My head is spinning and I am really having trouble getting my brain around this so called debt ceiling/debt crisis thing. Then yesterday I was listening to my friend Rush Limbaugh and thinking about the so called "Boehner plan" and the more I listened, the madder I got.
Yes, indeed, under the Boehner plan, Hussein Obama will be granted a trillion extra dollars which he can spend right away. On the other hand the trillion dollar "cuts" associated with the plan will only take effect over a period of 10 years. Hmmmm, what is wrong with this picture? When Boehner was on Rush's show the other day and Rush mentioned this very thing, there was silence. Boehner hesitated and stammered. He knew he was giving us a raw deal.
Then Rush started talking about this notion of "Base Line Budgeting". It seems that each year it has already been decided that gubment will grow at a rate of 10 or 12 percent. It doesn't matter if the 10 or 12 percent growth is needed. It doesn't matter where the money will be spent, no, none of that matters. The gubment is going to grow 10 to 12 percent each year come hell or high water. If our sluggish economy is only growing 1 or 2 percent each year, then, well, you can see the problem. The only solution is to BORROW more money and to do this, congress has to raise the debt ceiling.
If anyone dare suggest that instead of growing the gubment 10 percent next year, we instead only grow it 9 percent, the kook left will launch into the attack mode and start talking about all these heartless Draconian cuts. They will parade out bands of little old ladies perishing in the summer heat, children starving in public schools for lack of lunch programs, and Republicans pushing old folks in wheelchairs over a cliff! How dare we CUT programs for these "most vulnerable" Americans?
But the dirty little secret is that NOTHING ever really gets cut. A so called cut is simply a reduction in the rate of growth. So the whole thing is nothing more than a gigantic lie. The Boehner plan, the Reid plan, the imaginary Obama plan......none of those plans are going to do a damned thing to solve our debt and deficit woes. Cut, Cap, and Balance was the best thing out there, but with a Dimocrat senate and president, that will never fly.
Senator Jim Demint R-SC has had the best idea in that we should take gubment spending back to the levels of 2007 and freeze them there. I have not read all of senator Demint's figures but according to him, if we did this, there would be no need to raise taxes or raise the debt ceiling and out deficit woes would automatically correct themselves within a 10 year period. Now I remember 2007. As I recall things were going along pretty well for the US at that time. Hell, things were great during the Clinton era! Why not go back to 1997 spending levels?
As long as this notion of base line budgeting is allowed to continue, we do not have a prayer of correcting our debt. As long as gubment grows each and every year, more and more money is going to be required. As long as gubment programs spend everything they have whether they need to or not, we will continue down the black hole.
Charles Krauthammer thinks the Boehner plan is a good plan. He thinks it gives the Republicans leverage over the Dimocrats in the 2012 election. Krauthammer thinks like most of the Warshington establishment. I am not so sure. If the Boehner plan passes (I am not sure it will) and the true conservatives have a real chance to see it for what it is (a cave and a compromise) then it may be third party time in Warshington which will assure Obama's reelection.
Perhaps the best thing that could happen would be NOTHING. Let the deadline of August 2 (hell it's already been moved a couple of times anyway) pass. Let the public see that the US will not default on its debt. Let the public see that the checks will still go out. Let's hear an outcry from the true conservatives that we want new leadership in the congress. Let's repeal Obamacare and start working on passing a balanced budget amendment. Let's start working to get rid of this notion of base line budgeting. Let's start working on the election of a whole bunch more conservative candidates in 2012. This is our only hope.
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