Posted on 07/31/2003 12:17:30 PM PDT by Reagan Renaissance
One Democrat From Disaster
By October 11, 2001, just thirty days after 911, there were precious few Americans that weren't grateful that George Bush was President and that Al Gore wasn't. As someone who has very little faith in any branch of government, it was encouraging to learn that occasionally even the Supreme Court gets something right. On the other hand, Al Gore got over a million more votes than Bush, proving that the voters got it wrong. George Bush was President that day because the Founders got it right; the Constitution saved us again.
This is the first in a series of articles that I will be posting with one article appearing every Tuesday and another on Thursdays. I would like to invite each of you to read and add your comments to the discussion of these ideas. I hope to make the articles informative and provocative. By the time we reach the conclusion, I hope that we will have outlined the problems facing the United States, how these problems came about, the consequences of not properly addressing these problems in a timely fashion, the potential solutions and a prioritized list of preferred solutions. Properly done, we will all have a better understanding of America and the limited role that government should play if we are to recover the freedoms we have lost and hope to restore a proper Constitutional balance of power to the various parts of government.
Most people believe that under our Constitution the powers of government are balanced and limited by dividing power among the three branches of government. Government and practically everyone else seems to have forgotten that there are really four parties who exercise power with regard to the government. If We the People fail to limit how much power the other three branches can have and how that power can be exercised, We should not be surprised when the other branches of government exceed their authority and usurp more power for themselves. History has repeated this verse in every country in every century. Left to its own devices, no government has ever decreased in size or power.
If We the People, are going rein in government, there are only three ways that are practical to consider within the time constraints imposed by the economy coupled with the accruing, but unfunded liabilities that have been promised by professional politicians. This series will be making repeated references to the Grandfathers Economic Report. This is an excellent source for evaluating where we are and how we got here. We will be referring repeatedly to the study ordered by former Secretary of the Treasury Paul Oneal. The study was done by Jagadeesh Gokhale, Senior Economic Advisor, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland/Visiting Scholar, American Enterprise Institute (2003) and Kent Smetters, Assistant Professor The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania-Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the U.S. Department of Treasury from 2001-2. This study indicates that it is not possible to fund the accruing, but as yet unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare using reasonable economic projections. Given our history, cutting benefits and increasing taxes by the orders of magnitude required using reasonable economic projections will be incredibly challenging from a political perspective, if not frankly impossible.
The problems that confront the United States are not only economic, but structural as well. We are going to examine some of these problems in a fair amount of detail in order to understand how serious and how large these problems are. Most Americans under-estimate the severity of our problems and are overly optimistic about the amount of time that we have to confront and solve them. There is an old accounting and financial adage, "Unsustainable trends end." The growth of government and socialism in America are unsustainable trends. Professional politicians set these trends in place. It is my opinion that professional politicians will not play a significant roll in finding solutions to the problems that they have caused. And it is prudent to believe that Democrats can be expected to get in the way of finding reasonable solutions. Unchecked, unsustainable trends end in crashes. It will be up to us, We the People, to decide a reasonable way to bring about the end of these unsustainable trends. Professional politicians moved America away from being a representative republic. Professional promisers have made the United States a democracy by surrogates. Democracies are themselves political examples of unsustainable trends. And unchecked, we know how democracies end. Gokhale and Smetters have proven that Democrats have taken us to the brink of financial disaster and Democrats can be expected to prove to be formidable political opponents to finding rational solutions to our problems.
By the time we finish this series, some of you will share my belief that America will be unlikely to survive either the election of another Democrat to the Whitehouse or the recovery of both houses of Congress by the Democrats. Some will share my belief that the United States will not survive past 2016 unless we bring about major changes in Social Security and Medicare. Regardless of whether you end up sharing any of my views, we should all end up better informed and just possibly, we may find the solutions to our problems. I can tell you for sure that if We don't, nobody else will. Government bureaucrats have never found anything until it was too late, and the professional politicians in office are only going to compound the problems, not implement solutions.
I hope that you find these discussions informative and thought provoking. Please ping your friends and/or enemies alike. Freep mail me if you would like to be added to the ping list for this series. There may be any number of solutions to our problems and I may be over-estimating the severity of the problems and/or under-estimating Americans. History has proven time and time again, the resourcefulness and productive genius of the American people. But I hasten to caution, only God never drops the ball. And it is unarguable that Americans have been getting fat, dumb and lazy. Please invite your family and friends to participate in these discussions. And please invite and welcome Democrats to the discussion. Changing America for the better would be made a lot simpler if we can convince a few Democrats that they are on the wrong side. Government is composed of bureaucrats and politicians. Can you think of any worse groups of people to entrust with important responsibilities? Whom do you believe is the source of our problems? If you believe that government is the solution to anything, please pay careful attention to these discussions. But be forewarned that you will face stiff opposition in defending your views.
Thank you J
Remember, ALL the history of the era was written either by big-government Arthur Schlesinger Jr. or Bray Hammond, who was a FEDERAL RESERVE BANKER. Thus, both "major" interpretations would naturally emphasize (positively or negatively) the "destruction" of the "national bank." But Jackson was a power-hungry pol like Clinton. He had no intention of giving up that power, merely changing the party controlling it.
