January 27, 2005
Deficit spending
A great many people are doing the chicken little dance in reference to the economy, citing a debt approaching the trillion dollar mark.
The deficit IS a cause for concern, but if you look over the economies of past years and adjust the present deficit as a percentage of GDP, you come to realize that the situation isn't as dire as the Tax and Spend, would be controllers of the economy, would have you believe.
The most important thing we could do to help the economy right now is to drastically cut federal spending; something that President Bush has shown himself to be woefully inept at. The President should lead the charge in cutting spending in real terms, instead he seems content to allow rises in almost every area, or at the most, a halt in raises without actually doing any cutting.
I think one step would be to get the federal government out of those areas that that the Constitution does not give over to the Federal level of government.
Education controlled by the NEA would be my choice for the first to go, not that I believe that will happen any time soon.
We need to return to a more self-reliant mode. The "progressives" would have you believe that more government intervention is the answer to every problem. "Let the government pay for it" is their central meme, forgetting that government in itself has no money, it is the money of the citizens, and the higher ratio of that money taken from those citizens, the greater the problems become; and the more dependant the citizens become on the public teat, the greater the control the government has over those citizens.
Freedom entails a certain amount of risk and personal responsiblity. As Benjamin Franklin once said: "Those that would give up a little freedom for a little security deserve neither."
Posted by Delftsman3 at January 27, 2005 01:48 AMThe NEA is too much like the ACLU. Eliminate both and unnecessary costs will go down.
Posted by: Jack at January 27, 2005 02:27 AMThat is how it always is. Try and compare todays Defecit with one a decade or more ago. Don't bother adjusting for inflation just throw the numbers around to scare people.
Silly really
SlagleRock Out!
Posted by: SlagleRock at January 27, 2005 06:00 AMThe graph is interesting. And I would certainly agree that some cuts are in order. Why don't we simply do away with the Army, Marines, and most of Air Force and Navy. We can keep three or four nuclear subs in good running order and if a country has the audacity to atatck us, we can nuke it. It would mean not running around the world playing the part of the not-so-quiet American, but we could get used to it. And the savings would solve all our current fiscal problems overnight.
Posted by: Karlo at January 27, 2005 05:33 PM"Why don't we simply do away with the Army, Marines, and most of Air Force and Navy..."
Right Karlo, let's eliminate the main CONSTITUTIONALLY MANDATED responsibility of the federal government to support all the non-mandated social engineering programs.
I know your comment wasn't a serious proposal, But some of the more extreme wings of the Left would consider it so.
I know that as a practical matter, most of the programs that I would consider as expendable WON'T be done away with, but I do think that an honest reassesment of all government expenditures and elemination/restructuring of those that are proved to be wastefull/inefficiant would go a long way to reducing the deficit.
Posted by: delftsman3 at January 27, 2005 07:46 PMAll this graph shows is that President George H.W. Bush was a far better President than many would acknowledge and probably should have been re-elected.
As far as the economy is concerned any rational person has to acknowledge that the bulk of economic change is the result of the administration prior. Bush Sr. did a good job and it lead to a surplus under Clit-on then he screwed the pooch and sent it downhill for George Jr.
SlagleRock Out!
Posted by: SlagleRock at January 27, 2005 07:55 PMWell, the dot-com bust and 9/11 had something to do with it too, but your are correct that Clinton left office at the start of a recession; and Junior had at least something to do with mitigating the effects of it.
Posted by: delftsman3 at January 27, 2005 08:34 PM"Right Karlo, let's eliminate the main CONSTITUTIONALLY MANDATED responsibility of the federal government to support all the non-mandated social engineering programs."
Are building roads and schools social-engineering projects (unless we're building them next to bases overseas)?
Posted by: Karlo at January 31, 2005 09:27 PMKarlo, Schools are DEFINATELY social engineering projects, the way education is being (mis)used today.
Roads can be too... Just ask some small towns what happened to them when planners decided NOT to build an off ramp to their town when the new super-highway was built.
The point is that there IS NO CONSTITUTIONAL mandate that schools OR roads are the responsibility of the Federal government; while defense of the nation IS mandated.
Posted by: delftsman3 at February 2, 2005 01:14 AM