The Faustian bargain the Republicans agreed to last August regarding this "Super Committee" was perhaps the biggest politial mistake in a generation.
Entitlements were off the table from the beginning once the debt ceiling "deal" was reached.
The evil Barney Frank, Sen "Dumbest Member of Congress" Murray, and the perfectly possessed Barack Obama could not contain their glee on Monday when it was announed the Dept of Defense would be gutted.
In August of 2010, Pelosi held a single vote, in a single afternoon when Congress was not even in session, to give away about $30 Billion away to teachers and state workers who support Obama and Democrats in droves.
Obama's "jobs bill" is nothing but more of the same - yet the Dept of Defense (one of the few functions of the Federal Govt called for in the Constitution) has been raped of $350 Billion so far, with another Trillion to go.
Until someone, somewhere, has the political courage to tell the 47% of American who are getting an EBT card, a Direct Deposit check, subsidized housing, or Federal Daycare - the word "No" - then our nation is on a path towards destruction.
“Until someone, somewhere, has the political courage to tell the 47% of American who are getting an EBT card, a Direct Deposit check, subsidized housing, or Federal Daycare - the word “No” - then our nation is on a path towards destruction.”
You won’t hear “No” from Boehner, McConnell, Romney, Gingrich, Huntsman, or anyone in the Bush family. Ron Paul sounds like he would say “No” very loudly but would also significantly cut defense. Bachmann, Santorum, Perry, and Cain sound like they might say “No” but not put up a huge fight when the Democrats and media came at them with a frontal assualt.
Electing a Republican President and Senate is not going to result in major change. It isn’t just the 47% of voters getting a check, it is all of the financial institutions and corporate parasites who have skin in big government. The cost of running campaigns today means almost every politician is owned by someone or multiple someones. Billions of dollars will be spent on the 2012 campaign on both sides. The people and institutions who provide the funding will expect and get a return on their investment. The moneyed interests have very different goals and priorities than the struggling middle class. In 2008 the Wall Street executives succeeded in getting the US government to bail them out and preserve their personal fortunes. They will not give up this new entitlement and will spend aggressively to defend their position.
The US economy and political system worked, despite the rapid growth of entitlement spending and corporate welfare, when the pie was growing. However, Wall Street and the multinational corporations were able to persuade our government to drop tariffs and trade barriers in the 1990’s. The resulting deindustrialization of the US enriched Wall Street and the executives at multinationals while destroying US manufacturing, many small to mid size companies, and the US middle class. The internet bubble and the real estate bubble created the illusion of prosperity to cover up the gutting of the economy and allowed government to continue its spending spree. Today, the regulatory, tax, trade, and financial environment is hostile to entrepreneurs so many people who might have started up new ventures will not. As a result the economic pie has stopped growing and is shrinking yet the entitlement voters and corporate welfare recipients have ever growing appetites. Now we are going to experience extremely difficult times and the decisions, or no decisions, made over the next year or so will determine our fate.
I’m not a Ron Paul fan and I don’t believe he is electable. However, he is the only player who is really talking frankly about the tough and significant cuts to specific programs that need to be made. He is also the only one talking about getting the budget balanced in 4 years and then paying down the debt. The rest of them are talking about trimming the budget and making the existing bloated bureaucracy more efficient. Once one of them gets elected they’ll be just like George Bush — playing the Washington compromise game and preparing to run again.
Our leaders are not deep thinkers and patriots concerned about the long term future of the nation. They are professional politicians who play the game to line their nests and massage their egos. Look at Gingrich taking $1.6 million from Freddie Mac to give advice as a historian. If he were a principled conservative, he wouldn’t have even considered taking such a deal. The fact he did just shows he is happy to be part of the Washington gravy train.
