America's Fiscal Crisis: Tough Decisions Needed Now 39 comments
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I love America. That is why I am so disillusioned by what our "leaders" have done to our great country. I use the term "leaders" loosely. Dr. Howard Gardner defines a leader as, "an individual (or, rarely, a set of individuals) who significantly affects the thoughts, feelings, and/or behaviors of a significant number of individuals." The reason we are in our current predicament is because, "We the people" have elected politicians rather than leaders. Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines a politician as "a person primarily interested in political office for selfish or other narrow usually short-sighted reasons."
The people we have elected to Congress and the Presidency are politicians who are more concerned with their own re-election, maintaining power, and enrichment of their financial backers than they are about our great country. Our great leaders included: George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan. A true leader tells the American people what we need to hear and is able to convince us to change our behavior. Our current cast of politicians, tell us what we want to hear based on polls that tell them how to best get re-elected. They spend our children’s future by dishing out election-year rebate bribes and foreclosure bailout schemes for votes. The only two people that I have seen on the political scene today who show the characteristics of true leadership are Ron Paul and David Walker.
Ron Paul has been a Congressman from Texas for 20 years. He ran for President as a Republican. The Republican establishment despises him because he has been against the Iraq invasion from the beginning. The Conservative media tried to trivialize and demean his positions. It is these conservatives who have sold out. Ron Paul is a true social and fiscal conservative. His consistent principles and moral backbone should be an example to all conservatives. I am a registered Republican and consider myself a fiscal conservative and social conservative. After 8 years of Republican control of the Presidency and 6 years controlling Congress, I’ll provide a scorecard of the results most important to the average American as of today:
click to enlarge images
You have to admit, this is quite a success story. I doubt that President Bush will be considered in the list of our greatest leaders. He is more likely to be lumped with such distinguished Presidents as Herbert Hoover and James Buchanan. He has single-handedly destroyed our fiscal situation by spending like a drunken sailor. The difference is that drunken sailors spent their own money. George Bush spent our money and borrowed the rest from the Chinese to pay for his wars. His spending and Alan Greenspan’s mismanagement of interest rates have led to our current situation. With the current bunch of imbecile politicians running this country, a Depression is a distinct possibility. If they start putting up barriers to free trade, we could relive the 1930’s.
In the data above, you may have noticed that the CPI has only increased by 30% in eight years. How could this be when energy costs are up over 100% and food is up over 50%? It is because the government manipulates the CPI in order to make it lower. Again, we have Alan Greenspan to thank. He is a very smart manipulative man. He realized that Social Security obligations will bankrupt the country. Social Security payments are increased by CPI every year. By artificially reducing the CPI, he has reduced the government debt by billions. Below is a chart that gives the true picture of inflation today.
If the CPI was calculated the same way it was when Paul Volker was the Federal Reserve Chairman, then we currently have 12% inflation, versus the 4% reported by our government. Which rate seems right to you? While the average American is struggling to educate their children, save for retirement, take care of their aging parents, and generally get ahead, the Treasury Secretary and Federal Reserve Chairman have been busy propping up bankrupt financial institutions who made billions in the last 8 years while paying their "Masters of the Universe" leaders hundreds of millions in salary and bonuses. Guess what they are using to prop up these bankrupt institutions? That’s right, our money. My money, your money, your children’s money, and your grandchildren’s money.
Of course, this is small potatoes compared to the current and future costs of Bush’s wars and the unfunded liabilities created by our politicians over the years in order to win re-election. According to Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Ronald Reagan, the cost of the Iraq war has been north of $600 billion and does not include the replacement cost of the destroyed equipment, the future costs of care for veterans, and the cost of interest paid to the Chinese to finance the war. Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winning Princeton economist, estimates that the war will cost $5 trillion by 2017, including $800 billion of interest paid on the money borrowed to finance the war. If I recall correctly, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld told the country that the war would cost $50 billion and that the future Iraq oil revenues would be used to pay us back. Were they being dishonest or could they have miscalculated by such an enormous margin? Larry Lindsey, a Bush economic advisor who suggested that the total cost of the war could be $100 billion in 2002, was fired shortly thereafter.
