I remember the good ol’ days when politicians could bank on America’s heritage, spend like there was no tomorrow, and know that they’d be dead before their ideological brainchildren had little demon children of their own. But I fear those days are coming to a close.
It doesn’t matter who you are or what you believe or who you’re voting for on this issue. Obama’s plan for fixing our debt problem? If you can call it a plan, it involves spending more than has ever been spent before. Because more debt is always the short-term solution to debt. Just like more crack is always the short-term solution for withdrawal. On the other hand, Romney and Ryan have a fantastic plan for the economy. They have a plan to balance the budget by 2040. This is not to pay off the debt, mind you. This is just to get around to spending no more than what we’re taking in. That’s kind of like saying you’ll have the holes patched on a sinking ship thirty years after it’s on the bottom of the ocean.
I hate to be so bleak about it, but, well, the situation is pretty bleak. The personal debt of Americans is equal to the national debt: about 16 trillion. This is an insane amount of money. The interest alone is killing us. I was listening to a talk radio show that was addressing the debt crisis, and the commentator pointed out that if we absolutely stopped spending. Completely. (America could move in with her parents or something.) And then took all current national revenue and pumped it into paying off our national debt… we would pay it off in seven years given our current GDP. Then a brilliant caller weighed in on the issue. His solution? Stop whining. It’s not a big deal. He said, “If people are stupid enough to still lend money to America, it’s their problem. Don’t pay.” Default, in other words.
And that is where the real problem lies. America is fiscally bankrupt, no doubt. But her real problem is moral bankruptcy. Our parents sold us for short-term convenience. And I’m seeing more and more that people my age are fed up with it. It’s no longer the case that the Democrats or the Republicans can rely on their own base to get them elected. More and more, independent voters are making the difference. And who are these independents? Most of them are my age and younger. And we’re sick of it. ’Cause we are becoming more and more aware that we can’t pass these problems on to the next generation. It’s not just a matter of shouldn’t. The fact is, I’ll probably still be alive when the debt hits the fan.
My advice to Republican moderates? Stop blame-shifting and proposing sweet-sounding half-measures. Get radical. We are in a radical mess, and we need people in office that are willing to take drastic steps. Chemical withdrawal is not fun. Paying back debts is not fun. But we’ve got to do it. And since the future of this country and your future generations couldn’t motivate you, let me reiterate: This is to save your own skin. Does that finally get your attention?
Maybe it’s time to just print enough money to pay off the national debt. All the national debt, including the amount borrowed from social security, etc. Sure, we will have hyper inflation, but if we then balance the budget (shouldn’t be too difficult if you take out the interest and debt payments) and don’t raise welfare payments for a couple of years, we could possiblly begin again.
Agree 100% … but neither the left nor the right is willing to do it (only Dr. Paul) because cutting welfare/entitlement spending will make the NBP party and plenty of non-B advocates get militant. Cutting the warfare $s will make the ChairBorne rangers and the military contractors militant (note, I’m not talking about cutting one job, just going from 900 bases in 130 countries to 90 bases in 20 countries … and getting out of our current engagements and payoffs). Of course no town in the US wants to add or expand a base just because it will create a huge boom to their economy (yes, that is sarcastic, outside of the California mind-set, most towns would welcome a base) and most service members would far prefer to be dodging IEDs and snipers in Afghanistan than training in Oklahoma (yes, also sarcastic … and people wonder why the military supports Dr. Paul). The excrement will hit the oscillating unit soon and systems will break down without any political help (actually political help is what got them there) … so while no person who gets radical is electable, no electable person will face the problem, but the crisis is coming anyway (sort of like a cancer person staying on morphine instead of doing chemo … feels a whole lot better … for now). I stand side by side with the only man who really had a plan … and with his other followers … but that’s a lonely position.
When the time comes to pay hundreds of trillions of dollars, the people still alive in the USA, will NOT be allowed to leave the country, there will be no imports , there will be no gas, no cars, all fields wil be planted to vegetables, and the bill for food per day will be USROCKS 200,000. Start collecting rocks today.
The only good point to this madness is, all those foreign nations that have been milking the U.S. will no longer be getting their free handouts. It will be time for them to return to their mountain caves and eat their young.
Rocks will be the only means of defense at the time. Guns would have long ago been confiscated .
Fact: Ryan’s budget would explode the debt.
http://www.epi.org/blog/romney-ryan-budget-americans/
Plus, unlike Obama’s tax plan, YOUR taxes will go up unless you’re in the 1%.
ohbummers plan IS exploding the debt ! You dont need a web site for proof, just open your eyes !
Got news for you flash: Obama’s deficits have remained steady. The problem is tax laws. The Reagan/Bush tax cuts for the wealthy has allowed them to hide trillions and trillions overseas in tax havens. That’s a fact. They need to be taxed at a fair rate for their wealth, and most people agree with me (and the President) about this.
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/279-82/12664-national-debt-no-such-thing
We are NOT broke as fools like Glenn Beck claim we are.
You are so funny. NO we aren’t broke. We can print all the money in the world. Now whether you can buy something with all that money, that is a different question. If nothing else you can always use it to heat your home.
