The Cost of Reality

Oh, God, another "money" posting. Quick, get my No-Doze! I'll try, at least, to keep this a little interesting.

In an unobtrusively placed segment, ABC News has noted that, according to the Treasury Department, the National Debt has now hit $13 Trillion. *Yawn* So? Who cares, it's just government money, they can print more, right? The debt's always getting worse, right? We're no different than any other country, right?

Wrong, Wrong and..... wait for it... RIGHT (and that last one's the scariest). So let's take these one at a time:

"It's just government money, they can print more"

Government money. Is that like that "Obama Cash"? Ladies and gentlemen, this is your money. You gave it to the government on April 15. There is no such thing as "government money". The government does not have some secret stash somewhere that it somehow 'earns' itself. It pays for its services, programs, givebacks, and bailouts with taxes. Period, end of sentence. In the words of John Coleman, "The point to remember is that what the government gives it must first take away."

And yes, it can print more. But our money has no actual value except that which is placed in faith in the government itself. There is no gold or other tangible asset that backs our currency. It is simply the faith that the U.S. Government is "good for it." And the more it prints and less faith other countries have in us, the less each dollar is worth. This, for those born after 1980, is something called "inflation" and it was considered the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

You see, our government -- the administration and the yes-men in Congress -- are "giving away" more and more. They are raising taxes and, even faster than that, increasing spending. They are trying the eminently unsuccessful and discredited Keynesian practice of "spending your way out of recession". In order to do that and not infuriate the citizens even further, they print more and more money. This devalues the money, meaning that have to print even more and it becomes a downward spiral. Analysts have been warning since this current government took office that we are destined for a crash even worse than that of the 70's that will make the current economic crisis look like a mere blip on the radar.


"The debt's always getting worse."

Once again, not so much. Some governments (notably, the Clinton administration) have decreased the National Debt. Now let's think about that. How was that accomplished? Under a Democratic President? Yes. Because it's not the President alone who sets policy. It's Congress. And if you'll look at the graphs supplied by a Clinton apologist, you'll note that it was only after the "Contract with America" which resulted in a conservative anti-tax-and-spend backlash that the National Debt decreased under that administration. At the beginning, it kept increasing. You see, Congress must approve budgets and therefore is complicit in anything that occurs with regards to taxation and spending.


"We're no different than any other county."

That's correct -- and scary. All one has to do is to turn on the news to look at what's happening in Europe. Nations, like ours, that tax and spend continuously, are failing and falling like dominoes. The most recent example, of course, is Greece, but there are rumblings that the underpinnings of other socialist economies are shaking as well. All because their citizens have bought into the idea that their government "owes" them anything beyond "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

But our government's smarter than that, right? Consider Obamacare. It proponents promised that this would be $900 billion and "no more than that." Now, however, the Congressional Budget Office is predicting $1.15 Trillion and some are projecting it to top $2 Trillion.

Who's responsible for this impending fiscal trainwreck? Certainly the current administration shoulders responsibility for laying the track and putting the engine on it. But those who are supposed to be watching out for our best interests and responding to our will, Congress, have put a fire to the boilers and stuck the throttle on "full speed ahead" towards the bridge that's out (ok, I stretched that metaphor as far as I could... or maybe not).

Congress spends, as my father would've said, faster than a drunken sailor. They are blithly partying in the egineroom as we, the nation, rush headlong toward the abyss. They do this because they've lost touch with reality. And they are all to blame, all complicit in the ensuing tragedy. So how do we avoid it? By kicking out the engineer and hiring a new one who will hit the breaks before we plummet off the end of the bridge (ok, I'm done now with the metaphor).

I'm just as committed to sound fiscal policy as I am to compassionate and social liberty. I want the government out of my pocket and out of my moral and personal decisions. And I am committed to replacing my "representatives", who don't represent me, with ones who do.

This is what I'm doing. What are you doing?

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Trust Us, We're From the Government

"Buy now, pay later!"

Isn't that the mantra we where from the "discount" stores on TV? It's obvious that this is the attitude of the government when it comes to the Health Care bill. Repeatedly called to account by the constituents (whom they ultimately ignored), people like Nancy Pelosi, Steve Kagen and our "representatives" (I can't use that word without laughing) the response was along the lines of "Don't worry about it. Universal Health Coverage is a good thing. Everyone deserves insurance," and "Oh, we'll know the costs once we get into it."

Um.... WHAT?

