic doing some spectacular visual effects. The stunts were ambitious, and the scope of the project was mammoth. It was the largest scale western I think has ever been attempted. But The Lone Ranger himself does not drink, does not curse, does not use tobacco (he refused when offered), he does not want to kill people, and is a naively good guy from the beginning to the end of the film. The only character arch that John Reid embarked on evolving from the beginning to the end was in hardening up from a naive lawyer to a man who isn’t afraid to pull the trigger on a bad guy by the end of the film. Reid never had a moment of weakness in the film where he got drunk, caved into the seductions of a woman, or lost his moral compass. He was firmly focused on justice from the beginning of the film till the very end.
The bad guy in the film however was Cole played brilliantly by Tom Wilkinson. I suspect that many of the reviewers who wrote such bad things about The Lone Ranger as a movie saw themselves as the evil character Cole, who spoke often very flowery about the need for “social sacrifice,” the “greater good,” and destroying entire groups of people if they stood in his way of vision for progress. The film showed the Indian rebellions with extraordinary glory which was much more epic than Dances with Wolves ever managed, and even captured how the United States cavalry found itself caught in an uncompromising position of picking sides. It was a complicated series of events that were manipulated by the villain Cole who appeared to be a good guy though 2/3rds of the movie.
But what was different about this Lone Ranger as opposed to other renditions was that Tonto was extraordinarily good. Johnny Depp created one of the best characters of his career with Tonto and I found the scenes that took place in 1933 as the old Tonto was telling The Lone Ranger story to a little boy to be emotionally captivating. These scenes were simply Johnny Depp at his absolute finest as an actor. Tonto was a social outcast to his tribe that was living life with one firm foot planted into the spirit world and saw reality all too clearly giving the impression that he was insane through most of the film. But he wasn’t, and it was obvious by the end of the film that Tonto as an extremely old man was deeply committed to the actual reality of justice that is hidden to most of the world, portraying a Yoda quality from The Empire Strikes Back that was captivating as a performance all by itself.
The only regret that I have about the movie is that I feel like it was made for people like me in mind, traditional Americans who love westerns, and characters who are uncompromisingly good. It will not make a billion dollars at the box office like Iron Man and the last Pirates of the Caribbean film. It will be lucky to recover its $215 million dollar budget, which is unheard of for a western. Only a company like Disney could have made a film like this, which was risky, so it is unlikely that Armie Hammer will have the chance to reprise his Lone Ranger role in the way that Robert Downey Jr has for Iron Man, and make future films. The film by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Gore Verbinski using music by Hans Zimmer pulled out all the stops to make a great film under the penmanship of Ted Elliott, Justin Haythe, and Terry Rossio. Everyone involved with The Lone Ranger is among the best in their fields of endeavor, and it is a shame that the magic will probably never be seen again, because the box office will prevent it. The Lone Ranger is one of those films that will percolate in America culture for a long time. It will not have a big pop at the box office, but will be watched and loved for many years in a quiet way as viewers find it wonderfully good, but unsure why they like it so much while critics and industry professionals declare that it is such a bad film. It is not the film that is bad for progressive types, but the message. Most people seeing The Lone Ranger cannot identify with the hero. But they will identify with the villain, and that tends to make people angry. Angry people do not throw down nearly a hundred dollars to see The Lone Ranger, which is what it cost me by the time we bought tickets and snacks, a rarity for us as a family. I spent extra money at the theater knowing that a majority of the movie goers were not spending money on The Lone Ranger, so we broke our rule and bought the overpriced popcorn and drinks anyway, to support the film, and theater showing it.
Those critics missed the points and represent most opinions……………
Disney can roll the dice on movies like The Lone Ranger because they have so many other profitable revenue streams, which is just another benefit of capitalism. I think the film will make its money back in the worldwide market so Disney won’t lose its money and Johnny Depp won’t lose face from his production credit. Jerry Bruckheimer will continue to have successful films, including Pirates of the Caribbean 5 which is coming up in 2015. But this will unfortunately be the last ride of this particular Lone Ranger, and that is unfortunate. But if not for Disney, it would have never happened to begin with. And because it did, I am very grateful.
For my own concern on the case, which I never thought should have been brought to trial as it is hypocritical at best given the amount of black on black crime that goes on in America, the aggressive prosecution of Zimmerman in the first place reflects what I say here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom often, and that is the power of “the state” is too great and is focused on collectivism, and not individual rights which makes it a predatory entity. The State of Florida pressed charges against Zimmerman after the Justice Department backed radical activists like Jessie Jackson and many other political heavy weights to protest the Samford legal system into taking on the case to avoid the anti-concept name calling of “racism.” When the authorities prosecuted Zimmerman they essentially did so to appease the mob of democracy which had been hijacked by emotionally driven power grabbers who wanted to use tragedy to gain power for a demographic sector of human beings not based on individual merit, but collective identification.
The prosecution, the judge, the President of The United States, virtually everyone who collects a paycheck from the tax payers wanted to throw Zimmerman to the wolves not following any rule of law, or even the principles of logic, but to keep the mob from becoming unruly. The law is not supposed to be shaped by gangs of influence builders who use force as a way to achieve their tactical objectives. Law is supposed to be built on the philosophy of justice. In the case of the Zimmerman trial, the jury system worked as the evidence was able to come to the surface and the prosecution’s case fell apart under scrutiny, as it had only been built off emotional principles to begin with.
The behavior of those prosecuting Zimmerman in Florida was disgusting, and was simply proof that if the state must pick between individual well-being, and statist protection of the system of which they benefit, they will pick openly sacrificing individuals to the jaws of an unruly mob every time. When Jessie Jackson attempted to organize the “Million Hoodie March” in Samford he was not interested in the facts of the case, he simply wanted to use racism’s force to impose his will upon the “state” with a show of democratic strength that would make emotional decisions instead of logical ones. It didn’t matter to Eric Holder’s Justice Department what the rules of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law was under the Tenth Amendment. The White House wanted to capitalize on the Martin death as much as anybody to remove guns from society and attack the idea of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” premise. The individual represented by Zimmerman was to be sacrificed for the good of the collective, as the protestors assimilated Trevon Martin into their hive of collectivism. The death of Martin was an attack on their hive, the way they were portraying it, and the individual responsible had to pay, even if the law was on his side. The masses were intent to change the law by force of will and the state was willing to play along out of self-preservation.
The case of George Zimmerman should alarm all American citizens to the dangers of collectivism. Americans do not live in tribes or gangs of thugs who can march around and impose emotional whims on justice—at least the ideal of America refutes such a notion. When such a thing happens it must be rejected from the outset. George Zimmerman should have never been prosecuted. He did what he was allowed to do under Florida law, and no gang from The White House, from any Rainbow Collation of Civil Rights wannabes, or lobby group has the right to change a law that they do not have a right to vote on. Florida’s laws are not federal law, yet the federal government attempted to apply its influence through collective identification to achieve political party goals that are not good for any individual, but for the good of machine politics only. In Samford, Florida two people struggled in a street fight. One of them had a gun. The one with the gun had control of the fight’s outcome, and that is the end of the story.