The human cost of the Iraq war is the most tragic, in my opinion. President Bush chose to put our troops in harm’s way and more than 4,000 souls have sacrificed their lives, while over 30,000 have been wounded. The tragedy is that no one needed to die or be wounded. There were no weapons of mass destruction, no links to 9/11, no relationship with Al Qaeda. Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld decided in September 2001 that we would go to war with Iraq. The neo-cons were looking for any excuse to attack Iraq. Therefore, they trumped up the intelligence reports to support their case. How many lives have been ruined (mothers losing their sons, wives losing their husbands, children losing their fathers) for the sake of a political agenda. I hope Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld sleep well at night with all of that blood on their hands.
Representative from Texas, Dr. Ron Paul, was one of only a few brave Republicans to vote against the Iraq War. He was ridiculed for this during the Republican Presidential debates. But, who is ridiculous? John McCain says we will stay in Iraq for 100 years. Ron Paul has pointed out the absurdity of what has happened in Iraq. First, we blew up all of the Iraqi bridges with cruise missiles. Then we borrowed billions from the Chinese to rebuild the Iraqi bridges. Meanwhile, bridges in the United States are collapsing and thousands of our bridges are rated structurally deficient. David Walker, former Comptroller General of the United States, has warned that the current unfunded liability for future Social Security and Medicare payments is $53 trillion, or $455,000 per household. This unfunded liability increases by $7 billion per day. To quote Mr. Walker,
"We are mortgaging the future of our children and grandchildren at record rates, and that is not only an issue of fiscal irresponsibility, it’s an issue of immorality."
There is no denying the facts represented in the following chart:
The Federal debt has risen from $542 billion to more than $9 trillion since 1975. Debt as a percentage of GDP, once at 35%, is now above 60%. This is not a situation that will resolve itself gradually. A dramatic change is needed within the next 10 years to save this country from permanent economic decline. Currently, each of your tax dollars goes to the following governmental programs:
We have a limited number of choices. We can either accept huge tax increases which would depress our economy or cut spending somewhere. The interest on the debt will continue to grow as long as we run deficits. We spend $12 billion per month on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The only reasonable financial solution to this crisis is what has been advocated by Ron Paul. Stop our empire building and bring our troops home from across the globe. President Eisenhower warned the country in 1960 about the rise of the military industrial complex. The Government Accountability Office just reported that 95 US major weapons systems have exceeded their original budgets by $295 billion, bringing their total costs to $1.6 trillion, and are two years late on average. We would save $1 trillion per year, by bringing our troops home from throughout the world. That could be used to fund our Social Security and Medicare liabilities for our elderly, fix our infrastructure, fund our energy independence initiatives, and pay down our national debt. The great empires of Rome and Britain were not defeated militarily, they went broke. We have a choice. Continue on our current unsustainable track or take dramatic action now.
David Walker has recently resigned from his position as Comptroller of the U.S. to become CEO of the Peterson Foundation. Pete Peterson was Secretary of Commerce under Richard Nixon. The Foundation’s mission is to enhance public understanding of the nature and urgency of selected key sustainability challenges that threaten America’s future, to propose sensible and workable solutions to address these challenges and to build public will to do something about them. These issues include: unsustainable entitlement benefits, unsustainable deficits and unsustainable healthcare costs. Pete Peterson is a Republican. His view on the Bush tax cuts in his own words is, "When we sit around here and talk about all these tax cuts and we say it's our money, your money and mine, I think we ought to be honest with the American people. In the first place, it's also our debt and it's our children's debt. But secondly, a tax cut isn't really a tax cut long-term unless you reduce spending. Because then it becomes a tax increase on your children. So we're inflicting this awful bill not simply on ourselves but most importantly on our kids. And it is that phenomenon that is very troublesome."
In conclusion, I wanted to provide a quote from Ron Paul that sums up our situation. In November 2007 Congressman Paul said the following to Ben Bernanke during Congressional hearings, "We’re indeed stuck between a rock and a hard place, and we don’t talk about how we got here; we talk about how we are going to patch it up. The solutions proposed so far – stimulus packages, bailouts and interest rate cuts – just amount to printing more money, which will lead to greater currency devaluation, contribute to the rising cost of living, and further squeeze the middle class and our senior citizens." Ron Paul and David Walker are honest, straightforward, brave men who have the best interest of our country at heart, versus the selfish agendas of our political leaders. I urge everyone to listen to the brave men and women who are willing to stand up to the special interests and lifetime politicians and bureaucrats in Washington.
