Spending ourselves into oblivion
My husband is really smart. A great guy, too. Yesterday morning we're drinking coffee and he says, "I almost got you out of bed last night because I was watching the SCARIEST show I think I've ever seen."
I'm thinking he's talking about some horror film or something. He goes on.
"It was on one of those university channels--it was a taped lecture by the comptroller general of the US. He said he has no hope for the future of the country or for his grandchildren's future. It was the scariest thing I've seen on TV in a long time. America is over...our total debt outweighs our total accumulated wealth. It's just a matter of time before the economy and the country completely fall apart."
As my husband keeps droning on and on about the historical nature of republics and how it's hopeless, I'm getting freaked out. Then he says, "Go to the GAO's web site and read the report. You will be afraid." So I did. Now I wish he had gotten me up to watch the lecture, because the report is kind of long, but it is simply a frighteningly honest appraisal of where the U.S. is headed if we don't get the deficit and the budget under some kind of control and start accounting for emergency spending as part of that. Americans (and congress, for god's sake) need to get honest with each other about this, and quick, or by 2012 we'll be free-falling into an economic black hole from which we will never be able to escape.
One problem is the "mandated spending" by congress so they don't have to worry about a different congress repealing what they already voted to spend; in a way, Tom DeLay was right when he said last week that there was no fat to cut off of the budget. It would be illegal to do so with mandated spending. In reality, that is ridiculous because we all know there is a lot of spending we could cut--but the mandates make it nearly impossible.
I'm not smart enough to go into this any further because I would certainly sound like I'm not smart enough to be discussing these things. But I liked Tucker Carlson's chopping block he listed on his show the other night: means testing for Social Security, chopping the Departments of Education, Energy, and on and on...yep, we're on the same page there. The report's cure? It said that taxes would have to be increased three-fold and a whole lot of things would have to be cut to reverse the inevitable. And as we all know, taxes will NEVER be increased three-fold, at least as long as Bush is president. He'll leave that burden to the next president.
I'm thinking he's talking about some horror film or something. He goes on.
"It was on one of those university channels--it was a taped lecture by the comptroller general of the US. He said he has no hope for the future of the country or for his grandchildren's future. It was the scariest thing I've seen on TV in a long time. America is over...our total debt outweighs our total accumulated wealth. It's just a matter of time before the economy and the country completely fall apart."
As my husband keeps droning on and on about the historical nature of republics and how it's hopeless, I'm getting freaked out. Then he says, "Go to the GAO's web site and read the report. You will be afraid." So I did. Now I wish he had gotten me up to watch the lecture, because the report is kind of long, but it is simply a frighteningly honest appraisal of where the U.S. is headed if we don't get the deficit and the budget under some kind of control and start accounting for emergency spending as part of that. Americans (and congress, for god's sake) need to get honest with each other about this, and quick, or by 2012 we'll be free-falling into an economic black hole from which we will never be able to escape.
One problem is the "mandated spending" by congress so they don't have to worry about a different congress repealing what they already voted to spend; in a way, Tom DeLay was right when he said last week that there was no fat to cut off of the budget. It would be illegal to do so with mandated spending. In reality, that is ridiculous because we all know there is a lot of spending we could cut--but the mandates make it nearly impossible.
I'm not smart enough to go into this any further because I would certainly sound like I'm not smart enough to be discussing these things. But I liked Tucker Carlson's chopping block he listed on his show the other night: means testing for Social Security, chopping the Departments of Education, Energy, and on and on...yep, we're on the same page there. The report's cure? It said that taxes would have to be increased three-fold and a whole lot of things would have to be cut to reverse the inevitable. And as we all know, taxes will NEVER be increased three-fold, at least as long as Bush is president. He'll leave that burden to the next president.
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