THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIII, Issue # 281, December 4, 2011
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
SPENDING MORE HAS NEVER WORKED!
By Alan Caruba
THE U.S.A. NOW ENTERING WHAT MIGHT BE CALLED THE "SECOND GREAT DEPRESSION": THE HUGE U.S. NATIONAL DEBT & DEFICIT -- DEFICIT
REDUCTION -- THE POSITION OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA -- THE POSITION OF THE REPUBLICAN MEMBERS OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES --
FAILURE OF THE "SUPER COMMITTEE" ON DEFICIT REDUCTION -- CIVIL SERVICE LABOR UNIONS & THE DRAIN ON PUBLIC COFFERS -- THE COSTLY FAILURE OF
OBAMA'S SPENDING PROGRAMS -- THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION'S THWARTING OF AMERICA'S TRADITIONAL ENERGY INDUSTRIES & THE CONSEQUENT
LOSS OF THOUSANDS OF EXISTING & FUTURE JOBS -- HISTORIC & CURRENT ERRORS OF JUDGEMENT CONCERNING THE NATION'S ECONOMY
FULL STORY:
Ask any financial advisor what to do when you are drowning in debt and they will tell you to spend less and pay down your debt. This is just common sense.
However, if you ask politicians what to do, they will advise that the nation spend more and borrow more.
Despite a huge national debt and deficit, the federal government just concluded its biggest spending year with its second biggest annual budget deficit. For Fiscal
Year 2011 which ended September 30, the government spent $3.6 trillion, an increase over the $3.52 trillion posted in 2009.
The budget “deficit” is the difference between the revenues that government took in and what it spent. The “debt” is the accumulation of yearly deficits. The U.S.
government has a debt of $15 trillion, and this grows by billions daily, due to the interest that must be paid on the amount of borrowing required to sustain the
government's operations. Fully 40 cents of every dollar the central government spends is now borrowed.
The Congressional Budget Office noted that the deficit is “greater than in any year since 1945,” when World War Two winding down. As a Wall Street
Journal editorial expressed it, “The Obama years have racked up the three largest deficits, both in absolute amounts and as a share of GDP, since Adolf Hitler
still terrorized Europe.”
In the wake of the failed Super Committee (Congressional Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction), charged with cutting a mere $1.2 trillion over ten years, the
Wall Street Journal editorial noted that “President Obama fiercely resisted even the token spending cuts for Fiscal Year 2011 pressed by House
Republicans earlier this year.” He continues to press for higher taxes on “the rich,” despite the fact that the rich pay the lion’s share of income taxes already. By
Obama’s definition, the rich includes anyone earning more than $200,000 a year. By most definitions, that qualifies as middle class, not rich.
We are entering a period that is likely to be called something like the Great Depression Two or 2.0. History usually serves as a guide and, as Hans Bader, Counsel
of Special Projects for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, has noted, “government spending (and budget deficits) rose dramatically in the Depression under both
the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations…(both) increased, rather than cut, spending in the Great Depression.”
It is a dangerous thing to cling to myths about the Great Depression. Bader says “Big government Liberalism is a religion, not a school of rational thought. A false
understanding of the history of the Great Depression is the cornerstone of Leftwing ideology….”
The Great Depression was a series of recessions. In the August 5, 2011, New York Times, Bader noted that “In 1937, the Supreme Court upheld
anti-business legislation that had been struck down by lower courts, like the National Labor Relations Act, in decisions like National Labor Relations Board v.
Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation. That made unions more powerful, led to a wave of costly strikes and discouraged hiring. The increased wages demanded by
unions resulted in employers laying off many workers.”
Does this sound familiar? Efforts by American states to rid themselves of collective bargaining, primarily with civil service unions, such as Service Employees
International Union (SEIU), is a reflection of the way they have drained public coffers with wage, pension, and health plans that exceed those of private enterprise.
Andy Stern, the former SEIU President, just had a commentary published in the Wall Street Journal in which he urged the U.S.A. to adopt Chinese-style
Communism!
In Wisconsin, Ohio and elsewhere, unions representing government workers and others in the private sector have spent millions to defeat such efforts to end
collective bargaining. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie gained national attention for his efforts to curb that state’s teacher’s union demands.
What President Obama calls a “do nothing Congress” is one in which his party controlled both houses of Congress until the 2010 elections. It will live in infamy
for imposing Obamacare on a nation that has flatly rejected it.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the suit brought against it by 26 state attorney generals. If permitted to stand, it will destroy what is widely regarded as the
world’s best health system, along with the historic interpretation of theU.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause.
As for spending programs, President Obama’s “stimulus” or his “green jobs” program have been a costly failure, along with the administration’s waste of billions
in loan guarantees to "green industries." Worst of all, the administration’s thwarting of the nation’s traditional energy industries, as recently seen in the delay of
the Keystone XL pipeline, has cost thousands of existing and future jobs.
It is a “perfect storm” of historic and current errors in judgment concerning the nation’s economy. Americans can only hope that Europe’s financial community
does not implode before the November, 2012, elections, dragging the U.S. and the rest of the world into another Great Depression.
© Alan Caruba, 2012
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Fiscal Policy: Taxation, Government Spending, & the Public Debt
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
The American Political & Cultural Left:
Liberals, Statists, Socialists, Marxists, & Other Leftists:
The Democratic Party, Academia, & the Mainstream Media
Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at Warning Signs, his popular blog -- and thereafter on dozens of other
websites and blogs. His monthly report on new books is posted at Bookviews.
A business and science writer, Caruba is the Founder of The National Anxiety Center, a clearinghouse for information
about "scare campaigns" designed to influence public opinion and policy.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues
Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity