Follow the Money

Money is fungible ….and finite.  It appears that the political class either doesn’t understand that or is willfully blind to those realities. 

As someone that reviews and assesses budgets in my professional life, I understand that cash is like oxygen to an organization.  If you want to understand what an organization’s priorities are and where it is really going, follow the cash.  It tells you everything about where an organization is headed. This concept applies in government as well as in business.  And in both places, people will often go to great lengths to obscure where money is really flowing.

To understand some of the Obama deals that Trump is unwinding, and to know exactly what the Obama Administration was up to, all you need to do is follow the money.   Often, the Obama deals were thinly veiled redistribution efforts; others used public funds to finance left wing groups; still others astonishingly funded terror operations and tyranny.  When you add it all up, it paints a disturbing picture of what the Obama Administration was attempting to accomplish- all outside the bounds of the intent of the Founders, who intended Congress to maintain power of the purse.

Number One.  The Paris Climate Accord.  Thankfully, dahling, we’ll never have Paris.  The pundits shrieked and stamped their feet after Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would not abide by the Paris Accord,  complaining about the abdication of U.S. leadership by pulling out.  The Paris Accord followed the Obama blueprint for international deals.  The U.S.  grants concessions and provides cash in the hopes that others will act beneficently later with no meaningful enforcement or remedy provisions in the deal.  But if you follow the commitments, you would see that the U.S. committed to reductions in carbon emissions now (with the loss of approximately 1 million jobs), but reductions by the other major emitters – India and China—would not start until the year 2030.  What do you think would be likely to happen when we ring the doorbell of the Chinese in the year and remind them of their commitment?  Only the hopelessly naïve would trust that the Chinese would live up to their end of the bargain.

But an even more odious aspect of the Paris Accord was the “green fund” under which the U.S. committed $1 billion (not appropriated by Congress) while India and China committed nothing.  These funds were to be used to finance “green projects” in developing nations.  The Chinese would not fund directly but since we are borrowing (much from the Chinese) to fund our deficit, we would be borrowing from the Chinese to hand money over to an international body which would, in turn, finance “green projects” in countries run by tinpot dictators like Maduro of Venezuela.  What could possibly go wrong?  Think 1,000 points of Solyndra.

Number Two. Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).  The deal with Iran preceded the Paris Accord.  Trump has not yet abrogated it but has “put Iran on notice” and initiated additional sanctions.  JPCOA was structured similarly to the Paris Accord.  We provide cash up front, permit the Iranians to self-monitor and there would be no real remedies or penalties if Iran is caught violating the deal.  Obama detached this deal from all other aspects of the relationship, including missile technology development.  As part of the deal, the Obama administration released Iranian funds held since the Iranian Revolution and shipped the mullahs $400 million in cash.  Not surprisingly, Iran and Hezbollah have since gone on a military spending spree, and Iran continues apace with its missile program.  Even John Kerry and Susan Rice admitted at the time that part of the funds would finance terrorism.  Of course it would.  Money is fungible.  Iran has some sort of governmental budgeting process.  The additional windfall of cash will be used to finance terror and Iran’s military.  The U.S. may be the only nation in history to finance the military buildup of a sworn enemy.

Number Three.  Government financing of leftist groups. Attorney General Jeff Sessions finally ended the Obama practice of using funds garnered from fines and settlement amounts levied against banks and diverting these funds to favored left leaning groups instead of back into Treasury where they belong.  This end around Congress was a clever Constitutional avoidance maneuver, designed to circumvent Congressional spending power.  The government threatened to sue large banks over transgressions related to the ’08 real estate debacle and purported racial bias.  Rather than face protracted litigation and trials, banks settled these claims.  Bank settlements totaled in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The Obama Administration sprinkled these funds to various “community group” instead of sending the money back to Treasury.   Of course, no vote by Congress was taken to appropriate these funds.

Number Four.  Planned Parenthood.  Planned Parenthood is fond of spouting out its misleading claim that only 3% of its services go toward abortion.  The reality is that Planned Parenthood is responsible for approximately one third of the abortions performed in the U.S.  Whether you agree with Roe v Wade or not, abortion is a pretty nasty business and Planned Parenthood has gone to great lengths to distort its business and suppress the callousness with which the organization and abortion providers view these “services.”    Planned Parenthood was caught on videotape dickering over the price of fetus body parts, and in another recent video taken at a conference of abortionists, the speakers glibly  talked about fetuses being “tough little buggers” and even guffawed at some of the practices.   It’s easy to see that some people do not want their tax dollars flowing to these activities.  But even worse, Planned Parenthood donated $730,000 to the losing Democratic candidate in the 6^th Congressional District in Georgia.  Since money is fungible, taxpayers are funding a Democratic candidate’s campaign.  If Planned Parenthood so desperately needs taxpayer funds to finance their services, then how can Planned Parenthood be financing the candidacy of a politician?

Fourth is NATO.  Trump was blistered in the press for chiding Angela Merkel for Germany’s failure to live up to its commitment to spend 2% of its GDP on defense.   Internationalists like Richard Haass were horrified at Trump’s blunt criticism of Merkel (and other NATO members) for not stepping up to THE COMMITMENTS THAT HAVE ALREADY BEEN MADE.  But why should the U.S. taxpayer continue to underwrite Europe’s security, especially when Merkel has opened Europe’s borders to Islamic immigration (which will add hundreds of thousands of dependents on the European welfare state).  Merkel won’t have to make hard budgetary and policy choices as long as the U.S. is footing a disproportionate share of its security.   With the U.S. budget in permanent structural deficit, this is simply no longer possible.  The situation is made worse by the Obama administration’s decision to end the “two war policy” –that is the policy of maintaining sufficient readiness to fight two major conflicts simultaneously.   Obama ended this policy just as risk of needing to fight two simultaneous conflicts has dramatically increased.  The U.S. is being challenged daily by Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and radical Islam.  Now, more than at any time since WWII, Europe needs to choose more guns than butter if it wishes to defend itself. 

Which brings me to Number Five and this one is local.  The Illinois legislature, led by Democratic boss Mike Madigan corralled enough Republicans to override Governor Bruce Rauner’s veto and passed a 32% tax increase with no structural changes in operations.  The entire tax increase will be eaten up by required pension payments.  But remember that money is fungible.   The tax increase is a transfer of money that would otherwise be available for taxpayers to fund their own retirement accounts to the pensions of state employees, many of whom retired 10 years earlier than workers in the private sector.  The net result is that private sector workers are slaving away to pay for the comfortable leisurely retirement of others.  And since higher education (education is preparing the young for the future) in Illinois is one area that is being asked to tighten its belt to provide for public sector pensioners (the past), the state legislature is effectively robbing the future to pay for the past.  In both instances, state government is taking resources from currently  productive people and businesses and future productive people to make payments to past political cronies to whom they have overcommitted.  Illinois politicians have figured out how to steal from our children’s piggybanks.

When you take the time to watch where money is moving, you will see that Western governments are underwriting Islamic immigration to the West, shortchanging the defense of Europe, financing the killing of fetuses and leftist groups,  draining education and productive workers to pay for fat pensions for state workers, and most hideously and perversely, financing terror.

If you want to truly understand where politicians are taking us, always follow the money.  The money trail will tell the tale.  And this is, in part, behind the blind hatred of Donald Trump on the left.  He has figured this out and is in the process of stopping the self-destructive horrible deals that have been crafted by the political establishment.