Entire generations who have been taught the “statist” approach to justice and believe that just because a person has a skin color, or a particular gender that their assimilation into a collective identification allows them to say and do whatever they want so long as the masses have their back, and this is not the spirit of any kind of rule of law in America. Such behavior might be seen in some third-world dump where collectivism rules over individual merit, but not in America. Yet out of kindness, Americans have put up with the introduction of anti-concepts by the political establishments who wish to grab power on the backs of every tragedy, and over time, the impositions have mounted. And those anti-concepts where values are replaced with emotional judgments came crashing down in the George Zimmerman trial.
All appeared to be working in favor of the prosecution in the Zimmerman trial until they called their star witness Rachel Jeantel. The world was tuned in to the Zimmerman trial and saw firsthand the reality of modern America guided by the hand of progressive politics when she spoke. Jeantel was the product of Jesse Jackson’s collectivism and a public education system that has been shaped by illogical sensitivity and fear, instead of wisdom, performance, and common sense. When she started speaking the reality behind the mob was seen by all, and a new direction needed to be pursued. It was obvious that the prosecution was hoping that an emotional case presented by them would trump any facts, and once their star witness blew that strategy, they had nothing left to present to justify malicious murder by Zimmerman. Any person of logic would fear the ignorance of a society that functions from such primal motivations, and even though Martin was a youth carrying a box of Skittles mainstream America got a glimpse into how Travon Martin saw the world outside of black America with Jeantel’s testimony of what was said over the phone calling Zimmerman, a “creepy-ass cracker.”
All across the nation black communities have been enslaved by politics to continue living in poverty by beholding ideologies that are destructive to their well-being. Young people have been led to believe that they can think such things about other races as calling them names like “cracker” and other derogatory terms without feeling the teeth of ramifications. They believe such things because campaigns like Jesse Jackson’s protests have been successful in the past of excusing bad behavior behind the mask of collectivism, and they assume that it will always be the case. So they ignore the rules of gated communities, of private property, of private rights, and impose themselves at will upon a population that has been paralyzed by fear of the anti-concept of racism. But if there is a lesson to the case of George Zimmerman it is that laws do, or are supposed to overcome emotional testimony, so long as a jury is wise and uses the rule of law constructed by good philosophy to trump mob like imposition. And that the laws of a state such as Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” rule cannot be manipulated by federal influence even with a gang of emotional zealots sent to Samford to change public perception with mass consensus in a direct attempt to override logic into a stew of collectivism that is destructive to the idea of American independence.
The Zombies of Lakota are mindless drones who march about without a thought in their minds and simply repeat slogans created for them by the organized labor force to gather up enough funds to feed their democratic politicians. The slogans are designed to make them appear like everyone else in the community so that they can get close enough to suck the life out of another taxpaying victim. They utter phrases like “it’s all for the children,” “schools are operating efficiently,” and “technology is needed to teach children in a global marketplace.” But the real intention is to get close enough to voters so that they can suck the life out of them through taxation for mindless teacher contracts that only feed more mindless political drones in Columbus through lobby power, a lobby that will place more tax paying victims upon an altar to be consumed by the Zombies of Public Education.
There simply isn’t any other explanation for the type of people who are not cognizant to the facts of reality. Zombies move about like normal human beings, yet they don’t ever seem conscious of any mode of living beyond the mindless consumption of others to sustain themselves, and this is what the Zombies of Lakota are doing. They have been told how to balance their budget by people who are good at such things, and they have ignored all the advice. In the case of Lakota in 2013 they need to have major labor reductions to deal with the reduced enrollment, but the Zombies of Lakota only know to consume. Talking to them is like speaking to a zombie that just looks blankly at you and drools not hearing a word that is spoken unless it involves the consumption of tax dollars. Then they grunt and get excited at the prospect of higher taxes the way movie zombies crave blood.
The Zombies of Lakota feature an endless parade of drones that speak absent-mindedly in support of higher taxes to feed their spawns. With each new levy there have been new zombies to take up the argument constructed for them by organized labor to justify the community sacrifice of their wealth for the construction of more zombies perpetuating an endless cycle of Obama voters and environmental wackos that are produced by modern public education. They say the same thing year after year, levy after levy, even when the conditions have changed. It is incomprehensible to them to consider proper budget management by means of wage reductions, employee reductions, or by actually using technology to save on labor overhead. Instead they simply utter their slogans and grunt for higher taxes.
In the movies zombies are usually defeated easily in the daylight hours and can be easily outmaneuvered as they lack independent thought. They are only dangerous if you let them get too close and get caught in one of their traps. The Zombies of Lakota are defeated by presenting the facts to them which makes them shrivel up in pain like a demon that has had Holy Water thrown upon their foreheads. Facts destroy the Zombies of Lakota, facts like their need to lay off workers in the years to come instead of paying the staff they have currently for a job that isn’t needed do to the declining enrollment. But the traps the zombies set are in their campaign slogans where they attempt to appeal to the rational and sane by exploiting children for their endless desire for consumption.
The Zombies of Lakota can appear to look the same way as any sane voter who will typically vote NO on all tax increases. They can look like normal people by dressing like them, walking like them, and even smelling like them…………..but they aren’t normal. The dead giveaway is when the zombies declare that the district has done all it can, and that children are suffering as a result. If a persona says something to that effect, they are a Zombie of Lakota, and they are looking to suck the life out of you without a care for your well-being. They are mindless automatons unable to think outside of their own hunger for tax revenue.
This fall of 2013 when Halloween howls haunted fantasies into the chilled night air the Zombies of Lakota will be out in full force looking to pass a tax increase on voters for the November ballot. They will hit the streets walking from door to door attempting to consume more victims, they will be out in full force at football games, at grocery stores, on street corners attempting to suck the life of the people who live in the district with no thought of what comes on the day after, but their never-ending hunger for more…….more……..and more tax money. The Zombies of Lakota are coming, and they are looking for victims. The ways to beat them is to Vote No on the upcoming levy and send them back to the places where dreams become nightmares. A failure to do so will only make more of them until sooner or later the world will be filled with the Zombies of Lakota who are parasites to everything that is good and profitable.
Sharon Poe is a tax fighter in the Mason City school district and a personal friend of mine who was on 700 WLW with Darryl Parks recently as they discussed the ridiculousness of the local school levies that are emerging for the November 2013 ballot. Darryl Parks and I used to have very similar views of public education and the stupidity of school levies as a way to fund learning for children. But that has changed over the years. My fight with Lakota has been intense at times and they asked me through members of No Lakota Levy for a cease-fire in the spring of 2012, which I gave them. The terms of the deal were that I wouldn’t continue to expose their inefficiencies on national radio stations and television, and they wouldn’t ask for a levy for 2 years. The deal was made two months after the famous “Latte Sipping Prostitute” comments that I made about the typical levy advocate at Lakota and I told Channel 19 the specifics of the deal when they interviewed me for the announcement of the levy truce from Lakota. CLICK HERE to review. During the broadcast on WLW Sharon told Darryl that Lakota was getting ready to put another levy attempt on the ballot because she knew what I had told her, about the 2 year deal with Lakota. Basically Lakota made a deal with their teachers union in 2011 to take a pay freeze and that deal expires in June of 2014, so they need money to pay their teachers long promised raises. But my argument all along is that the teachers and administration at an average pay of over $63K per year in wages were making too much money to begin with, and needed to slash their wages by at least 5% to properly balance their budget which has been ignored by the administration. Instead the school board chose to spend a lot of money rebuilding their public relations image and disregarded any attempt to reign in their extraordinary wages and hoped that the community would go back to sleep in time for them to pass another levy in 2013, ahead of the new teacher contract. Their actions were known all along, and Sharon warned over the 50,000 watt flame thrower of WLW that Darryl could expect to “Hear from Mr. Rich Hoffman” once Lakota made their announcement, which they now have. For me, this officially breaks the cease-fire, and now the campaign against their tax increase can begin. They won’t like the results.