Both plans explode the debt. Ryan’s does it at a slower pace. But let’s not bother with that plan because it is really purely mental gymnastics. Even if passed a Congress two years from now could ignore it.
WE CAN’T DEFAULT ON THE DEBT, WE HAVE SECURED THOSE LOANS WITH LAND, AMERICAN LAND THAT CHINA FOR ONE HAS ALREADY TAKEN POSSESSION OF.
It seems to me that we have one last resort. That is to Nationalize the property allegedly owned by other countries. Is that not what was done to some US companies? “Sorry xyz corp., your company and property are now owned by venezuela,” or some other country.
Simple solution. Since Congress has the ability to print any amount of money it wants, then Congress should just print every taxpayer a one-time refund check of $500,000.
By law, this check will be required to pay off any and all outstanding car loans, home mortgages, credit card debt, and student loans.
I say one-time because after that the American dollar would be a laugh, but it would no doubt usher in the age of sound money.
I agree, but the banks want debt slaves. This is no longer about repaying debt, it is about power. The US government now recognizes the power it has to print all the money it wants. It will use that power to give to those who are its friends and take away from those who are not friends. In other words, it is now using the printing presses as a means of wealth redistribution.
Saly, I have to agree with you 100%.
They are talking about another recsssion, which is actually no more than a continuation of this recession. Ask the 15% unemployed. We could be heading for a depression that would make the 1930’s look like kid’s play. If interest rates go up, there will only be enough money to pay interest on the debt. Obama has to go.
Reform welfare and MediCal, eliminate the fraud in the system and fix our illegal immigration problem before Mexico turns the US into another Mexico. Welfare was not intended as a lifetime of freebies. Don’t know about the rest of the hard working, tax paying LEGAL citizens of this country but I’m tired of footing the bill for lazy individuals who continue popping out illegitmate kids and think government is responsible for taking care of them. Get some morals, and get a job! Oh wait, under Obama, good luck finding one!!
What debt? I do not owe anything. If anybody wants to claim ownership to the National Debt, fine. Just do not try to pin it on me, I had nothing to do with it.
That won’t stop them from taking all you have, and even throwing you in jail if you resist them. (Resist long enough, and they’ll kill you over the issue.)
It’ll be the same with your children and grandchildren (great grandchildren, too, most likely.)
Government is the monopoly on the use of lethal force. They guard that monopoly jealously.
Mr. O’bama, where are the Jobs?
You are a fool. Wealth redistribution through currency manipulation means that there really is no debt. They are devaluing every dollar they give you so that someone else can be given more dollars. For instance, I owe you 100. But I own a printing press that allows me to print my own money. So I print up a 100 for you, but then I print up 200 for myself. Now, we both want a bicycle. You offer to pay 100 for the bicycle, but I come along and offer 125 for the bicycle. I get the bicycle and you cannot afford it. Plus I have money left, and I can print more. So basically everything you want I can outbid you on. I own everything and you own nothing. This is wealth redistribution by currency manipulation.
I fully understand fiat currency & the fraud of the Federal Reserve Banking System. Yes, I understand how the Banksters are stealing most everyone’s retirement & savings & investments & the purchasing power of the dollar by inflation through the printing of money ad nauseum. Yes it is a scam & most every one of our elected reps know that.
I was merely pointing out that the austerity politicians & the International Bankers can scream all they want about what we owe, but I do not owe them anything. If you want to accept that you owe them, fine, but not me. The debt that they are talking about is fraudulent.
Yep thats it. Ron Paul is the ONLY runner proposeing cuts to spending by 1 trillion dollors in his first year. Why is that?
What we clearly need is massive tax increases on the wealthy and a much smaller strategic footprint (reducing the size of the American empire). Increasing taxes on Romney’s ilk and cutting the Pentagon budget to realistic levels (to maintain security) would create budget surpluses and we would pay off the debt bomb that Reagan/Dubya created in 30-50 years.
If we confiscated the entire wealth of “Romney and his ilk” (which would include O’bama: he’s a multimillionaire, too, doncha know?), we would pay off one percent of the national debt. It wouldn’t even pay the on-going expenses of the federal government for one month!
Most of us don’t have a clue as to what a “billion” is, much less a trillion (1,00 times greater). One bill seconds ago, Jimmy Carter was busy destroying USmerica from the Rose Garden. One trillon seconds ago, there wasn’t a homo sapiens standing upright on the planet.
“Soaking the rich” is a great political tool to get politicians elected, but in truth, it will not work, and only incredibly stupid or ignorant people believe it. We don’t suffer from too low taxation, we suffer from too high spending.
Right now, the <b.federal government (we don’t want to talk about the states and other government agencies, that’d just be depressing) owes nearly $16 trillion. If we add in antiSocial inSecurity “benefits” (“traps”, in reality) promised to people, along with all of the other “unfunded obligations”, the total is closer to $120 trillion. If you could count one number each one-billionth of a second (a “nanosecond”, the time it takes light to travel 11″), never stopping to eat, bathe, poop or pee, it would take you 3,800 years to count that high. I imagine you might die first . (If we allowed a full second for each number, your fifty-seventh great grandchildren would still be counting and not have reached the half-way point.)
