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Quit Digging

My city, Washington, D.C., is going bonkers for Obama. So is yours no doubt. Shopping for party favors, I came across — in addition to key chains and light-up necklaces — T-shirts and coffee mugs emblazoned with the Anointed One's photograph. Jan. 12's Washington Post carries a story about Obama attorney Greg Craig. He took the job imagining he'd be confronting knotty separation of powers issues. And he may. But for now, he's "charged with stopping the commercial exploitation of his client's image — the Obama can openers, Obama chocolate chip cookies, Obama chocolate bars and the like now on sale just about everywhere."

I've never witnessed enthusiasm like this for an incoming president. There's always a degree of giddiness on the part of those who supported the president-elect, whoever he is, but today's excitement borders on worship. It's an interesting contrast. Times are pretty tough. Our economy is struggling. Unemployment is exploding. Once iconic American manufacturers, to say nothing of banks, insurance companies, and securities firms, are lining up for federal handouts. The greatest terror-sponsoring nation on the face of the globe is about to acquire nuclear weapons. And yet people are thrilled with Obama and convinced that he can tackle these complex problems.

I hope he can. But honestly, the noises he is making so far and his proposal for a trillion dollars in new federal spending are scary. Admittedly and sadly, this isn't much of a departure from the Bush administration's death throes, when the president — terrified of being tagged forever with the Hoover label — reversed a lifetime of adherence to free market principles to bail out a conga line of supplicants. (The irony is rich because Hoover himself doubled federal spending during the Great Depression. He became a Hoover anyway.) For the record, it should be noted that this was President Bush's self-description ("I'm a free market guy"), not a dispassionate assessment of his administration's economic philosophy, which was hardly small government.

The Democrats are in the driver's seat now. And with the exception of a brief period in the 1990s after Ross Perot made everyone deficit conscious, Democrats are the party of government — that is, the party of domestic spending.

Every indicator of economic decline seems to them a green light to do what they would have done anyway — party like it's 1933! It's not that they are buying votes. No, the times demand extreme measures.

But before the first mortgage defaulted, we were already on a fast train to fiscal insolvency. The problem of the aging baby boomers and the Social Security/Medicare obligations we've undertaken but cannot pay for has not gone away. It crouches just around the bend.

And if the Obama "stimulus" bill passes, our federal deficit will top $1.7 trillion next year! As Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute has observed, "If government spending provided such a wonderful boost to the economy, we would be in Nirvana already." Or, as a cartoonist rendered it, our economy is in a hole and the Obama solution is "shovel ready." The first rule of getting out of holes is to quit digging. So the spending, while cheering a variety of contractors, unions, "green" companies, mayors and governors in the blue regions of the country is very unlikely to affect the recession at all.

Meanwhile, that murderous debt just keeps piling up and piling up. How will we pay it back and maintain America's credit rating in the world? Raise taxes? In a recession? No school of economic thought favors that. Are we going the way of Argentina?

This is a country that has adamantly declined to face fiscal reality when it comes to entitlements. We want health care reform that expands coverage and reduces costs. We acquired mortgages on the hope that housing prices would rise forever.

It's no wonder that we want to spend/borrow our way out of a deep recession.

Obama will have a few weeks or months of maximum political influence. If ever there were a time to do the really hard things — reduce spending, increase the retirement age, introduce real competition to the health care system, cut corporate tax rates, balance our books — this is it. If Obama used his popularity to achieve those critical goals for our nation's future, he would deserve to be on all those T-shirts and coffee mugs. He might even be a candidate for Mount Rushmore. As it is, he and we are headed in the wrong direction.

To find out more about Mona Charen and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

Comments

2 Comments | Post Comment

Obama in the most powerful job in world is beyond Scary! Think of millions he's already spent on vacations, secret service, gas guzzling autos, his 'team' and the planned 'Huge Hollywood Party - his Inauguration! You know, the one where 'slugs are mixing with other slugs!' Just think what this is going to cost Taxpayers! Taxpayers were hoping Obama would use his common sense and being smart, that he keeps telling the news media he has, would be used to 'STOP THE TAX & SPEND!' "Obama is going to be icing on the cake for Bankrupting America!"

When Taxpayers hear the politicians' words ‘Selection of New Cabinet Members', they
know this means bigger government by telling you more infrastructure is needed to
create jobs! It's also saying, again, taxes will increase! Instead of cutting the salaries,
retirements, insurance, and benefits of politicians, their motorcades (and in each state),
their body guards (why should Taxpayers furnish them with protection, puzzling, right),
and their big SUVS, they continue to think they're Royalty and are entitled to all these
luxuries! I hate to burst your bubble but you're not Royalty! Where's the money coming
from!

Since the Politicians borrowed trillions of dollars, created Nafta and Cafta, causing
Americans jobs to be sent overseas, all this without the vote of the Taxpayers, it's time to
sell them a one-way boat trip for a million dollars, each, to the countries they've sold
American to with no return to America! This shouldn't be a don't ask situation but tell
them situation! Speaking of balancing the budget! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to
figure out that leadership no longer exists and common sense has gone ‘bye-bye'!

Bankruptcy is inevitable for “Freddie, Fannie, AIG, Banks, and the ‘BIG 3'!” Politicians
and CEOS are going to have to ‘go back to basic add and subtract methods, learn that
they have to work seventy-eighty hours week, for a change, get off their plush chairs, roll
their sleeves up, sweep the floor if necessary, and work from the ground and this time, at
a snails pace to keep up with wages being earned by Taxpayers!' Where was ‘common
sense' when politicians, automakers, Freddie, Fannie, AIG, banks, and insurance
companies when they're getting paid millions of dollars while the average American
gets paid $25.00 hourly (when they had a job) and thinking Taxpayers could
afford $100,000.00 to $200,000.00 home and a new car costing $20,000.00 to $50,000.00?
I don't suppose being trillions of dollars in debt, due to their spending habits, loss of all
furniture and textile manufacturing jobs they helped with incentives and tax cuts so
they'd move overseas. Where is the common sense in literally killing off the Americans
jobs with this move.
It's time to run America like a private business; meaning, President, Vice-President,
Secretary, and Treasurer. All these cabinet members collecting huge salaries and
benefits will have to come to an end.
Taxpayers know it's time to cut salaries to $12,000.00 yearly for all politicians. After all,
these Public Servant jobs are less than 30 days of service and, in today's world of
mismanagement, deceit and greed, this is more than they deserve.

It's time politicians and CEOS are held accountable. Taxpayers money handed out to this
department, that department, non-profit groups, public schools, social and welfare
programs that's definitely never worked! Never will! These non-productive people are
only creating terrorism on American soil!
Why aren't we prosecuting the people handing out Taxpayers monies and the people
who's receiving it?

'FAIR TAX', to include property taxes, should be top priority!
WAKE UP AMERICA!

Comment: #1
Posted by: Shirley deLong
Tue Jan 13, 2009 7:36 AM