Unlike Darryl Parks, where he supports public education because it is attached to property values, I have evolved into thinking that government should not be involved in education in any capacity. The more I learned about the kind of characters in public education, the more I am convinced that those types of people should not be teaching the next generation. My position has moved from one of pure logic centering on cost to one of philosophy. The game plan of public education is wrong, and I cannot support it knowing what I do after my experiences in dealing with Lakota administrators, then comparing those observations with districts all over Ohio. The failure of public schools repeats in virtually every district no matter what the wealth demographic, or population density. I see that competition needs to be introduced to the education process, and that property values need to be divorced from school districts if such values can ever be expected to stabilize over time. To continue to participate in the reactionary nature of school aged real estate catering is to destroy communities over the long haul, and Lakota is a prime example of how this process needs to implement such changes in public perception.
So I have no desire in any way to preserve the current education system. Nothing Lakota says is important as far as rationalizations for their monetary needs. I am not sympathetic to their issues. Lakota has become arrogant in their assumption that they are the center piece of a community, and they were only allowed to become such a thing because of the government monopoly of public education that is tied directly to property values. The arrangement is a government scam that ends up teaching children liberal oriented values using money from conservatives to pay for instruction they fundamentally don’t agree with. As a tax payer, I do not support Common Core education, I do not support Global Economies, and I do not support global warming greenie weenie philosophies which are so persistent in public education. I do not support an education system that teaches the earth is more important than a human being. I support an education system that teaches that the human being as a thinking, conscious creature has dominion over the earth and can use the tools of the planet, and rules of nature to fashion a better life for themselves. This is not the teaching of public education, and children should not be forced to learn such anti-concepts. Tax payers who do not agree with the voodoo ideology of the philosopher Kant, the economics of Keynes, or the fuzzy science of AL Gore should not be forced to pay for their own philosophic destruction in a social context. A couple of years ago when I called my political critics “prostitutes” I did so knowing that I was finished supporting public education as a legitimate social mechanism, because I was tired of supporting with my tax dollars people who were hostile to my outlook on life.
During the span of time that Lakota agreed to a ceasefire I decided that upon the next levy, I would do what I could to get more people involved in the levy fight. Prior to my experiences at Lakota the number one concern that anti levy advocates had was the constant social abuse they received from levy supporters who clearly use peer pressure to override logic during elections. My reasoning for calling the bullies of Lakota the names I did was to demonstrate to the many hundreds if not thousands of Lakota residents the limits of the pro levy supporters power, so that they could see for themselves that the bullies had no real weapon beyond name calling. In that way, upon the next levy attempt, more people than me could speak out against them without fear of boycotts, vandalism, or social castigation, which are all tactics of school levy supporters. Over the last two years, this has been the case. More people than ever are feeling comfortable speaking about their displeasure of school levies. More of them are willing to go on the record in the local newspapers, and speak on television, and that is the key to defeating a fourth attempt by Lakota.
I have argued every logical angle there is against the need for any levy, and Lakota doesn’t listen and has no desire to start. So further broadcasts of logic on the radio which are recorded for all time online, did not teach the Lakota administrators anything, so to continue to do the same kind of thing would be a waste of time. Instead, I promised that when Lakota did propose a new levy that I would have something special in store. I will leave the conventional arguments to others who can take the place of what I used to represent. My new position will be much different, but every bit as sensational. The intent won’t be this time to just examine the foolish nature of public education funding methods that are based idiotically on Keynesian economics, but on the utter debacle that the statist philosophy of learning under the United States Department of Education has created, and continues to ask for more money to perpetuate.
I welcome the help from other anti-tax resisters, yet recognize that new strategies must always be utilized if fresh ideas are to be injected into any given argument. For the Lakota Levy of 2013, it is time to take those fresh ideas to a new level which represents my true feelings of what the levy represents to the community, and to the poor minds of the children who are subjected to such progressive education that teaches chaos, irresponsibility, and perpetual government dependence from unionized public workers who disguise their greed and lust for power behind the innocence of children who have been abandoned by short-sighted parents, and exploited by statist public school administers to be delivered into adulthood as shells of their true potential all in the name of tax increases.
It’s time to turn things up a bit now that the truce has been called off by the Lakota school system. Sharon was correct when she told Darryl Parks that he’d be hearing from me. But to what degree has been a secret that I’ve kept close and thought hard about over the last two years. And its time to let that secret out of the bag…………………….
I love the 4th of July and frequent displays of patriotism that is displayed on America’s unique holiday celebrating freedom. But I am weary at the same time of such festivities because I know what’s coming. Ladies and gentlemen reading these words right now, the perils that faced the founders of America pale in comparison to the challenges of our current time. There is a reason that for the last 10 days or so I have provided many articles showing readers what America looked like before the implementation of The New Deal which was essentially socialism in its design long supported by progressives disguising their love of European communism, and the grand climax of The Great Society which became possible due to the 1964 election of the most liberal congress in American history with the exception of the one in 1938. Those elections were purchased from a gullible American public with deceit, and now the bills for those errors are coming due in our current time. America is about to hit a brick wall, and for anybody to survive, they need to understand that America was a great country before those terrible programs, and they need to understand that for America to survive for future 4th of July holidays the fight of our lives is currently before us. The video below sums up the problem in the simplest way possible.
At the end of May of 2013 the Social Security and Medicare Board of Trustees published a little known report that was generally ignored by the media, because in it was a very kind warning that by 2026, which is in essence only a decade away, those programs run out of money. They cannot be sustained without raising taxes and taxes cannot be raised without crippling the American way of life. We are at an impasse that cannot be avoided and there is no compromise with that fiscal cliff. It is a fact of reality that nobody wants to look at. Politicians are terrified of it, and the public does not wish to face the summary of their years of neglect in American politics where they paid attention to everything but one of the most important parts of their society—their government. So below is a portion of the report along with a link that will take you dear reader to the more specific information. I suggest you read this carefully and pass it along to a friend. It is important to understand the severity of the problem.
A SUMMARY OF THE 2013 ANNUAL REPORTS
Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees
Published 5/31/2013
A MESSAGE TO THE PUBLIC:
Each year the Trustees of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds report on the current and projected financial status of the two programs. This message summarizes the 2013 Annual Reports.
Neither Medicare nor Social Security can sustain projected long-run programs in full under currently scheduled financing, and legislative changes are necessary to avoid disruptive consequences for beneficiaries and taxpayers. If lawmakers take action sooner rather than later, more options and more time will be available to phase in changes so that the public has adequate time to prepare. Earlier action will also help elected officials minimize adverse impacts on vulnerable populations, including lower-income workers and people already dependent on program benefits.
