Let's imagine that President Obama decides to go help out in Fargo, N.D., where they are experiencing floods. Mr. Obama enters the home of a flooded family. The water is already 6 inches high in the living room. The president produces a fire hose and begins to douse the room with even more water. "What are you doing?" cry the anguished homeowners. The president fixes them with one of his impatient looks and explains "May I remind you that I inherited this flood?"
President Obama has reminded us countless times that he inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit. Even if he were about to propose the most responsible, prudent, visionary budget imaginable, that complaint would still be petulant and unseemly. But considering what Obama's own spending will do to the deficit, it's jaw-droppingly galling. He now proposes to increase that deficit to $7 trillion in 10 years. And that $7 trillion is probably a low estimate (the Congressional Budget Office estimates that it will be $2.3 trillion higher). When the new spending for programs like Pell Grants, education for handicapped children and so forth comes up for renewal in a few years, Congress is not going to let it lapse. So, to review, it was terrible for President Bush and the Democratic Congress (the president neglects to mention them) to saddle him with all this debt. His answer is to triple it. That's showing 'em!
Some cynics insist that Democrats only decry spending they dislike (such as on the military) and Republicans only deprecate spending they dislike (such as on welfare). There's a germ of truth in this — but only a germ. In the first place, a significant number of Republicans chastise other Republicans for failing to live up to their lean government principles. And some Republicans are honest enough to criticize spending their party generally favors. John McCain, for example, has been a scourge of Pentagon contractors. It's hard to think of a comparably positioned Democrat who has targeted waste, fraud, or abuse in social service programs or education spending.
Even taking account of the Democrats' traditional love of lavish government programs, the current gusher quite takes your breath away. In just the first two months of his term, President Obama has proposed the largest increase in federal spending since World War II.
If his budget in enacted, the national debt will be close to 100 percent of GDP in nine years. The Obama/Pelosi/Reid triumvirate is massively increasing government debt at the same time that individuals are struggling to reduce their private debt. So Mr. and Mrs. Jones are cutting back on meals out at restaurants, new clothes, new cars, and fancy cell phones, while the government is going into deep debt on their behalf to pay for windmills, universal preschool, and lots of new transfer payments dressed up as "making work pay." In other words, the state is taking decisions about how much debt Mr. and Mrs. Jones will incur out of their hands. The Joneses will have to pay back the debt some time (or their children will), but they will not be paying off their own purchases or their kids' college educations. Instead they will be paying for the Democrats' dream agenda. As the Wall Street Journal's Stephen Moore notes, "Most of the money that has been borrowed since September 2008 has been used to bail out irresponsible borrowers, failed financial institutions and car companies, and for expansions of welfare programs. ... Any unbiased assessment of the return on investment ... for these programs would find dismally low payoffs for taxpayers."
The sheer size of this proposed debt is making even Europeans quake. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has three times declined the urging of Obama administration officials to mimic America's debt spree. Some Europeans are even becoming role models for Republicans. As Veronique de Rugy reports in National Review Online, Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., introduced an amendment "to ensure that the budget of the Federal Government is put on a sustainable path by prohibiting consideration of a budget resolution that does not meet the minimum standard of budgetary discipline as defined by the Treaty on European Union (the Maastricht Treaty): a budget deficit no larger than 3 percent of GDP and government debt no larger than 60 percent of GDP." The amendment was rejected.
Sen. Gregg, nobody's idea of an hysteric, is profoundly worried: "... if you take all the debt of our country run up by all of our presidents from George Washington through George W. Bush, the total debt over all those 200-plus years since we started as a nation, it is President Obama's plan to double that debt in just the first five years that he is in office."
To quote the theme song of the TV show "Monk," "If you paid attention, you'd be worried, too."
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.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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Dear Mona Charen,
I thought you and the readers would enjoy this article.
=====================================================
This was an article from the St. Petersburg Times Newspaper
on Sunday.
The Business Section asked readers for ideas on "How
Would You Fix the Economy?"
I thought this was the BEST idea....
I think this guy nailed it!
Dear Mr. President,
Patriotic retirement:
There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force
- Pay them $1 million apiece severance with the following
stipulations:
1) They leave their jobs. Forty million job openings -
Unemployment fixed.
