Sunday, September 6, 2009

We're Broke, So Stop Spending Already!

Money is not just numbers on paper.  It's not just pictures printed on special sheets of a mixture of cloth and paper with special fibers and ink.  Money is a symbol of much more than that.  It has much more importance than that.  Money actually represents a significant portion of our daily lives that we have exchanged in order to obtain the things that we need.  At least for the hardworking middle class, this is the case.

Yet, some people who have very large bank accounts and investments accounts don't view other people's money as anything more than numbers on paper.  In particular, I'm speaking about the super wealthy in business and many in Congress, and especially when it comes to bank or corporate bailouts and spending of our tax money or CEO buyouts.

Let me insert a little clarification in regards to my perception of the difference between Big Business and Big Government.  Big business executives accumulate a lot of wealth for the company, to be sure. And some CEOs get paid better than they probably should, no doubt.  But a lot of the company's profits are reinvested in order to create more business or product to make more money.  When they begin to fall short of meeting their budget, they cut back in overhead expenses.  My objection with Big Business is when Boards of Directors bestow huge buyouts to CEOs when they are pushed out for non-performance or bad performance. 

Government is quite a different animal when it comes to its financial resources - which, by the way, would be our tax dollars!  (They have no other source of revenue.)  Many congressmen have accumulated their wealth either legally or illegally or somewhere in between, and their governmental positions have made that easier to do.  But when it comes to spending the country's money, they are not "re-" investing wisely in programs that would increase the stability or wealth of the country as a corporation would.  Rather than balancing their budget, as you or I would, they impose more taxes.

Historically, the reason they don't meet their annual budget is they actually lose a huge amount the country's revenue through bureaucratic waste or ineffective programs that should be truly fixed or eliminated.  Many of the congressional leaders have never run a business or have never had to balance their own budgets by reducing expenses and reducing their personnel numbers.  They obviously don't use those two business practices in government.

Case in point, when Obama asked his cabinets secretaries to cut their budgets by a million dollars each, one cabinet secretary suggested they print on both sides of the paper.  If they had eliminated some of the operational waste, or brought staff salaries in line with "the real world", it would have been a greater savings.  Congress' answer to fixing anything that doesn't appear to work has been is to just throw more money at the problem rather than to address the problem head on with workable solutions or eliminating the non-functioning program altogether.  Their answers to cutting expenses are abysmal.

Perhaps part of Congress' lack of understanding about the reality of the money, particularly that which is collected from their constituents, comes from the fact that most of them have more than they can spend so they don't have a basic understanding of what it means to live on a budget.  And, as we well know, some don't pay taxes - until they're caught.   

Congress - primarily the Democrats, though it has occurred on both sides of the aisle - seems to be "playing a numbers game" with the national debt and the funding all of their special programs and pet projects.  That is to say they are putting these expensive programs and projects into play without realizing the reality of the numbers that represent the actual cost, without considering where the funds are actually coming from and how it will surely affect the nation's economy.  If this practice isn't stopped immediately, this is ultimately what will drive this nation to its demise. 

Rather than facing the truth that some of these outlandish and expensive proposed programs will cost two or three times what was originally estimated, the Obama Administration is going ahead and pushing their plans through... and throwing in everything unrelated thing into the bills that they can sneak in without considering the cost as real money.  In fact, these are actually more radical ideas than they are programs because they have not developed the outline of the program far enough to know how it will be structured or what the operational cost will be, much less what the realized benefit versus cost will be.  That's of no consequence to them because it's only black numbers on white paper, isn't it?  So, we can just borrow it from China or Saudi Arabia or some other country, can't we?

The fact has been pointed out that Obama's taxation of the people who make over $250,000 will not cover the amount of what he's pushed through thus far.  And that means he's going to have to increase taxes on the earnings of all levels within the middle class as well as borrow trillions more than we were first told.  To Obama's Administration, it's not real money.  But for us, it is real.  Get ready to pay and pay and pay!

