Stop bailouts
All the chatter about Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plan is starting to remind me of the chatter about global warming.
In both cases the politicians seem hell-bent at throwing as many taxpayer dollars as possible at a perceived problem without first deciding A) if, in fact, those dollars will cure the problem and B) how the dollars will be repaid.
In the case of global warming, there’s a ‘C’: does the problem really exist, and is America solely responsible?
There’s certainly no doubt that America faces the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. It’s reasonable that the federal government should get involved - and they have. Billions of your dollars and mine have already been spent on various bailouts and stimuli. That’s chump change compared to what the Obama team has in mind.
The trillion-dollar-deficit program has all the mindless force of an avalanche. Where is the voice of reason asking if the ‘08 billions have had time to work through the economy?
Where, oh where, is any plan to pay off the debt we as a country are about to incur? Why isn’t Obama telling us that we’ll all pay triple taxes in 2012 to pay for the stimulus of ‘09?
Where is Obama’s plan to freeze wages for government employees? Across the private sector those of us who are lucky enough to still have jobs are facing wage cuts. Where’s the hue and cry to do the same for federal employees? Why does the hue and cry exist only to increase our national indebtedness?
Therein lies to comparison to global warming. The media and the country have read The Gospel According To Gore and adopted it as Truth graven in stone and carried down from the top of a mountain by a wild-haired prophet in flowing robes. No amount of money is too great to be sacrificed on the altar of global warming, despite the fact that no other country in the world has any kind of enforced (read: expensive) restrictions on ‘greenhouse gases’. It makes no sense, at a time of national financial crisis, for the country to burden itself with additional regulations while the Chinese of this world continue to pump all sorts of pollutants into the atmosphere.
Did you know that the world’s climate changed in 2008? The globe cooled off. According to a Wall Street Journal report, three independent surveys showed ‘08 was the coldest since the turn of the century. That’s from the UN’s World Meteorologial Organization, NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, and the U.S. National Climactic Data Center. Why didn’t you hear that anywhere else? Because it’s contrary to the Great Guru Gore. Sure, one year doesn’t establish a trend, but it argues against spending billions.
Uncontrolled deficit spending, a Bush legacy that Obama is hell-bent on continuing, is simply wrong. We’re foisting off the financial responsibility of our folly upon our kids and grandkids. Someone’s going to have to pay the piper. Politicians don’t care. They’ll be out of office long before the bill comes due. Trillion-dollar deficit spending is unsustainable. When does it stop? Where is the plan to balance the budget in the middle term?
And where is the plan to turn America back into a producing country rather than a consuming nation? America, a few short decades ago, produced tractors, telephones, locomotives, newspaper presses. Now we produce CDOs, lattes, and tattoos. What’s wrong with this picture, and which of our elected representatives is going to do something about it?
More important, who among us has the courage and the foresight to vote against the congressman or senator who tells us he’s going to cut taxes? Ultimately, Congress has the power of the purse. Ultimately, tax cuts are bad for a nation drowning in debt. Who among us has the gumption to pay a tax bill so our grandkids don’t cough up for our irresponsibility?