Wednesday, January 25, 2012

So.. yet another campaign where the candidates don't even talk about the coming fiscal tsunami.

I've railed about this stuff before: following the Greek economic model is a recipe for disaster; following the Canadian model, where their economy seems to be in a hell of a lot better shape than ours, seems to make more sense since we seem incapable of figuring it out for ourselves.

Regardless, the only guy talking about it is Ron Paul.  And that's a shame.

Paul makes some good points, but his frightening naivete' in the foreign arena makes him an ideal applicant for a nut farm and destroys any credibility he has as a candidate for, well, anything... even his congressional seat, where the only people crazier than he is are those who vote for him at home.

Tonight, we were subjected to an hour long series of lies and delusions from the POTUS; false claims both about what's happened and what will happen.

How many times have we been lied to about jobs being the empty suit's "top priority?"

Well, we know better.

But that begs the question: instead of the three serious presidential candidates beating the hell out of each other, I want to know what they're going to do to put private-sector America back to work.

No, we can't raise taxes... anywhere.  Or fees either.

Government must do more with less.  At the federal level, we now have an unbelievably higher number of federal employees... a paltry 142,000... then we did in January of 09.  And the per-person payroll cost has skyrocketed.

At a minimum, they've got to go.  Those remaining, save for active duty military and intelligence, must face across the board pay and benefit cuts.

Social programs of all stripes have got to be cut... and sharply.  None of this moronic 3% crap, unless it's followed by a zero: as in, 30%.

Education must be cut: staff wage and benefits have to be gutted by serious amounts.  Retirement must be a stand-alone proposition like it is in the private sector.

Unemployment must be slashed back to 26 weeks.

Welfare roles must be obliterated; the nonsensical idea that welfare entitles you to pizza or burgers or tolls is insane.  Welfare recipients receiving cable, or internet or cell phones or alcohol or tobacco or illegal drugs... all have to be removed from the rolls... because if you have money for that crap, then you don't need welfare.

Every federal program must be cut.  And yes, that means medicare and social security.

Everyone knows it... but no one is talking about it.

Our own local waste of skin congresswoman won't even bring the CRC scammers to heel... let alone take the tough votes or make the tough demands needed for our nation's survival.  After all, what's national survival compared to Ridgefield Barbie's re-election?

But it doesn't end with her... she's but a symptom of the diseases infesting our government at most every level, a government that has brought us to this through their politics, their corruption and their incompetence... of all stripes and in both parties.

We are cursed with a system where the bizarre idea of putting one's country ahead of one's self is as rare as finding a fist-sized diamond in your back yard.

Our country is dying.  And no one talks about it.  No one does anything about it, except to bury us under an ever-increasing mountain of debt.

Everyone involved is afraid.  The idea of an America made great through sacrifice and self-reliance, vision and dealing with reality, the tenets of greatness which are but a shadow of a far distant past, are out of the realm of existence.

We eat our young, divide and conquer each other, become increasingly weaker while the world waits like a starving predator, pacing back and forth like a pack of hyena's waiting for the old bull elephant to finally tire and fall so they can swarm in for the kill.

The irony is that we all know it.  We KNOW it.  In our more sober moments, we see it happening with a frightening clarity.  But no one will step up.

No one will volunteer to take the hit.  No one talks about what must be done, acting, instead, as if nothing must be done... deluding ourselves much like the Jews in the concentrations camps really believed that what was going to come out of those shower heads really was going to be water, instead of poison gas.

That's us.

My God, we see it so clearly a blind dog could describe it understandable detail.

But we're assaulted by democrat front groups like the AARP, who act as if our economic future is secure and if there's going to be any sacrifices, it won't be on the part of our senior citizenry.

Hell, any effort to even try and require identification as an American to vote results in bigoted charges of racism.

Accountability?  Self-reliance?  Those concepts are as foreign in America today as Sanskrit.

And what are those who are. or would, trying to lead us going to do about it?

Why, act like it isn't even there.

Until it's too late.

Then what?

This isn't the first time I've ranted about this, and it won't be the last.  But I do get sick of the cowardice permeating our government at every level because it's far easier to turn a blind eye to this particular inconvenient truth then it is to confront it, address it, solve and conquer it... because, after all, if we don't look...

.... it'll just go away, all on its own.

4 comments:

Martin Hash said...

As long as productivity exceeds consumption, Government can spend any amount of money as long as it is collected back in taxes from the people who end up with it. Conservatives (and many Liberals) get caught up in the "home finances" explantion of economics - but that just isn't how it is at a national level.

Cutting programs may be a good idea for many reasons but balancing the federal budget is not one of them. (State budgets are another matter.)

K.J. Hinton said...

I'm sure the Greeks felt the same way.

But when you have a sick economy with businesses shuttered and real unemployment at a huge percentage, some estimates at twice the rate quoted at 8.5%... how do you keep productivity in the mix as a factor?

And, taking it a step further, why haven't we doubled the budget over last year if the amount spent really doesn't matter?

Doesn't our debt exceed our GDP? What about the falling value of the dollar due, in part to the national debt? Weaker dollar = many more of them to buy energy = weaker economy = lower productivity.

Doesn't it?

Martin Hash said...

I know you know the difference between the National Debt and the Deficit.

The National Debt is a goner - inflation is the only solution.

The Deficit, however, has two components. First, fiddle the rates until loan-out=taxes-in (Clinton did it at 39.5% top rate). Secondly, PLUG THE TRADE DEFICIT! $500,000,000,000 this year alone! OMG, no wonder a measly $1.2 trillion stimulus ain't cuttin' it.

As for productivity - I'm scared for this country.

Blogging around the Pacific Northwest said...

The only that hasn't happened? The president hasn't come before us within the past thirty years and made this a national issue from EITHER party.

This might be my generation's problem to solve from past generations brought forward?