The circus known as Illinois politics reached new heights of absurdity today. Senate leaders who just yesterday refused to seat Roland Burris now are singing a different tune. Gone also are vows from Illinois state leaders to block any appointment made by disgraced but still sitting Governor Blagojevich. Could it be everyone involved read Erwin Chenerinsky’s op-ed in Tuesday’s LA Times? “Like it or not,” intoned Mr. Chenerinsky, “Illinois Gov. Rod E. Blagojevich has the legal authority to appoint Roland Burris to the U.S. Senate…” Apparently Senate Majority leader Harry Reid got the message. “We’re going to do the best we can to make sure the State of Illinois has two Senators, and not one Senator,” declared math major Reid. However, more drama is certainly forthcoming. Blagojevich’s impeachment, sure to provide entertaining political theater not seen since President Bill Clinton’s second term, is right around the corner. Who needs reality TV when politicians live down to their reputations?
A far more serious development is also commanding our attention. Israel’s long-overdue response to Hamas’ aggression, aka “Israel’s invasion of Gaza,” is giving the mainstream media fresh grist for its seedy mill. Pictures of Palestinian dead and wounded dominate the front pages and lead stories of the world’s print and broadcast news outlets. As gnarly as this current confrontation is, within weeks it will end and assume its place as merely the latest Arab/Israeli set-to in a long line of similar events stretching back to 1948.
No question about it, the Gaza struggle is newsworthy, as is even the Blagojevich/Burris/Reid foolery. However, these events pale in importance compared to a calamity unfolding under our very noses, yet garnering very little scrutiny and even less public interest. President-elect Obama announced yesterday that America faces “trillion dollar deficits for years to come,” according to the New York Times News Service. Discerning citizens are alarmed to the point of hysteria by Obama’s statement, but most of the country simply isn’t paying attention. Too bad, because nothing else threatens this nation as much as the increasingly accepted practice of deficit spending.
Think that’s an overstatement? I hope you are right, but the facts say otherwise. Consider that only eight short years ago the nation’s debt stood at about $5 trillion. Twenty years before that we collectively owed about $1 trillion, a 200-year aggregate of national IOU’s. Today the nation’s debt stands at over $10 trillion and is growing at a disquieting pace. Several years of $1 trillion deficits will push America to the brink of financial ruin. The interest on, say, $15 trillion will approach $1 trillion per year, nearly one-third of our current federal budget. Moreover, this new massive accumulation of debt will occur precisely as the nation’s financial footing is further threatened by the aging of America creating “huge budgetary strains because of the growing costs of Medicare and Social Security programs,” according to the New York Times. Only an extraordinary reduction in federal spending can stem this tide, something neither political party has shown the slightest interest in accomplishing.
Unfortunately, the only real change our new President may usher in involves unprecedented fiscal irresponsibility. In light of the Bush years, that’s saying something. While promising “tighter fiscal discipline” and “extraordinary steps to ensure that the investments [in the form of stimulus plans] are made wisely and managed well,” Obama also is ready to unleash enormous new federal expenditures totaling $800 billion over the next two years alone. “Obama has so far not backed away from any of the big initiatives he ran on, including his plan to expand health insurance,” said the New York Times. Go to http://change.gov/ and you’ll get a taste of the spending Obama has in mind. But where will the money come from?
Incredibly, Obama is promising $300 billion in tax cuts as part of his stimulus package, while simultaneously backing away from his promise to soak the rich with new taxes during an economic downturn. We like the idea of tax reductions, but tax cuts coupled with extravagant new spending will produce enough red ink to make the Reagan and Bush 43 deficits look almost sustainable. In the event, our government will need to borrow and/or print multiple trillions of dollars during Obama’s administration, resulting in ever-increasing deficits and no small amount of inflation. It may never again be morning in America.
Given the current mindset in Washington and the country, there will be no happy ending to this story. The entitlement and bailout mentalities have taken root in the American psyche. Far too many Americans believe that government can provide nearly unlimited free services, and most do not seem to understand that as a nation we cannot borrow our way out of a crisis created by careless debt. As the economy worsens, Americans may vote to fund more government assistance, benefaction delivered in the form of, or backed by, increasingly worthless paper money. Within our lifetimes America may very well become the latest nation to succumb to, in the words of Henry Hazlitt, inflation’s siren music that “has tempted one nation after another down the path of economic disaster.” Damn, won’t anyone wake up before it’s too late?
Posted by Jerry Pomeroy in Budgets, Limiting Government, Obama Presidency