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> jack
Ron Paul tells the truth and it hurts, it is frightening. Folks say, isn't there another alternative? There are a lot of alternatives, but the printing money one has worked yet, and I see no reason to expect it to this time.
Too big to fail? Soviet Union was pretty big, but the world and the various states survived and will continue to do so. We are so soft, will we be able to survive without McMansions, Mega-SUV's, and $4 coffees? I doubt it. And since most of my Generation will be taking debit into retirement and all be trying to live off whatever is left of Socialist Security and cashing out their 401k's at the same time, just what is the end game?
Anybody that calls Dr. Paul an idiot is either a PAID Blogger for McCain or has an IQ of 1.
We would be so lucky to have just a fraction of Dr. Paul's IQ and Economic Sensibility.
We will Write In Ron Paul if he is not on the ballot in November. Many say it is a wasted vote but the REAL wasted vote is a vote for the "Lessor of 2 Evils" because Evil is still Evil no matter how you look at it.
Tell the GOP that you will NOT vote for McCain.
LetterToGOP.com
Join your Fellow Patriots and help us Take Back America.
CampaignForLiberty.com
See you at the launch of the Campaign For Liberty in September.
RallyForTheRepublic.co...
Help us to educate the Republican Delegates.
DVDs4Delegates.com
ONLY A Doctor WILL HEAL Our Country,
Freedom4America Group
And here I grump wondering when our loons will go for an election north of you.....
Vote only for 3rd parties. pick one and get off your butts and help get signatures and recruit members. Get out in the street and off your pcs.
Tom Paine was a leader. without him we would still have a British king. 6 people came to his funeral. Washington, like Jefferson and many other early US POLITICIANS, was a slave holder (others just profitted from the `excess margin of utility` which slavery provided, which excess is WHOLELY responsible for the degree of Americas subsequent prosperity), slavery profiteers who could be bothered to fight for their own economic freedom only. Lincoln killed the republic and planted the shrub of executive dictatorship which blossomed with the current BUSH. FDR extended the Depression for years with bad policies (similar to the ones that will be used again this time). JFK and RR were good at blowing smoke up people`s butts, so are beloved, Carter told the truth and people still haven`t forgiven him. America has the government it deserves.
(google UA pilot Russ Wittenberg video.google.com/video... for the truth about 9/11)
To fix the mess
First we have to get rid of Debt-Money and make it clear that people who trust banks are taking a risk and taxpayers will not make good their losses, so fractional-reserve should be recognized as the form of gambling that it is and mainly become a thing of the past (at least for conservative investors). Debt-money leaks out its value like water out of a bucket with a hole in the bottom.
So we need our own currency. Fiat has been shown to be workable. Gold has always led to depressions because at the first sign of economic trouble, people hoard gold exactly when they need to be spending it. I vote for fiat non-debt currency.
The only unavoidable tax should be the one we cant avoid, the tax of printing more fiat money, which taxes everyone transparently and equally according to their respective wealth (in terms of currency holdings). Since everyone is taxed by the same percentage on however much of the currency they possess, there is no wealth redistribution inherent in such a tax.
In place of ALL income taxes, we should have a small and avoidable (by the use of cash) debit tax on all electronic debit transactions (1/2 percent or less will be sufficient) in order to pay off the national debt and fund government programs. As this is imposed on everyone equally, as all taxes and benefits and laws should be, there is no wealth redistribution inherent in such a tax..
A government is any entity that
- claims resources (property and the minerals and animals - including humans - found on that property),
- is willing and able to defend its claim to those resources, and
- decides how those resources should be employed in order to sustain its own survival.
Ergo, all property is private and owned (in actual fact) by whichever govenment is willing and able to defend its claim on that property.
(Some governments have a system of `free market` allocation based upon the distribution and sale of property titles, but these titles convey only `right of use`, not actual ownership, and can be withdrawn as the government reassesses its needs.)
