Guess what?

Poor management didn’t bankrupt the Big Three auto makers. Congress did with CAFE standards and the two-fleet rule.

Farmer Brown’s rooster debunks global warming. But Congress is poised to enact huge new energy taxes anyway.

Congress insists on giving generous farm subsidies to wealthy people like NBA star Scottie Pippen.

Congress refuses to lower the corporate income tax. So American companies are branching to Ireland.

Congress’s stimulus bill requires a superminimum wage that will increase infrastructure projects by 10%, a sop to unions.

This is a small sample of the “dumb” things our United States Congress does. I put the word “dumb” in quotes because Members of Congress are not really dumb. In fact, our Washington DC policymakers are smart enough to raise the cost of American consumer products through nonsensical minimum wages, farm subsidies and corporate income taxes; prevent cleaner, cheaper, safer electricity by maintaining onerous nuclear energy regulations; misallocate America’s resources through detestable and undetectable legislative earmarks; force us to drive smaller, proven-to-be-more-dangerous cars with ineffective fuel efficiency standards; endanger America’s world-leading quality of life by yielding to global warming idiocy; erect artificial immigration barriers to world class foreign-born doctors, scientists and engineers; and condescend to Marxism by bad-mouthing winners in our capitalist economy, all with no apparent outrage by American citizens.

Guess what else?

Congress protects large corporations with tariffs and quotas that cause us to pay twice what we should for sugar.

Congress refuses to expedite nuclear energy, a clean cheap and renewable alternative to fossil fuels.

Congress heaps verbal and tax abuse on anybody able to achieve a profit, the ultimate source of all jobs in America.

Surprised? You should be. We elected all 435 representatives and 100 senators just as sure as cats clean themselves with spit. More mystifying, we re-elect them over 90% of the time. (One could ask, who’s the dumb one here.)

Want to get the goods on Congress? Read “Ten Dumb Things Congress Does”. These short, lively reports on Congress’s misdeeds will…

Help you actively engage in political conversation

Speak confidently about political subjects

Increase your knowledge acquisition

Build self-esteem

Promote your personal growth

 

Treat yourself to a hassle-free information upgrade.

Resist the siren song of junk TV for a half-hour each week-night for two weeks. Instead, read an article from “Ten Dumb Things Congress Does”, experiencing the satisfaction of learning something of evergreen importance, relishing the fun of yanking Congress’s pants off, enjoying the satisfaction of knowing what 99.9 percent of Americans don’t and investing in yourself by energizing your political IQ.

Realize a self-improvement goal; learn how Congress operates.

Know how Members’ self-interest erodes your quality of life, how they covet campaign donations, how they curry favor with “important” constituents, how they ignore complacent voters and how they carelessly spend taxpayer money.

About these articles.

“Ten Dumb Things Congress Does” presents ten issues, which your lawmakers do a particularly poor job of handling. As you read them, each article will teach you something new and unexpected like why Buy American laws are bad for consumers, why the author of Jurassic Park opposes global warming legislation and how the minimum wage harms the very people Congress tells us it helps.

As result you will be able to demolish ten sacred cows Congress holds dear and misleads you on. With our government poised to spend trillions of dollars on banks, housing, health care and energy you certainly want to know our lawmakers’ track record, and be prepared with a reservoir of your own provocative ideas to offer.

These articles are not simply a series of factoids strung together. Each is a seamless document that reads like (and holds your interest like) a magazine article. Because each article is concise, you will retain more of the content than had you read a book about the subject. That was proved by a major university study a few years back. On the other hand, each article will give you the basis to decide whether or not to do additional reading.

Why did I write this eBook?

The ten articles in “Ten Dumb Things Congress Does” resulted when a friend and I were discussing a controversial piece of major legislation that each of us thought was just plain stupid. I told my friend, “I’ll bet I can think of ten really dumb things Congress has done.” He just grinned.

I went home, got out a pen and tablet and in twenty minutes there they were. I didn’t even break a sweat. A few days later I decided to do the research and writing necessary to bring you this eBook. I enjoyed doing the work and decided to see if people will pay to raise their political IQ. If this eBook is even a modest success, I have another ten subjects for ten more articles.

Validating Congress.

When we buy a new car, we validate our choice through certain time honored and common sense traditions. We kick the tires, we check the factory invoice, we consult consumer and industrial reviews, we banter with the salesman, we test drive the vehicle, we read the warranty. We put a lot of effort into getting the best possible deal and we won’t buy poor performance!