The other telling thing for me is the fact the Republican House allowed Obamacare to be off the table for the SuperCommittee negotiations. Boehner has done absolutely nothing to stop Obamacare since he became Speaker and the Republicans really aren’t making it a huge issue other than some of the presidential candidates mentioning it to call Romney a hypocrite. I suspect big pharma and big medical supply companies like J&J have already figured out how to game Obamacare and are quietly spreading enough money around the Republican Party to keep it from being killed. If the Supreme Court doesn’t rule against Obamacare in June, we will see the Republican Party opposition quietly go away and another big millstone hung around the 53% who pay the bills.
It is going to take a major war that threatens the homeland, or a total financial collapse, or both to effect real change. Unfortunately, the real change is as likely to be dictatorship as it is a rebirth of small government committed to individual liberty. Remember, Europe chose socialism and statism after the destruction of WWII instead of free market capitalism and limited government.
The USA came back strong from the Great Depression and WWII. At that time we had a common culture and shared values. In addition we had strong leaders who would put the nation’s well being ahead of petty political differences. Fiscal responsibility was ingrained in the DNA of our politicians. However, today we live in immoral times and our leaders in industry, politics, academia, and the media are self serving narcissists who live to line their pockets and exert their power and influence over others. The absence of shame, loss of common culture, and hatred for our country among its elites makes me believe a slide into dictatorship is more likely than a return to founding principles. As I look around my neighborhood and workplace today I see very few people who care enough about this nation to give their lives to change the course. I perceive most people will gladly accept chains if they can keep their flat screen televisions. Not unlike the Germans who sat cowering in their homes while the Nazis rounded up their political opponents, gypsies, and Jews. They delayed paying the price of their acquiescence for a few years but ultimately lived through the horror of war and destruction.
Inertia is a powerful force. Ronald Reagan slowed the advance of communism and statism but he wasn’t able to get the nation’s fiscal house in order. We came close to having our fiscal house in order when George W. Bush took office but he unfortunately didn’t have the backbone to say “No” and keep the nation on the road to financial security. Instead, he doubled the nation’s deficit in eight years and by wearing the cloak of a conservative while doing so, eliminated any remaining moral restraint in the governing class thereby setting the stage for the unconscionable and irresponsible spending orgy of the current administration.
For those who say Bush wasn’t as bad as Obama I say you are merely quibbling about degrees of badness. Doubling the national debt in eight years is irresponsible leadership. Period. Had Bush aggressively used his veto pen I might give him a little slack. Unfortunately, he gladly signed outrageous spending bills while adding the additional unfunded prescription care drug entitlement not to mention the bloated Department of Homeland Security and TARP. In the 2008 financial crisis he abdicated his leadership role to Paulson thereby allowing Paulson, Bernanke, and Geithner to unconstitutionally transfer the privately held bad debt on Wall Street to the backs of the taxpayers. The experience of eight years of the compassionate conservative George Bush give me little hope things will improve if the Republicans gain the presidency and both houses of Congress in 2012.
I deplore the gutting of the defense budget. However, the loss of our national identity and sense of purpose is a greater issue than the size of our army and navy. South Vietnam fell to communist North Vietnam despite having one of the most well equipped and trained armies in the world. Its government was hopelessly corrupt and its people did not care enough about their nation to carry on the fight once the US soldiers went home. We will see the same thing in Iraq in 2012 as Iran takes control when the US is gone. Afghanistan, another fragmented “nation” is showing the same thing — corruption and division into tribal politics. Is the USA today any different?
If our sense of national identity is lost, it doesn’t matter how much we spend on defense. Our nation will perish or transform into a brutal dictatorship to maintain its current borders. Obama knows this and uses every chance he gets to divide us through class envy and racial polarization.
Great sacrifices are going to be needed soon. If the nation has a shared sense of identity and purpose, its citizens will make those sacrifices voluntarily (as they did in WWII) for the common good. If the nation is divided into factions, each seeking advantage over the other, its citizens will not sacrifice and the government will impose the sacrifice at the point of a gun.