Stop the Insanity

Not one person in the U.S. Congress nor liberal media is willing to admit that the accumulated federal debt is unsustainable.  Not one person, except may Ron Paul.

Karl Denninger at Market-Ticker.org has put out a pretty damning chart that is just down right frightening.  Here is the chart, and then we will discuss what it means.

In his own words, "Over 20 years, from 1980 to 2000, the slope of the line of debt accumulation was approximately 12 degrees.  From 2000 to 2008, or approximately 9 years, it was 26 degrees (more than double the slope over less than half the time) and from 2008 to today it was 64 degrees or again more than double the slope over less than half the time.  Note that this is just the public debt -- the problems in entitlement programs (internal debt) are even worse!"

 You see while, Greece is burning (literally), Washington is asleep deciding how to spend our money.  Despite the empty rhetoric (even from the Republicans), there is no serious effort to reign in federal spending.  In the current Presidential race, both current GOP candidate Ron Paul and former Presidential candidate and Governor Rick Perry have outlined ways to reign in spending.  Both have calls for the elimination of at least three federal cabinet agencies. 

While Athens burns, and Washington is gathering the kindling NO ONE is even remotely looking at the how our government spends money.  Any sane member of either chamber in Congress would draft legislation on day one of office asking for an independent review of all federal agencies and departments to determine fit or purpose (are they really needed any longer) and what resources (budget allocation, staff, equipment, etc) are required to make them efficient and beneficial to the American public.

With the billions spent on pet earmarks, surely members of Congress can find a thousands ways to cut federal spending without breaking a sweat.  But I am sure as every well-intended member of Congress, the city corrupts and the power overwhelms the desire to do good.

The time to use a scalpel of trying to reign in spending is over.  It has failed.  It's time to bring out the machete.  Because doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results is not working.  Stop the insanity.

Obama Doesn't Get It

President Obama's speech on the budget and deficit earlier today while again nicely delivered, failed to connect to reality.  Whether President Obama or his staffer wrote this speech, found here, is irrelevant.  What is relevant is that the context of the speech is purely ideological, and is rife with platitudes.

The President's emphasis and usual scare tactics that the Republican proposals will hurt education, harm the environment are just that - party talking points.  Obama's continual denial to the state of America's fiscal affairs is telling of an ideologue who is hell bent on spending money at all costs to advance an ideological agenda.  Obama is still in denial that even the IMF is warning the United States to get its fiscal house in order.

But we all know that if America gets on a path to tighten its belt, Obama's remaking of America to a socialist nation is in jeopardy.  Hope and Change will be a failed marketing campaign to get elected, and Obama will have alienated the extreme progressive base that bought the false hope and misunderstood what change really meant to our liberties and freedoms.

The more troubling part of Obama's speech is that for being a lawyer who did have to study the Constitution, that the cuts Obama is balking of should really be deferred to each of the fifty states.  Since Obama is a Statist who feels a big, central federal government is the answer and cure all to every one's ills, the notion of the Tenth Amendment is a foreign and failed concept. 

The continual attacks by Obama and the Democrats on the producers of this nations is getting old.  The failure of the Democrats and Obama to connect reality that the top 2.5 percent of wage earners of this nation because of tax law, may be an owner of a small or medium-sized firm or family farm.  Raising their tax base, especially in an extremely soft economy as we have now, could break them.  A higher tax increase could also force them to layoff staff to make ends meet.  Regardless, Obama is diving the haves versus the have nots and this is nothing less than class warfare.

Obama and his (failed) economic team fail to realize that America's punitive tax code is hurting American businesses and American families.  No longer is it advantageous for Americans to set up new business, or expand existing ones, when the odds are stacked against thriving in an environment that punishes success.   No longer is it advantageous to take risks on innovation when the odds of recouping the investment costs and making a profit are slim or nil.

While Obama and his hired guns may not deal with reality, this does not mean that rest of us have to buy into a failed America.   Those that still believe in the American dream must open their eyes to ideas and a vision that America is still a great country, with the best talent and can thrive once again.  The opportunity to explore your dreams, and the freedom to enact on those dreams must never be trampled on.  Since Obama & Co is not going to help you, look elsewhere.  You really have no choice.