The Cure for What Ails Us
In both debates so far, all 4 candidates were asked which promises and/or programs that they’d proposed would they not be implementing due to the current financial crisis. I don’t think any of them gave a satisfactory answer to this question, with Obama’s “scaling back” response being the only thing close.
If anything, this credit crisis should be teaching us one lesson: severely curtail borrowing. Huge debt is killing us. In the mortgage-backed-securities field, things were compounded when Bank A would take an IOU from Bank B and use it as collateral to get a loan from Bank C. Repeat this with Bank C and continue until you can hardly follow the trail.
The same goes for the federal government, who, in addition to the national debt already run up, plans to be the final resting place of this toxic debt. So now all are eggs will be in one unimaginably huge basket. If the bailout bill doesn’t do the trick and if foreign investors call in their chips, who bails out the feds?
Make no mistake; we are not out of the woods yet. Sarah Palin mentioned in the VP debate the need for American’s to do their part by not taking on excessive debt. (Personal responsibility; what a concept!) This should ring throughout Washington, DC as well. Spending needs to be cut, deeply and immediately. A trillion dollars in new programs are not what this nation needs at this moment in time. Soaking the rich to pay for more big government programs is just kicking the problem down the road. Soaking businesses to pay for them affects employment and prices in a negative way, so we all get hit by it (promises of aiding the middle class to the contrary).
What I am afraid will happen, however, is that once the current crisis is no longer front page news — when it’s financial concepts that the public doesn’t have time for — the politicians will continue their MO like nothing’s happened. I wish at least John McCain would get real with this issue, but he won’t any more than Barack Obama will.
And that’s largely our own fault. Too many of us have the “Ask not what your country can do for your” mentality. We’re buying the line that if only the rich would pay their “fair share” we’d be out of this mess, but we’ve bought into an incredibly selfish definition of the word “fair”. We say we want our politicians to tell us the truth, but our vote too often goes to the one promising us more and more for less and less.
The bill has come due. Let’s cut up the credit cards and stop spending what we don’t have. This is the first step to freeing up our politicians to tell the truth.
Filed under: Conservative • Doug • Economics & Taxes • Government
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On this I agree: We desperately need to live within our means. Economically, environmentally, globally and locally.
To that end, I believe many economists have suggested that McCain’s budget would be a larger one that results in more debt. I could try and find the source, if you’re interested.
I am interested, thanks. I found this page from the National Taxpayer’s Union which showed McCain’s new spending at around 92 billion vs Obama’s 293 billion. To pay for this by raising taxes on anyone at this point in time is, I think, completely ignoring the real problem in Washington; spending.
According to a Washington Post article, which cites a Tax Policy Center study, the Obama budget would potentially increase the deficit to $3.4 trillion (yikes! – that’s a Bush-Reagan-sized deficit, there) BUT McCain’s budget would increase the deficit to ~$5.0 trillion (and a trillion here, a trillion there and it really starts to add up…)
So, yes, I agree that spending is a bit problem, but only part of the problem. If we’re spending $100 million on a program, that’s a lot of money and we should be wary. BUT, if we’re spending $100 million on a program (such as prisoner education) that ultimately SAVES $200 million (as is generally the case in prisoner education/rehab programs, according to studies), then spending the $100 million only makes sense and is not part of the problem, since it ultimately saves money.
So, yes, spending is a problem, but the answer is not automatic cuts to any programs that cost money. Many of our gov’t spending programs are necessary and vital and ultimately save money that we’re going to have to spend one way or another.
Another instance of this would be infrastructure: It costs much less to maintain a bridge or a road than it does to replace them, or at least I’m guessing, I haven’t seen studies, but that seems logical.
It seems to me, then, that the best answer is not automatic cuts, but WISE cuts AND wise spending, where appropriate.
Agreed, but as I said in the original post, we’ve been in a situation for years where people have moved more and more toward an entitlement mindset. Before we can even discuss the nuances of what programs to cut or which return more for the investment, we have to cut through that false “fairness” ideology.
One poll said that almost 60% of Americans would like to throw out all of Congress and repopulate it, and Congress’ approval rating is about half of Bush’s pathetic numbers. And yet, incumbents keep getting reelected. As long as promises of pork keep the local politicians in power, all your nuance of what and how much to cut will continue to get lost in the noise.
If we could get Democrats to quit calling anyone who even dares broach the subject of social spending “heartless”, “racist” or some other epithet (and it just happened to me on this blog last week), I think that would go a long way to starting the process. It’s that entitlement attitude they foster that, I believe, is a major part of the problem.