While We Wait for Details about “The Deal,” Here’s Some Debt Limit Entertainment

Two of my rules for fiscal policy are:

1) The details of any budget agreement will be to the left of what is first announced, and,

2) The “spending cuts” in any budget agreement will evaporate within two years.

With this in mind, I’m not expecting to be overjoyed when we get the details of the supposed agreement.

So let’s pass the time with some debt-ceiling entertainment (who knew such a genre even existed?).

We’ll start with one of the entries in Powerline’s debt contest. This video didn’t win a prize, but I urge you to share this post widely because the creator highlighted excessive spending and redistribution, thus putting the focus on the real problem of too much government rather than just looking at the symptom of too much red ink.

And the video also is entertaining.

And for downright cleverness, let’s look at the horrible things that happen, if Iowahawk’s predictions are accurate, if the government shuts down.

Beltway policy experts begin living by own wits; after 45 minutes there are no survivors.

Roving bands of outlaws stalk our streets, selling incandescent bulbs to vulnerable children.

Unregulated mohair prices at the whim of unscrupulous mohair speculators.

NPR news segments no longer buffered by soothing zither interludes.

Breadlines teeming with jobless Outreach Coordinators, Diversity Liaisons, and Sustainability Facilitators.

Cowboy poetry utterly lacking in metre.

General Motors unfairly forced to build cars that people want, for a profit.

Chaos reigns at Goldman Sachs, who no longer knows who to bribe with political donations.

Mankind’s dream of high speed government rail service between Chicago and Iowa City tragically dies.

Sesame Street descends into Mad Maxian anarchy; Oscar the Grouch fashions shivs out the letter J and the number 4

No longer protected by government warning labels, massive wave of amputations from people sticking limbs into lawn mowers

New York devolves into a dystopian hellscape of sugared cola moonshiners, salty snackhouses and tobacco dens.

At-risk Mexican drug lords forced to buy own machine guns.

Chevy Volt rebate checks bounce, stranded owners more than 50 miles from outlet.

WH communications office reduced to sending talking points to Media Matters via smoke signals and log drums.

Potential 5-year old terrorists head to boarding gates ungroped.

Defenseless mortgage holders forced to live in houses they can actually afford.

Without college loan program, America loses an entire generation of Marxist Dance Theorists.

Embarrassing state dinners, as Obamas are forced to downgrade from Wagyu to Kobe beef.

President Obama places tarp over Washington Monument to conceal from Chinese repo men.

With the Dept of Ed shuttered, national school quality plummets to 1960s levels.

Anthony Weiner is forced to pay for own sex addiction therapy.

Displaced teenaged policy wonks organize under Supreme Warlord Ezra Klein.

Nation’s freeway exits croweded with desperate bureaucrats waving ‘will regulate for food’ signs.

State Department diplomacy becomes 38% less diplomatic.

WH holds rummage sale Rose Garden; all HOPE merchandise, styrofoam Greek columns 95% off.

Iowahawk, by the way, is the creator of the funniest public policy video ever produced. You will watch it more than one time.

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Is Pentagon Waste Even More Egregious than Welfare-State Waste?

I realize that national defense is one of the few legitimate functions of the federal government, but that doesn’t mean the Pentagon budget isn’t riddled with waste, fraud, and abuse.

Here’s a jaw-dropping example reported by Bloomberg.

A U.S. contractor in Iraq overbilled the Pentagon by at least $4.4 million for spare parts and equipment, including $900 for an electronic control switch valued at $7.05, according to a new audit. Based on the questionable costs identified in a $300 million contract with Dubai-based Anham LLC, the U.S. should review all its contracts with the company in Iraq and Afghanistan, which total about $3.9 billion, said Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen. “The audit found weak oversight in multiple areas that left the government vulnerable to improper overcharges,” Bowen wrote in the forward to his 30th quarterly report, released today. The contract in question was funded with a combination of money earmarked for Iraqi Security Forces and Army operations and maintenance funds. Among the “egregious examples of overbilling” by Anham were $4,500 for a circuit breaker valued at $183.30, $3,000 for a $94.47 circuit breaker and $80 for a small segment of drain pipe valued at $1.41.

Those mark-ups are absurd, but I wonder whether this example from the story is even worse.

In other cases, Anham used subcontractors to purchase items that could have been bought directly from the manufacturer at lower prices, the report said. When Anham was asked to buy a loudspeaker system to alert warehouse employees of any danger, it chose not to buy the system directly from the manufacturer at the retail price of $44,615, the report said. Instead, Anham sought bids from subcontractors and paid a company called Knowlogy $90,908. That price included $20,000 for installation, even though the system setup meant little more than wheeling it into place and plugging it in.

I think I made a mistake becoming a policy wonk. I could have a great career as a loudspeaker installer.

On a more serious note, it would be nice if governments didn’t squander so much money. Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad if some people went to jail for these rip-offs of taxpayer money.

And let’s not forget that the bigger issue is whether the national security of the United States is advanced or undermined by nation building in the Middle East. Or remaining in alliances such as NATO that lost their raison d’être when the Warsaw Pact disappeared 20 years ago.

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