2) They buy NEW American cars. Forty million cars ordered -
Auto Industry fixed.
3) They either buy a house/pay off their mortgage - Housing
Crisis fixed.
It can't get any easier than that!
PS If more money is needed, have all members in Congress
and their constituents pay their taxes…
=============================================================
MY COMMENTS, BELOW, ADDED TO THIS ARTICLE:
WONDERFUL IDEAS, BUT TAXPAYERS, THAT IS ONES' THAT HAVE A JOB AT PRESENT, KNOW THERE'S MORE TO BE ADDED TO THIS LIST, AS THE 'SHIP IS SINKING FAST' AND THERE'S GOING TO BE 'ABSOLUTELY NO ONE' TO KEEP IT AFLOAT!
1] 'CUT ALL POLITICIANS SALARIES & RETIREMENTS (LOCAL, STATE AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENTS) TO $12,000.00 YEARLY', IF THEY DON'T WANT TO DO THIS TO 'SAVE AMERICA FROM THEIR OWN DOINGS' THEN:
2] TAKE ALL THEIRE ASSETS AND BANK ACCOUNTS, WORLDWIDE, AND PAY OFF THE TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS THEY'VE BORROWED WITHOUT TAXPAYERS' CONSENT, AND PUT THE REST OF MONIES INTO THE TAXPAYERS' HANDS; AFTER ALL, THESE ARE THE ONES POLITICIANS HAVE STRIPPED OF EVERYTHING THEY'VE WORKED FOR!
3] SELL THEM A ONE-WAY TICKET TO THE FOREIGN COUNTRIES THEY'VE SOLD AMERICA OUT TO, WITH JUST THE CLOTHES ON THEIR BACKS, JUST TO LET THEM KNOW 'YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO START OVER, JUST LIKE THE TAXPAYERS YOU'VE TAKEN THEIR LIVES, JOBS, AND STABILITY AWAY FROM!'
4] 'CUT ALL SOCIAL, WELFARE, HANDOUTS, NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS, ALL COMMITTEES, SUB-COMMITTEES, ETC. AS THESE 'SO-CALLED ENTITLEMENTS' ARE THE 'STRAW THAT BROKE THE CAMELS' BACK!'
5] FREDDIE, FANNIE, AIG, INSURANCE COMPANIES, LARGE BANKS, CAR MAKERS, THAT CAN'T MAKE IT WITHOUT HANDOUTS & BAILOUTS (THIS IS THE POLITICIANS' FAULT) NEED TO FILE BANKRUPTCY. IF THEY FAIL TO RE-ORGANIZE, ON THEIR OWN, AMERICA IS BETTER OFF WITHOUT THEM!
6] ONLY 40% AMERICANS WORKING (AT PRESENT), 20% RETIRED, AND THE OTHER 40% THAT'S ALWAYS LIVED OFF SOCIAL AND WELFARE PROGRAMS, NEVER WORKED, NEVER PAID TAXES, AND CONTINUE TO EXPECT HANDOUTS FOR THEIR ILLEGITIMATES, HAVING MORE ILLEGITIMATES, IT'S TIME AMERICA SAYS 'ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!' MAYBE THEY CAN ALL BE SENT TO THE SAME PLACE THE 'TAX & SPEND POLITICIANS' ARE GOING TO BE SENT!
7] WHILE I'M ON A ROLL - "POLITICIANS HAVE TOO MUCH TIME ON THEIR HANDS, AND THIS IS WHY AMERICA IS IN THE SHAPE IT'S IN! WHY ARE ALL THE POLITICIANS ALWAYS GOING PLACES, SPENDING MONEY WE DON'T HAVE, JUST TO 'YAK, YAK, AND YAK, AS IT OBVIOUS, THEY "DO NOT" KNOW HOW TO DO ANYTHING!" THEY'RE DOING NOTHING 'CONSTRUCTIVE' FOR AMERICA, SO WHY ARE THEY STILL DRAWING A SALARY AND BENEFITS?
A WAKE UP CALL IS NEEDED IN AMERICA!
Comment: #1
Posted by: Shirley deLong
Thu Apr 2, 2009 10:33 AM
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