Posted on 10/27/2008 12:13:53 PM PDT by BGHater
With news this week that Congress is poised to consider a new stimulus package, I am forced to again ask a question that seems silly in Washington: How will we pay for this?
While a few Members of Congress have raised the issue, it certainly was not the primary concern of the House Budget Committee when they interviewed Ben Bernanke on Monday. And, when they did direct this question to the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, his answer was the standard rhetoric about how Congress needed to make tough choices. Needless to say, not many specifics were discussed.
One of the most liberal members of the House, Barney Frank, has at least volunteered something of a suggestion: We can let Iraq take care of itself. This, of course, goes in the right direction, but hardly far enough.
We need to declare the facts and their obvious consequences. The deficit of the United States is now spiraling out of control, and the recent bailout package has only made it worse. Our crushing federal debt is one key reason behind our current economic turbulence.
As Congress begins to consider the third stimulus package of the year, we need to realize it is time to start setting priorities. Priority number one should be cutting spending in foreign countries. This does not simply mean Iraq, but everywhere.
The next stimulus package is likely to include money for infrastructure. While these investments are, constitutionally speaking, supposed to be made by state and local governments, it is not likely that Congress will suddenly begin to pay heed to the document we are all sworn to uphold. Still, we need to acknowledge the fact that the current Congress and Administration are rushing the nation toward bankruptcy.
This being the case, we could hope they would at least come to their senses regarding our debt and foreign spending sprees. Our nations foreign-held debt is at record highs and moving ever higher. Continuing to borrow money from Red China and others in order to pay dues to the United Nations and run Plan Colombia makes no sense at all.
Our whole carrot-and-stick approach to foreign policy makes no sense. The US government simultaneously gives money to Israel, and to Egypt. We send AIDS money to Africa while AIDS clinics in America shut down. Millennium challenge funding goes to countries which enact market based reforms as we push our own country further and further into a centrally planned economy.
Economic recovery will only come through financial prudence, savings and getting back to producing things of value again. But it seems to be a foregone conclusion that we are about to enact another government initiative to stimulate the economy. Instead, there should be some serious talk about cutting all of these foreign giveaway programs. But, alas and again, we should not hold our breath. Congress is still not close to being serious about ending its addiction to debt and spending, and is again faced with the deadly temptation to attempt to spend us out of a recession. We should not forget that in the 1930s those types of efforts gave us the Great Depression.
Obama is a Marxist, McCain is a statist. Neither of them are for liberty. Both are for fixing problems using the power of the state. George Bush is the same. The republicans are now the "big government conservatives." The worst part of it is that the base thinks power in DC is ok and really keen if it is the people IN power just pray and throw out a bible verse once in a while.
Witness the recent vote to waste 700 billion dollars to bail out failing and failed banks and companies. There is no difference between the two votes. Both are VOTES for socialism, although only one of the two candidates openly advocates it.
You deceive yourself in thinking that there is a fundamental difference in the direction these two men will take. The only difference is the speed with which they move towards totalitarian federal control.
You are correct in arguing McCain is not as bad as Obama. He is not. Obama is horrible. However a frog thrown into a boiling pot is just as dead as a frog who sits in a pot and the water is increased 1 degree per hour until he is boiled alive. In fact, if he is thrown into a boiling pot, sometimes he jumps out with fewer injuries.
Your trust and faith in the Republican party is the REASON we are in this mess in the first place. It is NOT people like Ron Paul who are to blame. The hateful and despicable manner in which he has been lied about, mocked, reviled and disrespected should make anyone who advocates liberty ashamed of themselves....., but it won't. This man has been shamefully treated by the Party and the complete intellectual disarray of what used to be a "conservative" party is the result of the stupid stupid stupid mindset that "conservatives" can somehow embrace federal powers not constitutionally mandated and somehow save the republic. It is a myth.
We told you people that it was a bad bad bad idea to cede all that power to the executive branch. The koolaid drinkers in the bush brigades responded over and over "but you don't understand! The islamic crazies are coming! Bush has our best interests at heart." Well, now you are about to get a chance to see WHY all us tinfoil hat loons were arguing against everything from the Patriot Act to the Executive Acts. Evidently you people thought we would just stay in power forever and never lose another presidential election....., so we can just go on being "conservative" and ceding one liberty after another. After all, we are at "war" aren't we?
“There are a lot of people like me that will not vote for the lesser of two evils again.”
Thank you for saying that. You’re right.
Come out for McCain and nothing gets done about the deficit either
The reps are doing a great job or destroying this country. Ron Paul is one of very few who understand that and that is why he cannot endorse a man whom most conservatives hate with a passion.
I might cast my vote for Sarah but I wont vote for a dishonest parasite of a man who has been part of the problem for thirty years.
