Generally I’m optimistic about the future. However, I’m starting to adopt Mark Steyn’s view of the world. Western civilization is getting older, not having children, and is in so much debt that the barbarians are ready to fight over what’s left. In a few years the United States’ interest payment on our debt will be enough to fund China’s military budget. Why isn’t anyone alarmed about this? A greater number of American citizens cannot see a future without their particular handout.
The farming industry has its stupid subsides. Health care is bankrupting the West. The United States paid for Europe’s defense for a half century and the continent is still going bankrupt. Shouldn’t that be a warning for the United States? If Europe is going bankrupt on unsustainable health care entitlements, government pensions, and bureaucracy why do we think this will it work in the United States? It’s just not liberals who are stupid. The Republicans have grown into government caretakers. No one is talking seriously about the world’s fiscal problems. Restoring the United States government to year 2000 levels would be a good start, but it needs to go back to 1960 if there’s ever a chance of climbing out of the hole.
What is the new answer from the conservative establishment? Rick Santorum? A culture war hero who is against free trade, in favor of corporate welfare, and thinks birth-control pills are a problem. Mitt Romney? The former governor of Massachusetts who thinks RomneyCare is fundamentally conservative? This is how a Republic ends folks. Since the FDR administration the populace has traded more and more freedom to the federal government for welfare, health care, and social security. None of these things are sustainable and the size of the government grows ever larger. The bureaucracy’s reach grows ever further. You can’t sell homemade pies in Pennsylvania without a permit. You can’t sell lemonade on your street without paperwork. Did you catch a fish by accident? Yep, the government has a role in that as well.
In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century the government fought large corporations. The same can’t be said now. Major corporations learned their lesson. Now they give generously to both parties. Their lobbying efforts have not gone unrewarded. The government has bailed out airlines, car manufactures, and banks. What is the risk in running your company into the ground if the state is always there to bail you out? It’s just not bailouts. The government has become a tool for telecommunications companies. The United States telephone, cable, and internet infrastructure is at the disposal of AT&T and Verizon. Not too big to fail, but too big to allow competition.
It should be embarrassing to the average American that our internet speeds are slower than Europe or that our airline industry doesn’t allow competition. However, most Americans don’t know. The product of a prosperous nation is to be run by corrupt leaders and corporations with too much influence. When you boil it all down we’re past the point of elections having any special significance. If you’re driving off a ledge does it really matter how fast you’re going?
Bureaucrats and corporations are corrupt, but they’re not dumb. They see the handwriting on the wall. This is a scary time to be living in the United States because some action has to occur to keep this business model afloat. Usually that means war. This time next year it’s likely that there will be a new President-elect, but I won’t be any more optimistic. The names change but the policies remain the same.
Ben Franklin would be labeled a right-wing extremist if he was alive today.
I hardly have the energy to write about the ongoing debt ceiling debate that has been going on for months. What is there that I can add? Democrats want to raise taxes and not cut a single dime of non-defense spending. It’s amazing how invested the Democratic party is in the status quo. They will fight to the death to defend entitlements as they are, not matter how outdated and not relevant to 21st Century America they are. What happened to Hope and Change? Can I at least get Change?
Raising taxes of any kind during a recession is ridiculous. It’s just bad economics. Over the last three years almost every part of the United States has cut back, except the federal government. Businesses have reduced payrolls. City and State governments had to make cuts. Yet, liberals believe the the federal government is immune to cuts. Once a government job is created it’s eternal.
The nation’s debt problem is too big for taxes; however, the American liberal fails to see the problem. They would rather punt it down the road another decade. Happy days are here again! How can a problem as dire as this be solved when so much of population is detached from reality? The War on Poverty has bankrupted the United States.
I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.
Ben Franklin wrote that 245 years ago and he is right. Over the last 70 years the left has incrementally passed well-intentioned legislation to help the poor. Poverty hasn’t been eliminated. In fact, the poverty rate was decreasing until the War on Poverty was enacted. For 4o years the poverty rate has remained unchanged. The cost of this grand experiment has pushed our great nation to the brink of financial ruin.
Entitlements haven’t lifted people out of poverty, but have made the poor, students, and the elderly dependent on government services. Now we all face economic uncertainty.
Remember how news outlets on the left lamented every single day about deficits under the Bush administration? Now that Obama is in the Oval Office the days of worry are over. It’s simply amazing how Time whores itself out trying to defend the government when there’s a Democrat in the White House. Today Time has an article by Zachary Karabell defending debt.
Worrying about debt is like gaining too much weight and worrying about the size of your clothing. America’s indebtedness would be sustainable and even healthy if the underlying economy were vibrant, innovative and strong and if federal and state governments could channel those moneys productively and quickly. The problem isn’t how much debt we’re carrying today; it’s whether the economy of tomorrow will be able to justify it.
Karabell goes even further suggestion that we should be “investing” more or in other words spending more money. While I agree with some of what Karabell has to say it would have been more applicable four years ago. Simply hoping the dollar remains strong and that interest rates stay low is not a recipe for maintaining a lot of debt.
I have been against the balanced budget amendment since I learned about it in economics. The reason to oppose it is simple. It hamstrings what the government can do during a recession. In 2001, when the economy was slowing Bush cut taxes (the wrong way) to help jumpstart the economy. Under the balanced budget amendment Congress would have to remove some kind of program to be able do that. But now I’m beginning to change my mind about the balanced budget amendment. Not because the arguments I just listed are incorrect, but because it appears Washington is unable to restrain spending even in the face of a fiscal catastrophe.
My only fear about passing the amendment now is that it might be too late already. Even if the government was in balance this year there would still be long-term problems with debt the U.S. has accrued over the past three decades. However, a balance budget amendment would force Congress to either raise taxes or reduce the size of government. Supporting a balanced budget amendment isn’t the best choice, but the only one that will force Congress to confront the problem. It is also an attainable goal. Congress was only a few votes short of passing the bill during the Clinton administration.
The GOP would be wise to make this part of their platform for the upcoming elections. The balanced budget amendment enjoys a lot of populist support and Americans are clamoring for fiscal restraint in Washington. The amendment would change the tone in D.C. for the next 20 years. It’s time politicians start figuring out how we pay for all these entitlements we’ve dreamed up over the past 60 years and stop worrying about adding more
For those that are interested in economics here is an excellent graph that shows how indebted the U.S. government is by historical standards. Harvard economists Greg Mankiw has a small right up on the congressional testimony of CEA chair Eddie Lazear.
The current debt level is not unusually high by any logical standards. In fact compared to the rest of the G-7 it is much lower. Keep this mind when Democrats complain about the current deficits. The largest threats to our fiscal policy are the long-term problems with Social Security and Medicare. Two problems the Democratic Party are completely unwilling to admit exist let alone fix. However they do have some great ideas about universal health coverage. If Democrats get their way we’ll be bankrupt even quicker.
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