This cat is spot on.....
By: Arkady Kamenetsky
White House and CBO are arguing over just how bad things are, projecting the ten year deficit to be between seven to nine Trillion dollars - reminds me of an old morbid joke. A doctor tells a patient that he has good news and bad news, patient asks for the bad news first. Doctor tells him that the patient has AIDS, the patient looks very upset and inquires about the good news. Doctor informs him that he has Alzheimer's and the patient relaxes muttering "Phew, at least I don't have AIDS".
Listening to the Congressional Budget Office and White House argue over our projected deficit is both scary and frustrating. Scary because this kind of debt is truly unsustainable, crippling and a destroyer of nations. Frustrating because both Republicans and Democrats have the situation dead wrong. Obama in his now regular tiring routine, accuses the previous administration of saddling the nation with crippling debt - I guess he thinks taking a page out of FDR's handbook is the way to go. News Flash, people are catching on to your shenanigans and blaming Bush will only get you so far. Yes, Congress during the Bush administration spent like drunken sailors while Bush was busy deciphering messages from the almighty, but Obama's spending makes Bush look like an amateur.
Problem with a vast number of Republicans is that they still subscribe to trickle down economics as the panacea to all of life's problems and unfortunately they have abused the concept of tax cutting so badly, that a good number of Americans vilify anything to do with Bush or Republicans. Yes, cutting taxes does work and yes it will stimulate growth, business creation, employment, etc, but the amount of lost revenue in combination with new growth does not by any means provide a license to tack on additional spending. Why? Because natural business cycles over the course of hundreds of years suggest that recessions will happen, whether you have intervention or not, therefore during these recessions government revenue will decline as businesses close down, products disappear, demand changes, etc. If after cutting taxes, spending does not shrink, government will find itself between Iraq and a hard place. We as a nation need to step back and seriously evaluate what we are doing, because this spiral of increased government spending, entitlements, taxes and wars will lead to our demise, just ask the Romans.
Instead we have an administration that blames Bush for spending, but in the same breath spends more than any other administration in the history of America and in record time to boot! Obama claims that his 787 billion stimulus package is the reason our recession has been stifled, but predicting when recessions start and stop is like predicting our deficit within 10 years. Catch my drift? Obama then wants to sell us on a two trillion dollar health reform package, not because it will improve our system, but because it will give him the warm fuzzies. Not to get all "wee-wee'd up" but Congress not the President controls spending, a good number of these entrenched old timers must be removed and 2010 might be a great start.
We need people in Washington, in both chambers of Congress to approach matters in an entirely new fashion. Instead of battling pork (which is certainly important) or reducing inefficiency in some random federal agency, we need people to question entire departments and age old methodologies. We need to question our entitlement programs and really ask the hard questions; can we afford to continue living the way we are operating? More importantly, why is our government the size that it is and what can we do to shrink it and not the kind of shrinking that happens to a newly bought t-shirt, amputate some ligaments kind of shrinking.
Here are some ideas that I will certainly write about in the future.
By: Arkady Kamenetsky
White House and CBO are arguing over just how bad things are, projecting the ten year deficit to be between seven to nine Trillion dollars - reminds me of an old morbid joke. A doctor tells a patient that he has good news and bad news, patient asks for the bad news first. Doctor tells him that the patient has AIDS, the patient looks very upset and inquires about the good news. Doctor informs him that he has Alzheimer's and the patient relaxes muttering "Phew, at least I don't have AIDS".
Listening to the Congressional Budget Office and White House argue over our projected deficit is both scary and frustrating. Scary because this kind of debt is truly unsustainable, crippling and a destroyer of nations. Frustrating because both Republicans and Democrats have the situation dead wrong. Obama in his now regular tiring routine, accuses the previous administration of saddling the nation with crippling debt - I guess he thinks taking a page out of FDR's handbook is the way to go. News Flash, people are catching on to your shenanigans and blaming Bush will only get you so far. Yes, Congress during the Bush administration spent like drunken sailors while Bush was busy deciphering messages from the almighty, but Obama's spending makes Bush look like an amateur.
Problem with a vast number of Republicans is that they still subscribe to trickle down economics as the panacea to all of life's problems and unfortunately they have abused the concept of tax cutting so badly, that a good number of Americans vilify anything to do with Bush or Republicans. Yes, cutting taxes does work and yes it will stimulate growth, business creation, employment, etc, but the amount of lost revenue in combination with new growth does not by any means provide a license to tack on additional spending. Why? Because natural business cycles over the course of hundreds of years suggest that recessions will happen, whether you have intervention or not, therefore during these recessions government revenue will decline as businesses close down, products disappear, demand changes, etc. If after cutting taxes, spending does not shrink, government will find itself between Iraq and a hard place. We as a nation need to step back and seriously evaluate what we are doing, because this spiral of increased government spending, entitlements, taxes and wars will lead to our demise, just ask the Romans.
Instead we have an administration that blames Bush for spending, but in the same breath spends more than any other administration in the history of America and in record time to boot! Obama claims that his 787 billion stimulus package is the reason our recession has been stifled, but predicting when recessions start and stop is like predicting our deficit within 10 years. Catch my drift? Obama then wants to sell us on a two trillion dollar health reform package, not because it will improve our system, but because it will give him the warm fuzzies. Not to get all "wee-wee'd up" but Congress not the President controls spending, a good number of these entrenched old timers must be removed and 2010 might be a great start.
We need people in Washington, in both chambers of Congress to approach matters in an entirely new fashion. Instead of battling pork (which is certainly important) or reducing inefficiency in some random federal agency, we need people to question entire departments and age old methodologies. We need to question our entitlement programs and really ask the hard questions; can we afford to continue living the way we are operating? More importantly, why is our government the size that it is and what can we do to shrink it and not the kind of shrinking that happens to a newly bought t-shirt, amputate some ligaments kind of shrinking.
Here are some ideas that I will certainly write about in the future.
- Get rid of Social Security: No more than a Ponzi scheme, foisted upon the American public during the Great Depression, broke, ineffective and woefully expensive.
- Shut down the IRS: Thousands of employees whose sole purpose is to understand the most convoluted and crazy tax code ever devised. Final effect of the progressive tax code? Rich hide their taxes, the poor do not pay them and the middle class gets screwed. Instead, implement a flat tax, a set percentage of one's income and be done with it. Yes, Turbo Tax might be out of business, but it's for the best.
- Get rid of Medicaid: The brother of Social Security, a child of LBJ's Great Society that needs to be put down. Broke, corrupted and ineffective.
- Minimize military bases around the world: We have too much involvement around the world, plain and simple. In the name of "protecting our interests" we have, pardon the pun, gone far beyond the call of duty. This one is a favorite of Ron Paul zealots, please stay away, I do not subscribe to your lunacy.
- Close down Department of Agriculture: Why should our government be subsidizing sugar? Why do we need to pay farmers anything? If people want food, farmers will grow it. Stop sticking your tentacles where they do not belong!
- Stop fighting the war on drugs: A war we cannot win is a war not worth fighting, a war that we should not have waged in the first place makes the situation critical. We can save billions by directing federal agents, police officers, prisons and our justice department to handle actual criminals - like people crossing into our country illegally! Why are we hemorrhaging money on controlling substance abuse? Absurdity to the extreme!
- Close down Department of Education: We most certainly do not need federal involvement in education. Give citizens their property taxes back and provide school vouchers, you will be surprised how private schools can impact the quality of education.
- Close down Department of the Interior: If you do not know what this department does, perhaps it should not exist.
- More...
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