We must stop spending. It is impossible to tax our way out of this morass.
Mr. O’bama, where are the Jobs?
Thanks for demonstrating what a tool of the plutocrats you’ve become.
Fact: government spending generates jobs when the private sector will or can not.
Where are the jobs? The President put forward The Jobs Act. Ask the Republicans in Congress why they won’t pass it.
You’re also wrong about the wealth of Romney and his ilk’s wealth. They have more than enough in offshore accounts to pay off the entire debt tomorrow.
The cure for your ignorance is knowledge: read this and cure your misinformed mind:
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/279-82/12664-national-debt-no-such-thing
Government may “create” jobs (that’s an open question on several counts), but it will do so “when the private sector cannot or will not” because there is no demand for the product or service produced. If there were demand, the job would exist because the private sector is in the business of producing things people actually want. Witness the Government Motors “Volt”. No one wants it, but there were a lot of jobs “created” when O’bama nationalized GM. But, for each job created, you and I, as taxpayers, forked over hundreds of thousands of dollars our grandchildren will repay.
Every “Jobs” bill turns out to be the same as the GM debacle: each job costs dozens, even hundreds of times what its true value is.
Mr. O’bama, where are the [real] Jobs?
The “Pentagon budget” does need trimming. But it is already less than 25% of the federal budget. It’s welfare payments of various sorts, including food stamps (SNAP that the “poor” can spend on lottery tickets, motel rooms, and caviar) that consume about ½ of the federal budget (if the Democrats ever actually passed one). That doesn’t even include what the states, etc, spend.
There just isn’t much more to trim from the soldiers and sailors. Unless, of course, you want to see them all on food stamps.
Mr. O’bama, where are the Jobs?
John Adams and Benjamin Franklin (and, no doubt, others among the Founders) were explicit in saying the the Constitution was designed for a religious and moral people, that it was, “adequate for the governance of no other.”
We are not a “moral people”. We are no longer a “religious people”. A glance at the headlines (“[Government-Run, Tax-Funded Welfare School] Teacher Rapes Student”, “House Member Tweets Naked Photos of Self”, “[Black] Teen Mob Attacks Man Because ‘Bored'”, etc.) to demonstrate this. We don’t go to church, but claim to be “religious”. We only support the poor through taxation. Obviously, these generalization do not apply to everyone, but they do describe USmerica and her attitudes towards important moral Laws. Our rising generations support same-sex “marriage”, not because they are homosexual themselves (although more and more it seems to be a growing trend in and of itself), but because they and we before them, do not understand, love, and practice marriage. We are not having children in adequate numbers to replace our own numbers, much less “multiply and replenish the earth”, unless one counts out-of-wedlock births, now ⅔~¾ of all live births in many communities. Our heroes are adulterous presidents and movie stars.
When the words “Pop Culture” assault my ears, I think “Petri dish”: the little glass containers we used in high school biology to grow molds and bacteria.
If we want to save this country (and I place myself in this category, having thirty grandchildren — yes, I know, they’ll be the ones paying your antiSocial inSecurity: you’re welcome), we, individually must commit ourselves to becoming the “moral and religious people” Adams described. It is not enough to put our financial houses in order. It is not sufficient to pay more taxes. It will not work to merely obey the law. We must stop being vulgar in our speech, casual in our approach to marriage, accepting (which is different from “tolerant”) of entertianment that would make our grandmothers blush. We should dress modestly in all places we visit, including beaches and malls. We must insist our daughters and granddaughters, our sons and grandsons keep themselves “physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.”
No one group, no single church, no individual person can do it alone, ’tis true. But it is individuals, united into groups and churches who value such moral principles, that will rescue this once-great country. Government will not do it (and, indeed, cannot). No president can. It is us, ourselves, on whom we must rely.
Who will take the challenge? We can start with cleaning up the language on this and other blogs/forums. When Rudy Giuliani reduced street crime in NYC, he didn’t do anything flashy: he just enforced Jaywalking laws. We can enforce our own jaywalking laws. And I hope we do so. We should then move on to the bigger things.
Time is running out.
Mr. O’bama, where are the Jobs?
i don’t hear enough about how the federal reserve is the real problem. it’s time those private bankers started taking some heat for what they’ve done to this country over the decades since 1913. they need to be audited and their little empire crushed.
Let’s face it the author is correct. Our nation is bankrupt but we want to keep living like Obama. So they print money. The debt bomb won’t start here. It is already starting overseas. We are devaluing the currency foreign governments are given. That is not making countries like China etc very happy. Those governments are creating a different monetary system based largely on barter. The momentum for that is building. The American and European banking systems have become unfair and untrustworthy. If America does not like you, we confiscate what you have in the banks. As the momentum builds and more and more countries see the advantages of this barter banking system the American and European banking cartel will get more and more isolated. Eventually, to continue international trade we will have to abandon the fiat currency or not be able to buy anything from other countries.