Social Security and Medicare together accounted for 38 percent of federal expenditures in fiscal year 2012. Both programs will experience cost growth substantially in excess of GDP growth through the mid-2030s due to rapid population aging caused by the large baby-boom generation entering retirement and lower-birth-rate generations entering employment and, in the case of Medicare, to growth in expenditures per beneficiary exceeding growth in per capita GDP. In later years, projected costs expressed as a share of GDP trend up slowly for Medicare and are relatively flat for Social Security, reflecting very gradual population aging caused by increasing longevity and slower growth in per-beneficiary health care costs.
Social Security
Social Security’s Disability Insurance (DI) program satisfies neither the Trustees’ long-range test of close actuarial balance nor their short-range test of financial adequacy and faces the most immediate financing shortfall of any of the separate trust funds. DI Trust Fund reserves expressed as a percent of annual cost (the trust fund ratio) declined to 85 percent at the beginning of 2013, and the Trustees project trust fund depletion in 2016, the same year projected in the last Trustees Report. DI cost has exceeded non-interest income since 2005, and the trust fund ratio has declined since peaking in 2003. While legislation is needed to address all of Social Security’s financial imbalances, the need has become most urgent with respect to the program’s DI component. Lawmakers need to act soon to avoid reduced payments to DI beneficiaries three years from now.
Social Security’s total expenditures have exceeded non-interest income of its combined trust funds since 2010, and the Trustees estimate that Social Security cost will exceed non-interest income throughout the 75-year projection period. The deficit of non-interest income relative to cost was about $49 billion in 2010, $45 billion in 2011, and $55 billion in 2012. The Trustees project that this cash-flow deficit will average about $75 billion between 2013 and 2018 before rising steeply as income growth slows to the sustainable trend rate after the economic recovery is complete and the number of beneficiaries continues to grow at a substantially faster rate than the number of covered workers. Redemption of trust fund asset reserves by the General Fund of the Treasury will provide the resources needed to offset Social Security’s annual aggregate cash-flow deficits. Since the cash-flow deficit will be less than interest earnings through 2020, reserves of the combined trust funds measured in current dollars will continue to grow, but not by enough to prevent the ratio of reserves to one year’s projected cost (the combined trust fund ratio) from declining. (This ratio peaked in 2008, declined through 2012, and is expected to decline steadily in future years.) After 2020, Treasury will redeem trust fund asset reserves to the extent that program cost exceeds tax revenue and interest earnings until depletion of total trust fund reserves in 2033, the same year projected in last year’s Trustees Report. Thereafter, tax income would be sufficient to pay about three-quarters of scheduled benefits through 2087.
A temporary reduction in the Social Security payroll tax rate in 2011 and 2012 reduced payroll tax revenues by an estimated $222 billion in total. The legislation establishing the payroll tax reduction also provided for transfers from the General Fund to the trust funds in order to “replicate to the extent possible” payments that would have occurred if the payroll tax reduction had not been enacted. Those General Fund reimbursements amounted to about 15 percent of the program’s non-interest income in 2011 and 2012. The temporary payroll tax reduction expired at the end of 2012.
Under current projections, the annual cost of Social Security benefits expressed as a share of workers’ taxable earnings will grow rapidly from 11.3 percent in 2007, the last pre-recession year, to roughly 17.0 percent in 2037, and will then decline slightly before slowly increasing after 2050. Cost displays a slightly different pattern when expressed as a share of GDP. Program cost equaled 4.2 percent of GDP in 2007, the last pre-recession year, and the Trustees project that cost will increase to 6.2 percent of GDP for 2036, then decline to about 6.0 percent of GDP by 2050, and thereafter rise slowly reaching 6.2 percent by 2087.
The projected 75-year actuarial deficit for the combined Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance (OASDI) Trust Funds is 2.72 percent of taxable payroll, up from 2.67 percent projected in last year’s report. This deficit amounts to 21 percent of program non-interest income or 17 percent of program cost. A 0.06 percentage point increase in the OASDI actuarial deficit would have been expected if nothing had changed other than the one-year extension of the valuation period to 2087. The effects of recently enacted legislation, updated demographic data, updated economic data and assumptions further worsened the actuarial deficit, but these effects were completely offset by the favorable effects of updated programmatic data and improved methodologies.
While the combined OASDI program fails the long-range test of close actuarial balance, it does satisfy the test for short-range (ten-year) financial adequacy. The Trustees project that the combined trust fund asset reserves at the beginning of each year will exceed that year’s projected cost through 2027.
Medicare
The Trustees project that the Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund will be the next to face depletion after the DI Trust Fund. The projected date of HI Trust Fund depletion is 2026, two years later than projected in last year’s report, at which time dedicated revenues would be sufficient to pay 87 percent of HI cost. The Trustees project that the share of HI cost that can be financed with HI dedicated revenues will decline slowly to 71 percent in 2047, and then rise slowly until it reaches 73 percent in 2087. As it has since 2008, the HI Trust Fund will pay out more in hospital benefits and other expenditures than it receives in income in all years until reserve depletion.
The projected HI Trust Fund’s long-term actuarial imbalance is smaller than that of the combined Social Security trust funds under the assumptions employed in this report.
The estimated 75-year actuarial deficit in the HI Trust Fund is 1.11 percent of taxable payroll, down from 1.35 percent projected in last year’s report. The HI fund again fails the test of short-range financial adequacy, as its trust fund ratio is already below 100 percent and is expected to decline continuously until reserve depletion in 2026. The fund also continues to fail the long-range test of close actuarial balance. The HI 75-year actuarial imbalance amounts to 29 percent of tax receipts or 23 percent of program cost.
The modest improvement in the outlook for HI long-term finances is principally due to: (i) lower projected spending for most HI service categories especially for skilled nursing facilities to reflect lower-than-expected spending in 2012 and other recent data; (ii) lower projected Medicare Advantage program costs that reflect recent data suggesting that certain provisions of the Affordable Care Act will reduce growth in these costs by more than was previously projected; and (iii) a refinement in projection methods that reduces assumed per beneficiary cost growth during the transition period between the short-range projections and the long-range projections. Partially offsetting these favorable changes to the projections are somewhat lower projected levels of tax income that reflect lower-than-expected tax income in 2012.
The Trustees project that Part B of Supplementary Medical Insurance (SMI), which pays doctors’ bills and other outpatient expenses, and Part D of SMI, which provides access to prescription drug coverage, will remain adequately financed into the indefinite future because current law automatically provides financing each year to meet the next year’s expected costs. However, the aging population and rising health care costs cause SMI projected costs to grow steadily from 2.0 percent of GDP in 2012 to approximately 3.3 percent of GDP in 2035, and then more slowly to 4.0 percent of GDP by 2087. General revenues will finance roughly three-quarters of these costs, and premiums paid by beneficiaries almost all of the remaining quarter. SMI also receives a small amount of financing from special payments by States and from fees on manufacturers and importers of brand-name prescription drugs. Projected costs for Part B assume an almost 25-percent reduction in Medicare payment rates for physician services will be implemented in 2014 as required by current law, which is highly unlikely.