Let me also declare here that I adamantly disagree that paying additional taxes imposed on us just to cover ludicrous spending is our "patriotic duty".  I thought that was a really silly, off the wall statement when Joe Biden said it.  But things are really much worse than that.  Liberals actually believe it is our duty to pay more and more in taxes to support their pet projects and programs that help line their pockets or keep them in office.  Our esteemed Congress....I shake my head sometimes at the unbelievably unethical actions and stupid remarks that are made by a good number of our supposedly educated representatives.

Below is a video interview conducted by Jan Helfeld, a TV documentarian, with Democrat Representative Pete Stark of California.  This is a good example of why government conducts its financial business as it does. By the way, have you noticed that the Democrats don't like unscripted interviews?  They don't like to be led away from their favorite talking points, and if they are probed or prodded by a persistent interviewer, they can say some really idiotic things.

In this interview, it is obviously Stark doesn't have a clue or a solid hold on reality - much less his emotions.  He loses control because Helfeld simply wanted a straightforward answer to his questions, and Stark only wanted to spin his talking points.  The result was Stark exploding with some of his favorite profanities and issuing a threat to Helfeld.  Apparently, this is typical of some of the ranting he's noted for when he doesn't want to answer or be accountable.  Warning:  F*** expletive at the end of the audio! 




Hmm?  So the farther in debt we are as a nation, the wealthier we are?  How is that logical?  He said that economics of the government is different than the economics of the nation's citizens.  But, that makes no sense, and it wouldn't work in the world I live in. 

I never took an economics class, but common sense tells me I can't spend more than I have and I can't charge more than I can pay for without dire consequences.  My creditors expect to be paid the principal I borrowed and the interest as contractually agreed upon.  Those to whom I owe money will take measures to make sure that they get their money or something of equal value in return if I default.  So really, Congressman, if you can think rationally for a moment, wouldn't that apply to our government and their creditors as well?

And oh, by the way, this national debt we're accumulating.... What is the rate of interest?  What are the terms?  When do the repayments on these loans actually begin?  All we know is that we don't have the funds now, and we can't get the funds from the top 5% of Americans who are the wealthiest, even if taxed at 100%.  So, again, it obviously will have to come from the rest of us, and not only from us but from our children and their children and their children... and that's just if over the next 50 years or so, the government holds the line on spending.  Yeah, that's going to happen, right? 

It's frightening to realize that we have only scratched the surface of the programs that the Obama Administration and uber-liberal Congress want to implement during the early days of Obama's first (and hopefully last) term.  The liberals were hoping they could get them all pushed through before the conservatives woke up to what was happening and got wise to how it would affect the future of this country.  But conservatives are waking up.  They are standing up for the future of this country - specifically our kids', grandkids' and their kids' futures - and are not going to be quiet or idle and let America be dragged further into national debt.

Let's not be fooled.  Everyone in Washington knows that this track we're on is unsustainable.  They know that there's no way that the debt that has been accumulated in the past few months will be paid back in their lifetime or their grandchildren's lifetime even.  These big spenders are still accumulating wealth as their own hedge of personal financial protection by whatever means they can (whether clearly legal or not) and while they can.  They have seen to their family's financial future, and so the national debt is not a reality to them.

But even more critical than the reality of this national debt, which is too huge to truly comprehend, what Congress has effectively done is gambled with our country's sovereignty by borrowing from countries that can at best be considered barely "so-so friendly".  These countries would love nothing more than to lay hold on the natural wealth and resources we have to offer.  It's insane.

So, I'm compelled by deep concern to shout, "HALT!  STOP THE BUS!"  If we are broke as a nation, as even Obama has said even BEFORE the passage of the Cap and Trade and Healthcare, then it's past time to stop spending!  To continue to spend money we don't have on programs that we don't need, especially at this time really is sheer insanity.  If you're like me and concerned about the national debt and the spending path this country is now on, then take a look at all the congressmen who have voted for these spending packages.... and you'll find out who have lost their ever-loving minds.  Then, when election time comes, see to it that those lose their seats as well!

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