Oh baby... Wait till you see the efficiency of revenue stream collection due to the Patriot Act and it's effective improvement of tracking taxable transactions!!!
Tax deferred IRA's, Pensions and Annuities, coupled with Patriot Act information gathering will not only solve any projected deficits, it will further insure tax lawyer and CPA's perpetual employment.
All this in the name of security, to the total minimization of freedom. The electeds and bureaucrats are nymphomaniacs when it comes to revenue streams... They can never get enough!!!
Yes, Mr. Reagan Run-a-seance, you may keep me on your ping list, but you may find it challenging at times. (grin)
Second, the piece I saw in NRO had no shortfall, period. This is way too far in the future, of course, for either side to present credible assessments of what "might" happen.
Surely if you've been alive for 20 years, you know that we have had this "social-security-is-going-bust" for as long as I can remember. I'm not saying it is either morally supporable or financially sound. But I dismiss these "sky-is-falling" reports as more Howard Ruff/Ruff Times. We simply can't know 20 years out what economic changes will occur. For example, not ONE Detroit or Japanese automaker predicted correctly that the pickup/SUV would be the dominant auto in the late 1970s.
Not ONE economist, in or out of government, that I'm aware of, predicted the mini-boom that would occur when the "iron curtain" countries became consumers. This, in part, helped account for the 1990s growth, but none predicted it.
Finally, in just the last 6 weeks, there have been two MAJOR oil discoveries, one in Iran and I forget where the other was, that dwarf exising production. This will cause long-term energy costs to fall further, cause personal income to go up, and so on. The point is, there are people---very smart people---at universities who do this for a living, and they won't predict anything this far out.
In CA, govenment(s) are simply way, way too taxing!!! We still pay sales taxes on gasoline taxes and Governor Reagan never did one thing about that!!!
I know I'll get flamed for saying this, but I've been thinking it for over a year now, and was pleased to hear Rush say it last week, too... I'm generally pleased with Dubya's foreign policies, but both in foreign affairs and domestically he's imitating Nixon, not Reagan!!!
Nixon dang near ruined us domestically. We're still suffering from gargantuan social programs including affirmative action for fish and plants, along with welfare for wildlife, thanks to "Tricky Dick!" It's enough to gag a maggot!!! (remember wage and price controls?) (grimace)
Were you thinking about a "one humper," or a "two humper?" (snort-smirk)
Why'd yoo go changin yer nayme?
Granted, smarty britches, but don't miss my point that the increased efficiency of the new Patriot Act regulations to catch terrorists, will catch way more than 30% of all legal or illegally gotten gains!!!
You should see what information us Registered Representatives and all financial institutions are now forced to gather and submit under the guise of finding/preventing laundered money!!!
The concept of "prevention" and "premption" have granted to government(s) VAST NEW POWERS!!! (all at the expense of our privacy and freedom)
The largest pot of money anywhere is in IRA and other retirement accounts. When the government has to go after every available dollar, they are not going to leave the largest reservoir untapped. And they won't be able to wait until you start drawing it out and it becomes taxable under current law.
"Second, the piece I saw in NRO had no shortfall, period. This is way too far in the future, of course, for either side to present credible assessments of what "might" happen.
"Surely if you've been alive for 20 years, you know that we have had this "social-security-is-going-bust" for as long as I can remember. I'm not saying it is either morally supporable or financially sound. But I dismiss these "sky-is-falling" reports..The point is, there are people---very smart people---at universities who do this for a living, and they won't predict anything this far out."
Paul Oneal, as Secretary of the Treasury was chairman of the SS Trustees and commissioned the Gokhale & Smetters report in that capacity. Gokhale worked at the Federal Reserve and Smetters at US Treasury If we don't find some credibility there, why believe anything?
The SS tax that was collected in the beginning was the actuarial amount thought to be adequate to fund SS in perpetuity. It was 1% of the first $3,000 of income. Check your last paycheck stub and let me know how well government actuaries project the future and whether they tend to underestimate or overestimate shortfalls.
I'm not saying these guys aren't credible. But surely you've heard the old nostrum that if you put 100 economists in a line they would hever come to a conclusion. I've been to plenty of conferences where very bright people come to totally opposite conclusions about numbers (which seems impossible).
Anyway, I think the money will be there. More than enough. Moreover, I think any projections more than five years out are no more reliable than reading goat entrails.
I think, under the circumstances, that it is regretably necessary, as well. I just wish it had a sunset clause, or something like that to repeal it after the WOT is over, if it ever is. It's entirely too tempting and adds thrust to the arguments of the founder of this thread, if it's a perpetual law... That's my point in bringing it up!!!
Then, they have already won! We're as trapped as the Isrealites, right? We will never be free from the "religion of peace," is what you are resigning us to, right?
We thought we'd never be free from the cold war and MAD, right? What are you thinking, really? WWRRT?=What Would Ronald Reagan Think? Is terrorism our "Peace Dividend?"
Lincoln never restored all our freedoms after the Civil War, either. Lawyers have the bad habit of not following through on their promises, although Lincoln must be excused because of assassination.
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