The Trustees project that total Medicare cost (including both HI and SMI expenditures) will grow from approximately 3.6 percent of GDP in 2012 to 5.6 percent of GDP by 2035, and will increase gradually thereafter to about 6.5 percent of GDP by 2087.
The drawdown of Social Security and HI Trust Fund reserves and the general revenue transfers into SMI will result in mounting pressure on the Federal budget. In fact, pressure is already evident. For the seventh consecutive year, the Social Security Act requires that the Trustees issue a “Medicare funding warning” because projected non-dedicated sources of revenues primarily general revenues are expected to continue to account for more than 45 percent of Medicare’s outlays in 2013, a threshold breached for the first time in fiscal year 2010.
Conclusion
Lawmakers should address the financial challenges facing Social Security and Medicare as soon as possible. Taking action sooner rather than later will leave more options and more time available to phase in changes so that the public has adequate time to prepare.
Read the rest complete with charts and diagrams at the following link:
To understand how we got into this mess it is also important to study The Great Society policies which culminated in the 1960s by Lyndon Johnson, and was the work of Democrats from the 1930s as a progressive platform rooted in global communism. Even though it is long, it is important to read. Some reading this have actually supported The Great Society and are currently avoiding dealing with the errors of their past by praying to some finance God that relief will magically appear. It will not. It is important to understand the problem, and then work to remove all these elements from our society so that we may save it. In previous documents I have shown how America used to be, and can be again. Those who support The Great Society look at such times as antiquated and a step backwards. In a way they are right, I do wish to step back in time—to a time before the socialist imposition of The New Deal, and The Great Society. I don’t want to pay for them. I don’t want to deal with people who are addicted to those government services, and I want to steer away from the collapse of those programs in 2026.
The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States announced by President Lyndon B. Johnson at Ohio University and subsequently promoted by him and fellow Democrats in Congress in the 1960s. Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. New major spending programs that addressed education, medical care, urban problems, and transportation were launched during this period. The Great Society in scope and sweep resembled the New Deal domestic agenda of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Some Great Society proposals were stalled initiatives from John F. Kennedy‘s New Frontier. Johnson’s success depended on his skills of persuasion, coupled with the Democraticlandslide in the 1964 election that brought in many new liberals to Congress, making the House of Representatives in 1965 the most liberal House since 1938.[1]
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 assured minority registration and voting. It suspended use of literacy or other voter-qualification tests that had sometimes served to keep African-Americans off voting lists and provided for federal court lawsuits to stop discriminatory poll taxes. It also reinforced the Civil Rights Act of 1964[10] by authorizing the appointment of federal voting examiners in areas that did not meet voter-participation requirements. The Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965 abolished the national-origin quotas in immigration law. The Civil Rights Act of 1968 banned housing discrimination and extended constitutional protections to Native Americans on reservations.
The most ambitious and controversial part of the Great Society was its initiative to end poverty. The Kennedy Administration had been contemplating a federal effort against poverty. Johnson, who, as a teacher had observed extreme poverty in Texas among Mexican-Americans, launched an “unconditional war on poverty” in the first months of his presidency with the goal of eliminating hunger and deprivation from American life. The centerpiece of the War on Poverty was the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which created an Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) to oversee a variety of community-based antipoverty programs.
Federal funds were provided for special education schemes in slum areas, including help in paying for books and transport, while financial aid was also provided for slum clearances and rebuilding city areas. In addition, the Appalachian Regional Development Act of 1965 created jobs in one of the most impoverished regions of the country.[citation needed] The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 provided various schemes in which young people from poor homes could receive job training and higher education.[15]
The OEO reflected a fragile consensus among policymakers that the best way to deal with poverty was not simply to raise the incomes of the poor but to help them better themselves through education, job training, and community development. Central to its mission was the idea of “community action“, the participation of the poor in framing and administering the programs designed to help them.
Programs
The War on Poverty began with a $1 billion appropriation in 1964 and spent another $2 billion in the following two years. It spawned dozens of programs, among them the Job Corps, whose purpose was to help disadvantaged youth develop marketable skills; the Neighborhood Youth Corps, established to give poor urban youths work experience and to encourage them to stay in school; Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), a domestic version of the Peace Corps, which placed concerned citizens with community-based agencies to work towards empowerment of the poor; the Model Cities Program for urban redevelopment; Upward Bound, which assisted poor high school students entering college; legal services for the poor; and the Food Stamp Act of 1964 (which expanded the federal food stamp program).[16]
Programs included the Community Action Program, which initiated local Community Action Agencies charged with helping the poor become self-sufficient; and Project Head Start, which offered preschool education for poor children. In addition, funding was provided for the establishment of community health centers to expand access to health care,[17] while major amendments were made to Social Security in 1965 and 1967 which significantly increased benefits, expanded coverage, and established new programs to combat poverty and raise living standards.[18] In addition, average AFDC payments were 35% higher in 1968 than in 1960, but remained insufficient and uneven.[19]
Education
The most important educational component of the Great Society was the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, designed by Commissioner of Education Francis Keppel. It was signed into law on April 11, 1965, less than three months after it was introduced. It ended a long-standing political taboo by providing significant federal aid to public education, initially allotting more than $1 billion to help schools purchase materials and start special education programs to schools with a high concentration of low-income children. The Act established Head Start, which had originally been started by the Office of Economic Opportunity as an eight-week summer program, as a permanent program.
The Higher Education Facilities Act of 1963, which was signed into law by Johnson a month after becoming president,[20] authorized several times more college aid within a five-year period than had been appropriated under the Land Grant College in a century. It provided better college libraries, ten to twenty new graduate centers, several new technical institutes, classrooms for several hundred thousand students, and twenty-five to thirty new community colleges a year.[21]
This major piece of legislation was followed by the Higher Education Act of 1965, which increased federal money given to universities, created scholarships and low-interest loans for students, and established a national Teacher Corps to provide teachers to poverty-stricken areas of the United States. The Act also began a transition from federally funded institutional assistance to individual student aid.
The Bilingual Education Act of 1968 offered federal aid to local school districts in assisting them to address the needs of children with limited English-speaking ability until it expired in 2002.[22]
In 1966 welfare recipients of all ages received medical care through the Medicaid program. Medicaid was created on July 30, 1965 under Title XIX of the Social Security Act of 1965. Each state administers its own Medicaid program while the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) monitors the state-run programs and establishes requirements for service delivery, quality, funding, and eligibility standards.