Ironically we send a similar amount of tax money to our Congress every year and demand nothing about their performance. That’s a shame.

“Ten Dumb Things Congress Does” offers a fast means to learn how Congress screws things up. Members of Congress wrap themselves in a mystique of authority so that they never have to clearly explain to us why they pass the laws they do. “Ten Dumb Things Congress Does” enables you to “kick their tires”.

Let me describe for you the articles in “Ten Dumb Things Congress Does”.

Intro
Know more so you can demand more.

Buy American
Every country benefits greatly from imports because they keep prices low for consumers. Every country benefits greatly from exports because they fuel their economies. Yet our government erects and maintains barriers to trade that restrict imports and, through retaliation, reduce exports. Dumb.

CAFE Standards
Congress enacted Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards to force U.S. automobile manufacturers to build cars that pollute less. Unfortunately CAFÉ standards are ruining the U.S. auto industry. CAFE’s convoluted measurements and the “Two Fleet Rule” work against GM, Ford and Chrysler to where even the UAW (United Auto Workers) are ready to side with the manufacturers. Dumb.

Climate Change
When we read on Monday that it’s going to rain on Wednesday, do we cancel our tee times? No we don’t, because we know there’s a reasonable chance it WON’T rain on Wednesday. If computer models can’t predict the weather three days ahead, why do we pass ruinous legislation based on computer models trying to predict the weather 100 years in the future? Dumb.

Corporate Income Tax
Every dollar of corporate income tax we levy on business entities in the United States is a dollar of cost that must be covered. Businesses pass on that extra cost in the form of higher prices. This causes two things to happen, both bad. One, U.S. consumers pay more for the products they want; and two, our companies are less able to compete in the global marketplace. Dumb.

Earmarks
If Kansas City wanted to build a bike trail from the Country Club Plaza shopping center to downtown, is it rational that they send the money to do so to Washington DC? Of course not, but that’s how it’s done. First, Kansas City sends a million dollars to the federal government. Then they send a grant request to the same federal government asking for a million dollars to build a bike trail. A bureaucrat in the Department of Transportation keeps $300,000, sends $700,000 to Kansas City, and says, “Your bike trail is approved.” Dumb.

Farm Subsidies
A hundred years ago 97% of Americans were involved in growing food. Advancements in agricultural productivity have caused this relationship to flip-flop. Now, a relatively few farmers can grow enough food to feed us and many of the hungry around the world. Farmers tell us they have it very good. However, our legislators recently passed a farm bill heaping a pile of subsidies on US farmers totaling over $300 billion. Dumb.

H-1B Visas
Because the United States has an excellent university system, people from other countries want to go to school here. The document authorizing foreign students to be in the U.S. is an H-1B visa. The arbitrary restrictions of these visas limit a student’s stay to while s/he is in school. So, other countries send us their best human capital, we educate them, make them even more valuable, and then toss them out of the country. Dumb.

Minimum Wage
Congress frequently pats itself on the back saying how the recently passed minimum wage law will force skinflint employers to pay workers a “decent” wage. Not heard from are the inner city youths whom the minimum wage prices out of the marketplace for entry-level jobs. Dumb.

Nuclear Energy
The constant lament by Congress and the environmental lobby is that we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and decrease the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. Nuclear energy would do both. Unfortunately our government has placed insurmountable legislative impediments on the building of nuclear reactors. Dumb.

Windfall Profits Tax
Some readers may remember when, during the Eighties, Congress passed a 10% luxury tax on yachts that cost over $100,000. This was supposed to teach “rich people” a lesson. It turned out that yacht buyers are not stupid; they simply purchased their boats in other countries. Congress sank the American boat industry. Dumb.

Who should read “Ten Dumb Things Congress Does”?
Answer: Ambitious people who want to strengthen their political knowledge background but who don’t want to spend a lot of time doing their own research. Confident people who recognize that to discuss politics intelligently they need to keep abreast of what their Congress is doing. Concerned people who want to expose Congress’s shortcomings as a means to push for more open and frank discussions of what Congress does with our money.

So what’s the goal of “Ten Dumb Things Congress Does”?
To make controversial political information easily available for readers who want to raise their political IQ. The higher your political IQ, the less Congress can manipulate you.

Guarantee
If you don’t like the eBook, I’ll refund your money, no questions asked.

 

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