David Gold is surprised that freepers are supporting FDR/LBJ-scale Katrina spending

David Gold Show ^ | Sep 18 05 | David Gold

[churchillbuff]

Yesterday on his radio show, conservative talk host David Gold said the proposed massive federal spending for Katrina "relief" is a TIME OF TESTING FOR CONSERVATIVES. Do they really believe in small and efficient government - - or will they accept socialist-scale big spending as long as it's proposed by a Republican president?

Gold said he was surprised and disheartened to find many posters on FreeRepublic.com making excuses for the huge proposed spending. Bet they'd be sounding a different tune if Clinton were president and he had proposed it!

[oceanview]

and that is going to be a major theme of her 2008 presidential bid.

[Tennessee_Bob]

I saw that proposed on here the other day - was it you that proposed it? I'm in favor of it - but I can't see throwing money into a hole below sea level.

[reelfoot]

"Gold said he was surprised and disheartened to find many posters on FreeRepublic.com making excuses for the huge proposed spending. Bet they'd be sounding a different tune if Clinton were president and he had proposed it!"

Gold is right. If the massive spending proposed by Bush were instead proposed by Clinton, there would be few on this board supporting it.

Pushing spending limits while the other team is in charge while spending wildly while my team is in charge is not conservatism. The role of the federal government in this disaster should be limited. The affected states and localities should handle what private insurers and private charities do not.

[johnb838]

Low interest loans to poor peoples is tantamount to putting the shackles and the ball and chain back on them.

[cinives]

I support NO federal spending for Katrina relief except on federal property. Why do we want to pay for rebuilding a city below sea level ? Why do we think tax dollars should be spent, when insurance companies and private charity would be better and ensure that money actually gets where it's needed, instead of being spent on politician's new pet pork projects ?

These people wanted to live in a hurricane-prone area, without flood insurance, and they want us all to pay for their idiocy. They took federal dollars allocated to the corp of engineers for levees for years, and spent the money on everything but.

I'm tired of paying for other peoples' crises - that's what insurance is for and if they don't have it, tough it out. Get busy and work.

This is nuts. And if we keep going on like this, we will ALL be poor.

[johnb838]

David Gold is a conservative talk show host at KSFO

Really. He used to have a show in Dallas and would substitute a lot here in Houston. Good guy. Good takes. I like him.

[null and void]

First of all I've never heard of David Gold. I suspect you and some guy in South Bumkin are his only listeners.

You suspect wrong.

[meema]

Not all conservatives gave up on small government after 9-11!!!

[Captain Kirk]

Point taken!

[Binghamton_native]

I agree. I don't think people are realizing the extent of the blow we took. In terms of destruction and human relocation (not fatalities), 9/11 pales in comparison. An area as large as GB largely destroyed, at least 500,000 people displaced. Do we really think that we can take this kind of blow and there is no impact to the US as a whole? Look at the impact on Texas just in education alone. How does Texas recover this expenditure. Is there any provision for LA to directly re-imburse TX. Even if there were, the impact on LA renders them unable to reimburse TX at this time. We need to realize that the scope of Katrina is beyond anything we have ever seen. I realize that the scope is not greater in lives lost, but the scope of human displacement and value of property lost is beyond anything we have seen in this country.

[Artemis Webb]

"Excuse me, but please explain why I should pay for folks who were stupid enough to live in a coastal city built below sea level and failed to purchase flood insurance?

The are entitled to sympathy and whatever insurance they contracted for. Anything else is either extortion or charity."

Do either of you live in the Midwest? If a tornado hits your home should nobody care about you(in practical terms) because you chose to live in an area prone to tornadoes?

Do either of you live on the East or Gulf Coast? Should nobody care about you(in practical terms) because you chose to live in an area prone to hurricanes?

Do either of you live in California? Should nobody care about you (in practical terms) because you chose to live on an earthquake fault line? If either of you were born in New Orleans. If you grew up there. If you inherited property there and your children were growing up there would you say, "gee, this stupid town is below sea level I better move somewhere else?" I very much doubt it.