Arts and cultural institutions
National endowments for arts and humanities
In September 1965, Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act into law, creating both the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities as separate, independent agencies. Lobbying for federally funded arts and humanities support began during the Kennedy Administration. In 1963 three scholarly and educational organizations—the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), the Council of Graduate Schools in America, and the United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa—joined together to establish the National Commission on the Humanities. In June 1964, the commission released a report that suggested that the emphasis placed on science endangered the study of the humanities from elementary schools through postgraduate programs. In order to correct the balance, it recommended “the establishment by the President and the Congress of the United States of a National Humanities Foundation.”[24]
In August 1964, Congressman William S. Moorhead of Pennsylvania proposed legislation to implement the commission’s recommendations. Support from the White House followed in September, when Johnson lent his endorsement during a speech at Brown University. In March 1965, the White House proposed the establishment of a National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities and requested $20 million in start-up funds. The commission’s report had generated other proposals, but the White House’s approach eclipsed them. The administration’s plan, which called for the creation of two separate agencies each advised by a governing body, was the version approved by Congress. Richard Nixon dramatically expanded funding for NEH and NEA.[24]
Public broadcasting
After the First National Conference on Long-Range Financing of Educational Television Stations in December 1964 called for a study of the role of noncommercial education television in society, the Carnegie Corporation agreed to finance the work of a 15-member national commission. Its landmark report, Public Television: A Program for Action, published on January 26, 1967, popularized the phrase “public television” and assisted the legislative campaign for federal aid. The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, enacted less than 10 months later, chartered the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as a private, non-profit corporation.
The law initiated federal aid through the CPB for the operation, as opposed to the funding of capital facilities, of public broadcasting. The CPB initially collaborated with the pre-existing National Educational Television system, but in 1969 decided to start the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). A public radio study commissioned by the CPB and the Ford Foundation and conducted from 1968–1969 led to the establishment of National Public Radio, a public radio system under the terms of the amended Public Broadcasting Act.
Cultural centers
Two long-planned national cultural and arts facilities received federal funding that would allow for their completion through Great Society legislation. A National Cultural Center, suggested during the Franklin Roosevelt Administration and created by a bipartisan law signed by Dwight Eisenhower, was transformed into the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a living memorial to the assassinated president. Fundraising for the original cultural center had been poor prior to legislation creating the Kennedy Center, which passed two months after the president’s death and provided $23 million for construction. The Kennedy Center opened in 1971.[25]
In the late 1930s the United States Congress mandated a Smithsonian Institution art museum for the National Mall, and a design by Eliel Saarinen was unveiled in 1939, but plans were shelved during World War II. A 1966 act of Congress established the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden as part of the Smithsonian Institution with a focus on modern art, in contrast to the existing National Art Gallery. The museum was primarily federally funded, although New York financier Joseph Hirshhorn later contributed $1 million toward building construction, which began in 1969. The Hirshhorn opened in 1974.[26]
In 1964, Johnson named Assistant Secretary of Labor Esther Peterson to be the first presidential assistant for consumer affairs.
The Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965 required packages to carry warning labels. The Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 set standards through creation of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The Fair Packaging and Labeling Act requires products identify manufacturer, address, clearly mark quantity and servings. The statute also authorizes HEW and FTC to establish and define voluntary standard sizes. The original would have mandated uniform standards of size and weight for comparison shopping, but the final law only outlawed exaggerated size claims.
The Child Safety Act of 1966 prohibited any chemical so dangerous that no warning can make it safe. The Flammable Fabrics Act of 1967 set standards for children’s sleepwear, but not baby blankets.
The Wholesome Meat Act of 1967 required inspection of meat which must meet federal standards. The Truth-in-Lending Act of 1968 required lenders and credit providers to disclose the full cost of finance charges in both dollars and annual percentage rates, on installment loan and sales. The Wholesome Poultry Products Act of 1968 required inspection of poultry which must meet federal standards. The Land Sales Disclosure Act of 1968 provided safeguards against fraudulent practices in the sale of land. The Radiation Safety Act of 1968 provided standards and recalls for defective electronic products.
Environment
Joseph A. Califano, Jr. has suggested that Great Society’s main contribution to the environment was an extension of protections beyond those aimed at the conservation of untouched resources.[28] In a message he transmitted to Congress, President Johnson said:
The air we breathe, our water, our soil and wildlife, are being blighted by poisons and chemicals which are the by-products of technology and industry. The society that receives the rewards of technology, must, as a cooperating whole, take responsibility for [their] control. To deal with these new problems will require a new conservation. We must not only protect the countryside and save it from destruction, we must restore what has been destroyed and salvage the beauty and charm of our cities. Our conservation must be not just the classic conservation of protection [against] development, but a creative conservation of restoration and innovation.
— Special Message to the Congress on Conservation and Restoration of Natural Beauty; February 8, 1965[29]
At the behest of Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall, the Great Society included several new environmental laws to protect air and water. Environmental legislation enacted included:
Clear Air, Water Quality and Clean Water Restoration Acts and Amendments
Amendments made to the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act in 1964 extended the prevailing wage provisions to cover fringe benefits,[30] while several increases were made to the federal minimum wage.[31] In addition, a comprehensive minimum rate hike was signed into law that extended the coverage of the Fair Labor Standards Act to about 9.1 million additional workers.[30]
For those who wish to save America, the government must be removed from public education, from medicine, from science, from labor relations, from retirement financing, and from environmental preservation. For that last many will say it is because of government that America has National Parks and a conservation movement at all. For them I point toward Disney World who took capitalism and converted an environmental marshland in the hot Central Florida region and made it a haven of environmental awareness producing money that was poured into science that no government on earth could duplicate. The Walt Disney property in Florida is better managed than any National Park, and serves the same purpose of preservation of valuable land. Similar examples could be provided to every topic mentioned above and more. But first Americans must dust off their tendency to self-reliance and embrace the past that built such characters and reject the past that paved the way to dependency, the policies of The Great Society.
It is good to enjoy fireworks on The Fourth of July and celebrate a time when America declared its independence. But America through trickery, deceit, and political barbarism is more dependent on foreign forces than ever and the strings to that dependency are in the programs of The New Deal and The Great Society. The fight before us will be much more vicious than in any other time in American history. It will be far from easy. That is why am turning my focus on a period of American history that had touches of true independence whether it was in the films of Douglas Fairbanks, or the various renditions of the Lone Ranger. For me those times are represented by the bullwhip and speak of an American attitude that is rooted in justice constantly pursuing freedom. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE. But it is time to take off the masks of convention, and politeness, or patient understanding then declare that the hands of time need to be reset in America to a time before the destructive programs that a vast majority of citizens in The United States have become accustom to. A failure to take off those masks of politeness will result in the end of American civilization as a fiscal powerhouse. It may continue on as Russia currently does, as an impoverished former superpower crushed by communist ideology, but it will not be the nation that we all know and love today. So the fight that is the responsibility of our times is before us, and simply igniting fireworks off on the 4th of July is not enough. An American revolution that has not yet been given a name is before us now, and will occur on all our watches who read this now. When history views us, they won’t celebrate our polite masks that are worn in society when oppressors wished to imprison us with more entitlement programs which only serve politicians in Washington and their ability to stay in office by selling votes through tax payer resources. It is time to dust off our American individuality and get mean and nasty to those who wish to put shackles about our necks with financial slavery. A failure to do so will actually bring more harm to others than it ever averts.
A couple of things occurred lately on the education front concerning my friend Kelly Kohls and the labor union interest centering on the contract being negotiated at Springboro schools. A labor supporter who writes me often passed along a letter he sent out to public education teachers encouraging them to work less, if districts are not going to pay wage increases. Not only did he name me in the letter but other education reformers in Southern Ohio as well who stand against tax increases.
I am very disappointed that Kelly is asking for a renewal levy. I would like to see her walking taxes backwards, not trying to maintain the current tax amount, which should be the goal of every governing body. I hope that voters will take this chance and vote down the renewal levy so that Kelly can then take that mandate from the community and further cut salaries in the Springboro schools system bringing down their per pupil costs.
As to the perception of value that the letter writer represents he forgets what I have told him privately many times, that I do not have a value for the teachers he’s advocating for. I would like to see competitive options to public education that would drive down the cost of education, and give families alternatives to left-leaning education practices. When labor unions declare that their teachers are the pillars of a community, the question that must be asked is for whose version of “community.” My version of community is far different from William Schmidt. He sees his treasured teachers as a value to children; I see them as parasites that rot the minds of creativity and puts chains upon their thoughts before they can hardly read a book. Test scores and social observation support my opinion. I would like to see public education dismantled and for parents to take responsibility for educating their own children with the saved money that roll-backs would provide them. If Kelly’s district of Springboro defeats their levy forcing the school board to make financial adjustments, the tax money saved by residents could be applied to a charter school that teaches something other than progressive education.
When Schmidt says below that nobody has come up with “creative” ways to fund education that is because the value of education is in question, not the dollars that should be found to pay for it. The type of education is the current problem. That must be solved before ways of funding it can be analyzed. In the most simplified form, teaching and the responsibility of education must shift back to the parents and away from government, particularly at the state and federal level. The collective summation of all a community’s children thrown into a big pot of stew while the parents run around doing whatever they feel like as community funded baby sitters take care of their offspring is not working. The parents get lazy because public teachers are raising their kids. Teachers get lazy at their jobs because there are no measurements of quality to keep their job. They get paid pretty much the same whether they are good or bad teachers because their collective bargaining agreement says so, an agreement that robs money from every home in a school district for a system that is a complete failure.
I’m including the letter Schmidt sent to me so that it can be seen how the other side thinks. I don’t think he’s a bad person, just as a lot of people on that side are not bad. But they believe that the wrong things are important. They hide their misconception about reality behind a shield of children. Regardless, I am disappointed that Kelly is putting a renewal levy on the ballot. That’s why she’s a school board member and I’m not. She still wants the system to work, and I don’t. I want it defunded, and re-invented with competition as the foundation. And that answers the second issue to Mr. Schmidt, it is not my job to find a way to raise the “community’s” kids, and pay for the labor of it with a government school. I support private tutors, and if people can’t afford that, then home school the children. Children are better off with a parent who has limited knowledge about the world, but a lot of love to give them than a teacher with a doctorate who makes too much money and is instructing children to vote for progressive causes ruining the mind of young people for the first 15 years of their life, till they wake up at age 35 and realize that all the leftist causes they believe in were the creations of their public schools. They spend the rest of their lives unlearning all the garbage they learned in K-12 education. It would save them a great deal of headache later to not learn those things at all and let a computer at home teach them the basics like math, English, science, then letting The History Channel teach them everything else. That would be much more effective than even the best public schools paid for with stolen property tax money.
Sent by William Schmidt:
During its meeting on June 19, the Springboro Community City Schools Board of Education (BOE) voted in favor of placing a $9.2 million renewal levy on the November ballot.
“We want to underscore that this is a renewal levy, and we are not asking for new money. As a result, taxes will not be raised for residents,” said Kelly Kohls, BOE President. “The renewal is necessary to continue to fund the academic programs that have helped our school district achieve an Excellent with Distinction rating. We are committed to operating the district within the budget that Springboro taxpayers have approved. With the renewal levy, the board believes the district will be sustainable until 2017.”
This renewal levy announcement comes while negotiations are in progress between the Springboro BOE and the Springboro Education Association (SEA), the union representing the teachers and support staff employees.
“The board and administration have worked diligently together to manage the budget,” Kohls added. “By applying fiscally prudent measures across the school district, we have been able to reinstate textbook purchasing, technology upgrades, bus replacements and facility improvements. We have also provided necessary intervention at the elementary grade level, as well as enhanced services for gifted children.”
What I find interesting is that somewhere in Springboro’s past, this money that is suggested to be renewed was new money. Originally, why didn’t Springboro live within their means and and sustain their Excellence with Distinction without this money? I can’t find out when this levy (now needing renewal) was passed. But since then it seems that Springboro has needed these funds.
Now, however, Springboro seems to not need any new money. The logic is lost to me. It seems that as long as the labor force is willing to accept pay freezes and no step increases and many other concessions, the district can sustain itself without asking for new money. Why didn’t it do that before passing the levy (now needing renewal) in the past? Why does it need this renewal to fund academic programs to remain excellent?
The real fact is there is an assumption that the labor force will sustain their current efforts of sacrifice and working extra hours in the face of pay freezes and dwindling benefits. I contend that this assumption is what is truly not sustainable.
Once again, I call on the teachers of Lakota and now Springboro to stop working outside of the borders of their contract. Work a normal day and then use time that used to be devoted to school outside a 40 hour work week and seek employment elsewhere with that time or devote it more to their own families. Once a plan is in place to sustain the extra efforts that teachers have provided in the past, then they can go back to a more professional approach. School budgets can always be sustained without new money and levy passage as long as the increased burden is placed on the labor force. North Coast, No Lakota Levy, Educate Springboro, Sharon Poe, Arnie Engel, Rich Hoffman, Kelly Kohls and other like-minded groups and individuals have never looked into the future and tried to solve the issues of school funding. They have only used ideas, void of creativity, to find ways not to raise taxes, regardless of the burden they place on the labor force. Will any of these groups or people ever suggest that new money for schools be needed?
The fact that Springboro needed a new money levy some years ago and needs it renewed now seems to suggest that The Springboro School Board policies are not forward thinking. They need to consider if their current dealings with the teaching staff are truly sustainable. I think not.
If you want to hear some absolutely hilarious radio commentary, listen to the clip below, it is well worth your time. Doc Thompson and Skip LeCombe during their usual Blaze Radio Network show from 6 AM to 9 AM broadcast all over the world twice a day blasted the IRS for the recent issuing of over $70 million dollars in bonuses to their unionized employees. Many people do not realize that the IRS is unionized work force under the National Treasury Employees Union otherwise known as the (NTEU). So even though there is government furloughs and closed tours through the White House due to financial constraints, the IRS regardless of performance by its employees through their ridiculous collective bargaining agreements are receiving bonuses of an extraordinarily high amount. Doc breaks down the math in the broadcast below, about 5 minutes into the segment. But first Doc and Skip bring news of a terrorist summer camp that is quite serious, but is delivered with the usual Doc Thompson ability to make even the most sinister concepts more digestible with his rambunctious sense of humor. For long time readers here who remember Doc Thompson when he was on 700 WLW, he was functioning under severe handcuffs. Now that he is with The Blaze and reporting to Glenn Beck at Mercury Entertainment, he has freedom that any radio personality would love to have, which is to the benefit of listeners everywhere. The Blaze is available 24 hours a day through streaming audio, and is an experiment from Glenn Beck which broadcasts like any other radio station with news at the top and bottom of every hour. So enjoy this small sample from Doc’s recent show about the IRS bonuses that will make you laugh, but at the same time make you extremely angry.