All humans are denied free access to all of the property that the governments have claimed and actually own. Governments can and should pay compensation to all of their legal residents for having denied their residents free access to all of its property. Such compensation (say, $1000 per month of the new, debt-free currency for every legally residing adult - compensation for minors should be held in trust in order to avoid some obvious pitfalls) could replace all forms of corporate and personal welfare and social security the government currently provides and eliminate any need for minimum wage laws and most of the need for labor unions. Since everyone is getting the same amount, there is no wealth redistribution involved.
I believe the plan described above meets the parameters of Rawlsian Justice - everyone gets treated the same, yet the benefits acrue more to the least advantaged. Im not going to go into the ramifications but if you think about it Im sure you will see this could be very good for everyone and lead to less crime and better health and even less war (if we let foreign states apply for statehood like we did Texas).
Comments at alan_jacquemotte at yahoo dot .com appreciated.
(Note - See Georgias incursion into South Ossetia for an example of a government not being able to defend its claim. Personally, I think the South Ossetia invasion was a ploy to make the world look scarier because that scenario is better politically for the Republicans, and I dont think it will be the last we see of that trick before November. I think the BuSh Administration has more than earned that degree of cynicism. Remember Pat Tillman.)
Why We Need Ron Paul
by Jim Quinn
May 2, 2008
www.lewrockwell.com/or...
"Because of democratic policies we have the worse schools....."
"Look at the above pie chart and it will tell you why our school systems are in trouble. 5%! That's right, five lousy percent spent on "educating" our children."
I then wonder how much do you spend on your children's education? Are you putting 5% your monthly income away from their college education? My guess is no.
Why should schools be public to begin with.. why should the Federal Government be spending money on freaking schools? Where in the constitution does it say that congress shall have the right to create and fund schools?
they did'nt they would be on the streets everyday trying to stop it.No,I am sorry to say most Americans love violence and expansionism.
The key point to keep in mind is that we are all as citizens responsible for this mess. A majority of us voted for Bush in 2004, and by extension the war in Iraq. We have a lax attitude towards debt. We have done a pathetic job in saving for our future (witness the abysmally low average 401K balance of %50K), and we have plundered our houses with little regard (average home equity has actually fallen as the population got older instead of the other way around). Indeed, when was the last time you went to mortgage-deed burning party?
So, when pointing fingers at morons like Bush, at least keep in mind that we not only get the politicians we deserve, but also the ultimate comeuppance we deserve as a society...
Otherwise, Quinn nails it again with a well written, well documented assessment of the current financial situation faced by the US.
The average american voter is the source of government's corruption. They looked the other way when gov't representatives were immoral in their personal lives (private and public life are separate [not]). And how many have been re-elected even after conviction of serious crime?
In other words the american voter is to blame because we've taken pluralism and tolerance too far. The answer is for the average voter to turn away from molycoddling stupidity and immoral behavior in themselves and turn to the source of what made America great in the first place (Hint - not the ACLU philosophy).
Just interested,
Thanks,
Barbara
The American people have no spine. Maybe the illegal Mexicans will have to be the ones with enough spirit to fight for this country.
In reply to bk8 I say we are very near the conditions of the Great Depression. And I am against illegal entrance into this country.
In method I see a great difference between the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration. But in Finances and free enterprise I see them as the same. They are both bad for the country.
Ron Paul would have been the best thing that could have happened as far as a President; but what could he have really accomplished working with such a corrupt congress?
All who have entered the US illegally need to be sent back to their own country so that we may have more jobs for citizens. What ever happened to the rights of American citizens?
Though it is true that the lending laws were changed by Bill Clinton that allowed this housing crash, it is also true that bankers were not obligated to make loans to those who could not document income or even citizenship.
I am fearful that we may not have a legitimate election to give opportunity to correct this situation. It seems they intend on giving voting rights to illegal immigrants. Now, who do you think they will vote for? Hmmm, just maybe they will vote for the ones who have given them free citizenship and free medical care, and free education at the expense of American citizens who are jobless and poor because their jobs have been given to illegal immigrants. I would love to see every professor replaced by an illegal professor, and every politician replaced by an illegal so that they could get the point. Oh, well, they get it. They simply don't care.