Cliff LyonThe Meanest Lie of All
Just once, I’d like to hear a politician say, “I don’t know the answer to that question. But if I am elected, I will have access to the worlds top experts in that field, and they will help me figure out the right answer.â€
To that end, the greatest skill a leader can possess is the ability to identify advisors who are objective and pragmatic and listen to them.
One such person is the current comptroller general of the United States, David Walker. He is serving a 15-year term that runs through 2013.
Follows are excerpts from an AP article that essentially says the same things as so many smart people are saying and which is in direct contrast to the lying republicans who say the economy is doing great.
A dirty little secret everyone in Washington knows, or at least should. The vast majority of economists and budget analysts agree: The ship of state is on a disastrous course, and will founder on the reefs of economic disaster if nothing is done to correct it.
Polls suggest that Americans have only a vague sense of their government’s long-term fiscal prospects. When pollsters ask Americans to name the most important problem facing America today, the deficit doesn’t even crack the top 10.
You’d think young people would be riled up over this issue, since they’re the ones who will foot the bill when they’re out in the working world. But students take more interest in issues like the Iraq war and gay marriage than the federal government’s finances, says Emma Vernon, a member of the University of Texas Young Democrats.
But the last six years of Republican rule have produced tax cuts, record spending increases and a Medicare prescription drug plan that has been widely criticized as fiscally unsound. When President Clinton faced a Republican Congress during the 1990s, spending limits and other legislative tools helped produce a surplus.
October 29th, 2006 at 11:49 am
I guess the sad reality is that all the kings horses and all the kings men may not be able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. It is a rather irrefutable historical fact that most Empires when they go this far off track, and lose all virtue, don’t come back to center. What is re-assuring is that it usuallty takes a long time. However in our own case, the debt, multi-cultural allowance, and lack of commitment to our own citizens, it may happen more quickly than we think.
Since money is a figment of the human imagination, debt is meaningless to some as they will simply print more to make up the deficit, no matter if it makes what you hold and earn worth-less. They will funnel the riches into differeent currency or valau elsewhere. I hear bush is buying big into Paraguy, I suppose to be closer to his roots if things go wrong here.
It is the willingness of our entire culture to chase the numbers of money that guarantees that we won’t soon be free of it(debt). Those earning their parasitical keep via usury won’t go quietly, and are sustained by the inherent American attitude that when I get to the “top”, I will benefit from the way it is…and live happily ever after.
It is pretty easy to balance the budget when you increase American corporate profit by undermining American labor, and shipping jobs to wage slave markets.
Corporate profit increases leading to more tax revenue on the profits. That would be what clinton did by approving nafta, and enhancing gatt. If he remained he would have had to live with the legacy that now there is no real wage base for people in America to thrive on, and our economy is going to tank.
Instead we pillory bush for it. Ok by me, I always said there isn’t a hairs breath of difference between the 2, but style. More elite Hegelian methodology. 8 years of clinton drives the evangelicals crazy, 8 years of bush the NPR crowd. Meanwhile the criminals have cleaned out the country. The public surely is a bunch of dumb bunnies.
On top of it the world is upset with us, not just our government, but us personally for thinking we’re bright, but for actually being soo STUPID!!!
October 29th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
I guess this is one issue that seems so scary and untouchable and even intangible. Economic reform doesn’t have instant gratification. It’s like being able to put away money in a long term IRA versus “investing” in a new stereo system. How do we get people to think more about this issue? I don’t know. I’m young–25 years old–and just feel helpless. Last week on RadioWest Hatch helpfully pointed out that if it weren’t for the fact that we “have” to be in Iraq, balancing the budget wouldn’t be so hard. I thought for a second Hatch had realized the lunacy of the war, until I realized his fatalistic belief that there is no choice other than to spend billions of dollars on a foreign war.
What irks me about the economy is this: We are all living very well off. Look around you and you see nothing but affluence. I am living comfortably enough as a waiter, serving organic salmon and creme brulee to well-dressed professionals and housewives in Salt Lake City. At the same time, we are at WAR we are running up the deficit. I think we should be accountable NOW for our spending. If we want to spend billions of dollars in Iraq, or whatever else, then lets start rationing and making our citizens pay for it NOW, not later. Then we might start thinking twice about championing the middle east for democracy, once it starts actually affecting us in the here and now. As things are now, I will be paying for the current administration’s spending right about the time I’m trying to retire as an old man, and my future children will be paying for it just as they are starting to pay their new mortgage and get going on those student loans. I don’t think that’s fair.
My answer? Raise taxes dramatically now to pay for our politics now. Not that I want higher taxes, but I want us to take accountability for our spending, and pass that pressure on to our representative politicians.
October 29th, 2006 at 2:03 pm
Except for this statement, “We are all living very well off. Look around you and you see nothing but affluence” I think you’re right on.
It’s fairly obvious; the republicans will do anything to stay in office. One might argue that the invasion of Iraq was partly if not mostly in strategy to insure the re-election of Bush. It become clear that the administration’s pandering to the religious right was about getting elected and re-elected.
Fact is, it would be difficult to produce evidence that this administration has done anything NOT for the purpose of staying in power.
So why on earth would republicans want to address the impending fiscal disaster as long as they can barrow to put off the pain?
But then again, we’re preachin to the choir. It’s not the people reading this comment that need to hear it, it’s the millions of Americans who sit fat dumb and happy in their immediate surroundings thinking, “well golly garsh, things ain’t too bad ‘round here. What election?â€
Here’s a great little Bill Maher clip that reminds us we are not the greatest country on earth by a long shot.
October 29th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
You know, maybe it’s my faulty memory, but wasn’t the federal deficit like the number 1 issue for Ronald Reagan in 1980?
October 31st, 2006 at 8:01 pm
Cliff,
I agree with you that “republicans will do anything to stay in office”. I also think that “[democrats] will do anything to stay in office”. You are correct that we should be much more worried about the national debt than we seem generally to be. We have a debt because the two major parties take turns pretending that they care about the United States, when all they care about is their personal perpetuation in office. They realize that if they create a bunch of entitlements and hand them out to their constitutents that we will continue to vote them back in. What a crock, but most of us are suckers.
I’m not voting for Orrin Hatch this year. I haven’t for a while. He is arrogant. I’m not voting for Chris Cannon either. I never have. Both of their opponents from the Constitutional Party are far more deserving of representing us than they are.
October 31st, 2006 at 10:32 pm
Frank,
Why in Earth wouldn’t you vote for Christian Burridge? have you looked closely? This guy is like a wet dream as choices go.
November 1st, 2006 at 9:27 am
I agree that Burridge has a lot of fine qualities. If Scott Bradley weren’t running, my choice would be Burridge.
My main problem generally with the Republicans (I am a registered Republican, by the way, and will probably run for State Legislature under that banner in the near future) is the the same problem I have generally with Democrats. They too predictably cause the country a plethora of problems because they get their fingers into things they have no business dealing with (which should be left to the states and localities). Both contribute to a bloated bureaucracy, burgeoning debt, and increasing mistrust of government. It’s not enough to simply throw out the rascals of one of the main parties (and vote in the rascals of the other main party) anymore. It’s time we diversify and install leaders who really understand the Constitution and the proper role of government.
I admit I haven’t studied Burridge’s views in great detail, but from what I know, it seems he would have more legislative integrity than Hatch.