• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • News
  • Topics
    • Common Sense
    • Congress
    • Debt
    • Government waste
    • Millenials
    • QuizCap
    • Taxes
  • Tools
    • Agencies
    • Memes That Matter
    • Research Library
    • Scavenger Hunt
  • Shop
  • What We’re About
  • Multimedia
  • What We’re About
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter signup
  • Give to the Cause

Our Government Has A Bad Case of the Dumbs

By Drew White | July 27, 2018

The official test results have come in and a diagnosis has finally been given. It’s taken longer than one would have preferred, but Americans now know what’s afflicting public policy. The U.S. government officially has a bad case of the ‘dumbs.’

Popular Posts
  1. Social Security: Good Intentions, Unintended Consequences
  2. Do You Know Your Federal Mascots?
  3. The Pentagon Cooks the Books Kevin Malone Style

The bad news is that this case appears to be both bipartisan and chronic. Regardless of which party is in power, poorly conceived policies are typically “remedied” with even more poorly conceived policies. These exacerbate our underlying condition of financial insolvency and create a debt spiral that will lead to economic chaos and diminished liberties for future generations of Americans.

The good news is that while potentially debilitating, this self-inflicted disease does have a cure: common sense.

× Follow us on Facebook and never miss a story.

All that is needed is simply the willingness of the patient to exercise it.

Case in point is the announcement by the White House yesterday that it would prepare nearly $12 billion in taxpayer-funded bailouts to farmers. These payments are intended to offset the negative impact of the Administration’s implementation of tariffs and an escalating trade war of its own creation.

You just can’t make this stuff up.

Many congressional Republicans have had the appropriate reaction of outrage. Indeed, as the U.S. has implemented tariffs on goods from the EU, Canada, Mexico, and China, these countries have predictably retaliated with tariffs of their own.

The impact has already begun to hit U.S. farmers, who were responsible for $140.5 billion in exports in 2017. Exports represent around twenty percent of total farm income on average. And while the negative consequences of such a trade war will obviously be felt by the specific industries targeted, it’s consumers and American taxpayers who will be hit the hardest.

Aside from the all-but-inevitable increase in the cost of basic goods, Americans are simultaneously being fleeced out of billions of dollars we don’t have for a problem that was created by our own government.

learn about our mission Artboard 1

Americans are simultaneously being fleeced out of billions of dollars we don’t have for a problem that was created by our own government.

The Weekly Chaser

Get the latest content, first.

Interestingly, this comes just as both the House and Senate passed a nearly $1 trillion food stamp and farm welfare bill that includes more than $20 billion in taxpayer-funded subsidies to farmers on an annual basis. Now the Administration is preparing to utilize the Commodity Credit Corporation—a program that is a relic of the Great Depression—to funnel another $12 billion in direct handouts to farmers from the U.S. Treasury.

With our national debt approaching $22 trillion (not counting unfunded liabilities from Social Security and Medicare), the Administration has inflicted economic harm upon the U.S. agriculture industry and seeks to remedy that by inflicting additional harm upon U.S. taxpayers. All while our national debt balloons in a ticking time-bomb for millennials and future generations.

This is a classic symptom of the ‘dumbs’: cause one problem and then double down on another existing problem to “solve” the first problem in what becomes an infinite feedback loop of stupid.

And as members of Congress loudly denounce these policies, a dose of common sense would remind these elected officials that they have the ability to treat this condition. They can simply exercise their constitutional power to check the Executive branch.

One would think that the bipartisan outcry over the Administration’s tariff and bailout scheme could—or indeed would—result in legislation preventing the Administration from enacting such policies without affirmative congressional approval. Such action is a necessary dose of antibiotics to counter the spread of the increasingly debilitating ‘dumbs’ coursing through Washington D.C.

Instead, the Senate has only gone on the record to express frustration that the ‘dumbs’ exist.

Yet, Congress is the very entity holding the cure for the disease. The fact that they haven’t used this remedy might suggest that they too have been crippled.

If that’s the case, then it’ll be up to the American people to forcibly inject the cure.

× Follow us on Twitter.

Of course, that’s assuming that the disease won’t have metastasized into something far more complicated with potentially lethal effects to our economy, our prosperity, and our future.

sidebar

sidebar-alt

If you liked this, you’ll love these

Senate Democrats Attempt to Pass $650 Billion Tax Cut

Read all about it Artboard 1

crypto dollar

Exploring Positives and Negatives of an American Crypto Dollar

Read all about it Artboard 1

Time to Denuclearize the Senate

Read all about it Artboard 1

Support Our Work

Federal agencies go largely unchecked, spending at will making use of inflated budgets. While some do very important work, we need to hold them accountable. You can do this by donating, emailing your legislator, or signing our petitions.

Donate Now

Sign Up for Pursuit Updates

Privacy Policy

Powered by the Foundation to Restore Accountability

Search
UNCOVER SOME GOVERNMENT WASTE?
share your opinion

Can you believe the US Government spends more money on it’s cable bill than on disaster relief?

NO! I’M FURIOUS! Eh, sounds right