And if none of the above examples apply to you then tell me where you DO LIVE...and I will tell you what is wrong with that area that puts you at increased risk to loss of life, livelihood and property. Then I will ask you, "Why do you stay there?"

[arthurus]

Has anyone noticed the price of gold recently? It had a little "spike" to $468. That is inflation. It does notindicate the possibility that we may be in for some inflation. It is the immediate measure of the inflation that has already been perpetrated. The government is doing what it always does when spending goes wild for a time. It "monetizes" the debt. That means that it cranks out more money than the market can absorb and the value of the money declines. That is how the debt is reduced. In other circumstances that sort of action is called defaulting or welshing but since Uncle makes the rules he can do it. Uncle is paying back all the money he borrowed with the contracted number of dollars but those dollars are being shrunk terribly so that the only thing they will buy at the same price they did formerly is that already contracted debt and the holder of the debt is able to buy less with the paid back money than he could have with unshrunk dollars. Gold does not increase or decrease in value, not by any rate measurable in a couple of generations. That steady climb is in shrinking dollars.

So then, for some that gout of moneywashing into the Gulf area is no big deal because it will not leave as much real debt hanging over us as it appears. We are already inflating it aways so the big bad capitalist bondholders will pay a lot of it.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"The republican president isn't delivering on Republican small-government policies, so what do we do?"

Take action by keeping our own financial houses in order, reduce our personal spending and consumerism, thwart the taxman at every legal opportunity, invest wisely, enlighten others, work locally not globally in the political arena, stay under the radar and hunker down.

When I grew up and became a taxpayer, I stopped kidding myself that ANY political party will ever make any real reforms in government spending and pork, or in reducing our national deficit.

I'm just being realistic and looking out for myself so I can continue to be a functioning member of society and not a drain on it. It's called living a conserver lifestyle, and it's called self-reliance and responsibilty. (I lean a little toward Libertarianism, as you can see.)

Free advice. Take it for what it's worth. :)

[Captain Kirk]

If "we're too far gone," why are you bothering to participate in politics? You'd do less damage (if you really believe that growth of bigger and bigger government is inevitabel), just staying away from the polls and focusing on your own individual and family pursuits. Since you are obviously not doing so, I wonder what motivates you.

[sinkspur]

They may whine but the sad truth is that Clinton showed more spending restraint than Bush.

Clinton gutted the military and allowed terrorism to take root. He simply did not take bin Laden or alQaeda seriously.

Clinton's eight years was a vacation from history. The stuff he cared about, like school uniforms and midnight basketball, are so insignificant in light of 9/11 and this natural disaster that I'm surprised he has the nerve to say a word about Bush.

[Betis70]

He still lives in Dallas from what I understand (from a hockey thread we were both on in the last month). I like listening to him on the weekends on KSFO when it isn't sunny and nice. I missed his show this weekend, because well...it was sunny and nice.

[null and void]

Perhaps. The ideas seems to be getting some traction. Time will Tel (pun intended)...

The key thing in my version is that we're not "throwing money into a hole below sea level", the project is self funding based on fair market garbage disposal fees.

[Sally'sConcerns]

Do you realize the economic impact already happening because the port in New Orleans isn't being used. Probably not yet because it hasn't trickled down yet, but it will. The smaller ports who are trying to take up the slack are already overwhelmed. The Mississippi can't be used for transport by businesses further north.

The Port of NO is the fifth largest port in the world and one of very few deep water ports the states have.

Which private business do you want to rebuild the port? The very one's that are going to be financially impacted because it's going to be closed for some time?

[johnb838]

Federal tax dollars to the families of 9/11?

Oh, you ain't heard nothin' yet.

I heard a guy on the radio over the weekend arguing with Rusty Humphries about why the 9-11 families got between $875K-1.4MM and the po' people have only gotten a lousy $2000.

Humphries tried the argument that the people in the towers had a lifetime expectency of earning a lot more, and besides that was an enemy attack, not a natural disaster. I thought that was pretty thin. The govt opened a big can of worms with that payout.

Expect to hear a lot more of this in coming weeks.