Don’t come out for McCain and you can kiss the Constitution goodbye.
Since Dustbunny didn't answer you, may I give it a whack?
As I recall, there was something called Operation CHAOS fomented by a certain "conservative" talk radio guy, somewhere on the East Coast. This blowhard was so convinced that Hillary would destroy the country if she got to the White House (starting with the White House furniture and table lamps, supposedly) that he urged his listeners to re-register as Demnocrats and vote for one of the other candidates in the primaries. This would then throw the Democrats into disarray and produce CHAOS, letting the Republicans have an easy walk to the White House.
Well, you see how that plan turned out.
As I recall, there was something called Operation CHAOS fomented by a certain "conservative" talk radio guy, somewhere on the East Coast. This blowhard was so convinced that Hillary would destroy the country if she got to the White House (starting with the White House furniture and table lamps, supposedly) that he urged his listeners to re-register as Demnocrats and vote for one of the other candidates in the primaries. This would then throw the Democrats into disarray and produce CHAOS, letting the Republicans have an easy walk to the White House.
Well, you see how that plan turned out.
Air ball, air ball!
Limbaugh had people re-register as Democrats to vote for HILLARY, not Obama. He did it because he said that the press would NEVER give Obama any kind of critical investigation, and that keeping Hillary in the race was the ONLY way to get any sort of criticism of Obama going, because McCain wouldn't do it and the press wouldn't do it.
Operation Chaos was aimed at getting out votes for HILLARY.
Also, Limbaugh NEVER claimed it would be a cakewalk to the White House, and has stated several times that conservatives would have to drag McCain across the finish line.
Me too !!!!
Well, gee, isn't that special!
Sorry, that rings hollow with me.
I don't believe you are at all serious, or you would have supported him earlier when you had the chance.
Save your apoligies for someone who might believe them, I don't.
Wow, this article has been up a whole day and the anti-paleocon brigade hasn’t vandalized the keywords yet.
Strange as it may seem, that is the same reason some of us supported Ron Paul and The Constitution in the first place.
Same reason.
Paul? I did support him. Reluctantly, but I did. I was completely undecided in the primary--I didn't like any of em--so I was going to vote for Ron Paul, except my wife gave birth that day so I was disenfranchised by my own son.
I wasn't totally on board his train, but I liked what he was saying, and I think he's been dead right on this financial mess.
“Limbaugh had people re-register as Democrats to vote for HILLARY, not Obama.”
Every Republican I know who did this, actually voted for Hussein Obama, not Hillaroid, because she was considered “unbeatable”.
At any rate, he did urge his listeners to vote in the Democrat primaries, and if there were many following his orders it could have affected the Republican outcome (it's doubtful that many of Limbaugh's listeners would have otherwise been voting for Ron Paul, though).
I'm a bit foggy on when this strategy was started. Was it before or after McCain achieved enough delegate votes to secure the nomination?
In this respect, it worked exactly as it was supposed to. Our real problem in this election, according to Rush, and I think he's right, is that there was really no conservative with a realistic chance running. Thompson was as close as it got, but he didn't really want to run, got in late and campaigned unenthusiastically. The polls tightened when McCain picked Palin, and the more like a conservative McCain sounds, the better he does.
There are things I like about Ron Paul, but Paul is one of those guys who has a narrow range of support that's a mile deep. People either love him or think he's a nut. It's very difficult for a Libertarian candidate to expand beyond his base, although Paul did far better than I expected. But no, Limbaugh didn't really affect the Republican side at all, as he never endorsed a candidate, and didn't start Operation Chaos until after McCain had it wrapped up.
McCain might move us faster!
"Broad consensus"...
“But no, Limbaugh didn’t really affect the Republican side at all, as he never endorsed a candidate, and didn’t start Operation Chaos until after McCain had it wrapped up.”
That’s an interesting interpretation.
Even if it were true that Limbaugh did not endorse a candidate, and that his operation didn’t start until McCain had it “wrapped up”, conservative non participation in R precinct conventions, R county conventions and R state conventions left the R party apparatus and R party platforms wide open to the party’s liberal establishment party hacks and crooked McCain factotums.
In effect, Operation Chaos was an attack on the conservative & constitutionalist base of the Republican party.
Wikipedia has operation chaos starting in February 2008, well before McCain had the nomination “wrapped up”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rush_Limbaugh_Show#Operation_Chaos
I did support him. I am also intelligent enough to realize he can’t win on Nov. 4th. I have no intention of throwing my vote away by not voting. I am not thrilled with McCain but do believe he will not attempt to destroy the Constitution via packing the Supreme Court with Liberal/Socialist/Progressive/Marxist/Leninists. I also believe he will not run for a second term and that hopefully Sarah Palin will.
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