I don't know about the Senators and Congressmen, but I have never started a home improvement or other major investment project without knowing the costs up front. And yet we were told "It doesn't matter," and "don't worry about it."

Meanwhile, those who did read the bill and do the math warned that the cost will far outstrip the income. Even the administration admitted after the fact that costs will exceed projected revenues. So what's the response? Add more taxes.

In addition to an already onerous income tax level, the administration and congress has announced that we're in for a Value Added Tax (VAT). This mean that not only will we be taxed on our income, taxed at the state level for sales, but we'll be taxed at the federal level on everything we buy as well.

We have dug ourselves into a massive deficit and, like all holes, you can't get out of it by digging deeper.

But it's not We the People who have dug this hole, its the administrations and legislatures of the last several decades. Our elected officials have betrayed our trust and their duty to "defend and protect the Constitution of the United States" and instead have put the future of the country in peril.

Hold on, though. We need to give it a chance, right? I mean, it hasn't been tried.

Not so much. The Governor of Massachusetts, against the wishes of many of his state's citizens, implemented Health Care Legislation that was pointed to by Congress and the adminitration as the "model" of how this could work for the entire country. It was held up as a paradigm. And so it is.

You see, just months after the Governor made the move to socialize and take over the insurance companies (which he did by, just as ObamaCare will do, setting price controls on premiums, etc.)
the insurance companies have run out of money to pay claims and have had to close their doors, temporarily. That is, you can't get insurance right now in Massachusetts because there's just not enough money anymore. Why not? Because the insurance companies have been forced by the state to underwrite policies on people who they previously would have avoided due to risk.

Oh, but the insurance companies are money-grubbing soulless profit-motivated scumsuckers, right? They were making so much money that they can afford to pay out. Right? They are just a whining bunch of private corporations, right? Sorry, but they are now state agencies! The nanny state of Massachussets owns and runs them and tells them who to provide coverage for. So where, I ask, are the profit motives there?

The fact is that this type of "reform" cannot and does not work. And yet our legislators refuse to acknowledge that fact. They continue to, as my dad would have put it, spend money like a drunken sailor.

But wait, you say, this is the Federal Government. They can't go bankrupt. And they know how to handle risk.

Again... not so much. Consider the housing crisis that lead in no small part to the current economic situation. What were the primary causes? The Federal Government took over lenders by specifically directing them to offer subprime mortgages to people that the lenders would not have, under normal circumstances, taken on as a risk. The lenders were told, "Don't worry about it. More people buying houses is a good thing. Everyone deserves a house. We'll handle the costs when we get into it."

Sound familiar?

But surely they've learned, right?

Well, they took over GM and Chrysler. They gave a $50 billion bailout. And yet the companies, now effectively run by the Federal Government are still $17 Billion in the red for their pension payouts.

This isn't a red state/blue state thing. This isn't a Republican/Democrat thing. Since the end of 80's, our "representatives" (sorry, threw up a little in my mouth, there) all have been on a spending spree. They have mortgaged our future and the future of our children. They have "bought now" and the "later" has finally come. The Health Care bill simply hastened that day.

They have, in direct contravention of their job as stated in the Constitution, failed to "secure the blessings of liberty, to our selves and our posterity."

Every single one of them has been complicit in this betrayal of We the People. And We the People have been complicit by our tacit assent to their shennanigans.

As I have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt, the Founding Fathers gave We the People a recourse. They gave us the Right and Responsibility to rebel, revolt and reform.

People like Bart Stupak (D-MI) have seen the handwriting on the wall. Regardless his claims to the contrary (and those smack of "methinks thou doth protest too much") he has seen that his betrayal of his constituents means that his career is over.

I'm going to make sure that my "representatives" (sorry, I'm holding my nose) know that their time is up as well. We have a chance, albeit a slim one, to stop this mess. So I reiterate that I am committed to my Four Point Action Plan:

1. I have purchased small American flags. Each week I am pinning one upside-down to a piece of paper and sending one each to my Congressmen and Senator with the simple notation "11/2" as a prediction and warning.
2. I am getting involved with a candidate.
3. Through the winnowing of the primary process, I am going to choose and throw my support not just to my canidate but whomever is the closest to my philosophies and opposes the incumbent, regardless of party. We have been betrayed by both parties and all incumbents must therefore be voted out.
4. I am, each week, going to personally and directly ask two people to do these four steps and to ask those people to do them as well. In that way, there will be a groundswell, a snowball of We The People.

This is what I am doing. What are you doing?