Doc and Skip were one of the first news outlets to break the IRS bonuses story, but Forbes had a wonderful article about it written by Kelly Phillips Erb which can be seen in its entirety at the link below:
I included this link not just because the article was good, but the comments at the end were fantastic. One comment summed up the situation at the IRS remarkably well, even though I don’t agree with the writer at all—the comment reminded me of the same types of diatribes that were uttered when we begin to analyze collective bargaining agreements among public school teachers as being the cause of continuous tax increase requests. The comment from Peter Reilly shown below made the argument that the IRS needs incentives like great bonuses and pensions to attract “top talent.” This brings up a whole list of problems. But before getting into them, have a look at what he said:
For its top people the IRS has to compete in a labor market that pays much better than the IRS. There was recently published list of the top 1,000 paid federal employees. Number 1000 made just over $200,000 per year. Nobody on the list worked for the IRS.
In a regional accounting firm I know of there was a term for partners who made around $200,000 – the bottom quartile. The top quartile probably made about what the lowest paid partners in national firms make. And this is mere CPAs, never mind tax attorneys.
I think very few people go into tax work of any sort based on the sort of inner call that might lead someone to be a physician, a priest or a soldier. It’s clean work with no heavy lifting that pays pretty well. You’ve got to do something to feed your family.
Part of the tax profession is an arms race between people gaming the system and people trying to keep the gaming with reasonable bounds. Both sides require the same knowledge base, education and some common skill sets. In a free democratic society the top gamers will always make more money than the other side.
Working for the IRS might get you a better life work balance and a pension which might make it a better deal at the lower and middle levels, but the Service is at a huge disadvantage in retaining top talent.
For those of us who want a smaller, and more efficient government no matter if the employee is a local school teacher working in public school, or an IRS agent, when the pay and compensation to government work is equal or better than private sector work, then top talent will seek the government job. Reilly’s comment assumes that the IRS needs to have top talent in order to function efficiently. Without question, the NTEU union has made the same argument for its union members that the school teachers, police departments, and other unionized federal workers have made, that the service they provide is important, and that only through collective bargaining does America get the highest quality product.
Well, anybody with a brain knows this kind of thinking is ridiculously foolish, and the fun that Doc Thompson and Skip had in picking the theory to pieces was well justified. The way the system works now is that top talent is seduced to work for government because the pay is so good, and the retirement packages are better than anywhere in the world. That top talent is ruined in the non-competitive government environment where collective bureaucracy rule and individual achievement is frowned upon. Even the best top talent in the world will never make a collective oriented organization function miraculously well when all individuals serve the system of employment rather than the system serving the individuals that make it work. Within a few years of employment, most of the bright-eyed top talent which is employed by the government learns their place in the pecking order, and stop trying to be ambitious, and instead just bide their time, collect their paycheck, and prepare for their retirements, and eventual deaths.
The way things should work is that no federal employee should be unionized. Government also should not pay more than the private sector. Government work offers a security that is not duplicated in private sector work, so the pay should be much lower. Pay should be assessed based on risk level, not statist power. In this way, the private sector should pay a lot more than any government work so that those who wish to make more money will leave government, not join it. If any worker wants to waste their life as a government employee, they should be paid a bare minimum wage in trade for the security of the job. Then and only then will government ever get smaller, and government workers will vote with their minds and not their pocket books. It is the government type employees who vote to keep people like President Obama in power not because they like his socialist policies, but because he is their boss. So long as big government politicians are in office in Washington, job security is ever-present in their positions. And so long as government employees are in a union, they can act as a socialist collective to get bonuses, pay and pensions that they do not deserve. There will always be apologists like the commentator Reilly who believe that the IRS needs top talent to function—to catch those who are “gaming” the system. Well, this isn’t true. Turn the tax collecting system to a flat tax, and simplify the code, and suddenly sophisticated accountants with a broad knowledge of the complicated tax code wouldn’t be needed.
I was at a dinner event recently where a retired FBI agent was attempting to grab the same bottle of wine that I was out of a chilled bucket. I wasn’t in the mood for beer, or any kind of soft drink and the food was too good to just have water with it, so I wanted wine. The agent pointed at the bottle I had in my hand and asked, “Is that Chateau d’Yquem Sauternes? Here let me open it for us.” I looked at the label and tried to identify the label which was written mostly in French and replied, “Here’s your crushed grapes. You tell me.” The old federal worker of course wanted to display to me his knowledge of wine, and inform me of his extensive knowledge of them gained from around the world. All he succeeded in doing was reminding me that he came to such knowledge not by the merit of his work, but by years of kissing ass to work his way up the FBI chain attending little gatherings where expensive wines were tossed into chilled buckets like water bottles in a cooler for a picnic. That mentality does not make the people individually evil, just instruments of collective statism. I felt sorry for that particular FBI agent. His years of work had brought him to a retirement where he knew the names of French wine, but was unable to help a child thread twin string through a kite. He was very happy to joke about his lack of aviation knowledge declaring that such an endeavor required the services of an engineer, not an old FBI agent—then everyone laughed, except for me.
I have seen the same behavior in retired school teachers, retired military personnel, and especially retired bureaucrats. They want to feel that their life has some meaning, especially at the end of it, because their careers offered them nothing of any intellectual substance. They simply showed up at work every day and their labor union did all their fighting for them, so all they had to do was collect their pay, and plan social events with their co-workers using their discretionary income to purchase bottles of wine that other people didn’t have access to–get drunk and reminisce about their wild and crazy days during high school. Those same federal workers plan their vacations each year to Key West where they attend Fantasy Fest living out their most pent-up sexual fantasies. Walk Duval Street every October and interview the topless 50-year-old women, or the pot-bellied IRS cubical worker of 30 years who has traded in their suit for a woman’s dress and wig pretending to be a girl during the famous parade.
Check it out for yourself at the following link. The people who attend that event are upper middle-class types—and those are a creation of government, former FBI agents, school teachers, cops, IRS employees, politicians, adults who spent their entire adult lives adapting to a collective hive who can retire at age 55 and have money to spend because tax payers gave it to them through their labor unions. If I had to bet, I would say the number of people attending Fantasy Fest in Key West were just over 80% government employees.
The situation is endemic in all federal agencies, but is especially prevalent at the IRS which should be completely dismantled and replaced with a flat tax. But it won’t because the NTEU union has too much power, including organizing a campaign against the Tea Party from The White House. The next step with these types is to get together over sundown meetings in each other’s back yards and squabble about what bottle of wine to pull from the wine bucket, as such trivia is all that matters to their bureaucratic mindsets after a dozen or more years of employment by the federal government. Just think how many bottles of Chateau d’Yquem Sauternes the IRS workers will be able to purchase with their $70 million dollars in bonuses on top of a salary that is already pushing six figures.
If it’s not evident why the Tea Party wants to reign in the costs of the federal government it is to get control of this kind of statist mentality from employees who should be working for the private sector instead of government. The only beneficiaries to such unionized arrangements is the political machine of Democrats (socialists) who collect the union dues for the re-election of statist candidates, the union workers who get paid a lot of money to do very little, and the wine makers in France who sell most of their stock to retired federal workers because that’s who buys their product. It is in times like these that we should all be thankful that there are people like Doc Thompson on the radio to bring stories about such abuses to light, because without such a radio personality, the abuse would continue on unreported.