Posted on 10/12/2012 5:33:16 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The opening line of the Beatles’ iconic “Sergeant Pepper’s” album is echoing in my thought: “It was 20 years ago today…” Well, not quite to the day, but 20 years ago I published an article titled, “$4 Trillion and Counting.” In it, I despaired at the rapid increase in the national debt from its first-ever crossing of the $1 trillion mark during the Reagan presidency to four times that gargantuan amount in only a decade.
Today, a mere two decades later, we have quadrupled the national debt again, to $16 trillion. (That figure represents the official national debt, but if you add the many “off-budget” items and all the liabilities that are conveniently omitted from government “accounting,” then it’s multiples of the official number.)
Who is to blame?
Let’s start by picking the low-hanging fruit: “progressives,” a.k.a, Democrats. The Dems always want more federal spending, higher taxes, more government. Indeed, there is no major area of economic activity over which they want less control. Whether it’s food, energy, housing, health care, retirement, finance, transportation, education, etc., they always want to expand the government’s scope and power.
The Democrats have led the way toward bigger government. They always succeed in getting Republicans to blink every time the debt ceiling is reached, because whereas Republicans are ambivalent and divided about Big Government, progressives are united and utterly committed to it. They do not vacillate; the Republicans do, and so they buckle.
Surely, though, now that we are racing toward a jarring fiscal cliff, the government’s credit rating is at risk, and major entitlement programs are on a collision course with insolvency, Democrats will compromise to fix these problems before it’s too late, won’t they?
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Well, hate to disagree, but I disagree. WE are to blame. Not only did we allowed it to happen, we begged for it to happen. We demanded that the nation spend $16 trillion since 1980 on a failed education system, we demanded that farmers be paid for not planting, we demanded that unemployment cover 2+years, we demanded cheap Chinese products at walmart, we demanded all these things and our representatives gave it to us. An now we have buyers remorse.
Greece may actually have a budget.
Indeed, politicians only exercise extra-constitutional powers because we let them.
If every pol got the boot whenever he stepped outside the bounds, none would.
Instead, “we” reward them with re-election for enacting “social policy” instead of taking the responsibility for charity upon ourselves.
Budget? What’s that? Why would anyone need one? ...especially when you control the Treasury’s printing presses?
Dr. Hendrickson, isn't this hyperbolic? VP Biden last night assured me that all government programs are solvent and stabilized and we have nothing to worry about. I was able to sleep very soundly last night knowing that Obama and Biden are at the helm of USS Solvency.
“Today, a mere two decades later, we have quadrupled the national debt again, to $16 trillion.”
Yes, the gubmint is spending like crazy but it is also due to the miracle of compounding interest.
I also saw the projection 20 years ago or so.
There is no “fix” for this mess other than an ugly reset.
The federal government needs major surgery. It needs to cut every non-essential program, needs to completely get out of the education business, needs to stop subsiding every industry, whether it is agriculture, autos or housing, and it needs to kill Obamacare. These are all matters within the exclusive jurisdiction of the states. The federal government had no business getting involved and we are seeing the result of the feds refusal to respect the Constitution. Let each state decide how much they want to tax their citizens to support public education, public health care, public housing, etc.. The smart states will grow and the stupid states (hello California!) will wither. Americans still have mobility rights and will decide whether to stay in a socialist, high tax state or move to a free market, low tax state.
The one thing the Feds are not doing. but need to do immediately, is completely seal the southern border and expel the millions of freeloaders who have jumped the queue. They are bleeding the border states through increased demand for education, health care and housing, and driving up enormously the cost of law enforcement. Sadly, there hasn’t been a word from Romney about border security in this election. A Romney government will slow the speed at which America is heading toward the cliff. but it will not change the direction. History shows that very few countries have had the political courage to support radical, massive austerity until after they have gone past the crisis point. It’s much easier to keep promising everyone everything until economic reality makes that impossible. Just ask the Greeks.
Key culprits in my view:
Woodrow Wilson (for ushering in the area of big, activist, interventionist Government)
FDR (for ticking that up by several degrees of magnitude)
LBJ (no explanation needed)
Richard Nixon (gave rapidly expanding government a Middle American Republican face, and through selfish stupidity opened the door to Democrats taking power)
Jimmy Carter (his defeat of Ford ushered in the era of Bailout Nation)
Tip O’Neill (he never really let Reagan do the things he needed to do to get Federal spending under control)
George H. W. Bush (that milquetoast campaign style of his gave us the Age of Clinton)
George W. Bush (for that massive prescription drug program that was not paid for)
Barack Hussein Obama (no explanation needed)
Get people back to work and Federal and State gov'ts combined will have an additional $2 Trillion in revenues and lower outlays.
Who is to blame? I’d say all our grandparents and great-grandparents who voted for FDR and worshipped until the day he died, followed by our parents and grandparents who voted for LBJ. War on Poverty? Poverty kicked our butts!
Finally, we’re to blame, ‘cause we failed to down the “hammock.”
Ever since then we have continually enlarged “entitlements” and made them “non-discretionary” spending so we cannot even cut them.
We need to accept it. The budget has to be cut. Most of the room for cutting is in Entitlements. Most of what NEEDS to be cut is in Entitlements. If that means people are going die because they don’t get government cheese, or Medicare and Medicaide won’t take of their illness, then we have to accept that. It is better than bankrupting the country.
Ping for later.
We the People....too comfortable letting activist liberals erode Washington from within for 100years.
Real Constitutionalists have always tried to ignore DC...rather than actively working to keep its powers limited and fenced in.
"The Republicans must share in the blame for the government’s fiscal woes. Other than Ron Paul, what Republican has refused to vote for expansions of government"
Have at it Paul haters. FYI, I certainly wish yall listened to me in 1999 and voted Steve Forbes instead of the idiot Bush. I told you so.
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