Wednesday, August 11, 2010

America's Debt and Deficit Addiction


Sign POSTED on Hwy 61, Hutchinson, Kansas.


Today, the online edition of The Wall Street Journal published a small news item with HUGE implications.

For all of fiscal 2009, the U.S. ran a record $1.42 trillion deficit. Fiscal 2010 might run a little higher — the Obama administration sees $1.47 trillion.

I'm not sure anybody can appreciate the number when it's written that way.  Here's what it looks like:

$-1,470,000,000,000.00 

That's just the deficit, meaning it's the amount of money over and above what the country takes in.

In recent weeks, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) announced he is once again sponsoring a balanced budget amendment (it's the third time he's tried).  Maybe this time somebody will take note and dare to be bold enough to vote it into the Constitution.  Don't hold your breath, but it's a wonderful notion.

Hatch is already starting his run for another Senate term in 2012.  He's running for his political life to avoid the same fate as his counterpart Bob Bennett (R-UT), who crashed and burned at the state Republican convention earlier this year.  While Bennett was perceived as a big spender, Hatch is attempting to distance himself from a similar fate, ignoring for the moment that the 36 years while Hatch has been in Washington the trend to spend ourselves into oblivion has all happened on his watch when his party was in and out of power.

"Our national debt is now $13 trillion," Hatch said in a news release. . . "My resolution can't turn back the clock to stop the outrageous spending of the past few years, but it can stop congressional liberals from adding even more to the deficit through more spending." 

Memo to Orrin:  the "congressional conservatives" from your own party were just as guilty in the past.  You've been in league with the liberals.  You're all going to be fired if the electorate is as awake as I believe they are, and there's no place to run and hide this time in your press releases and proposed amendments.  The emperor has no clothes, and it's not just one little boy in the crowd who sees it.

When Bennett was running for the Senate earlier this year, we were warned that his powerful senior voice in Washington was indispensible to Utah's interests, because Bob Bennett knew how to bring home the earmarks for his home state.  Bennett never once renounced earmarks during his campaign, in fact he defended the practice!

Think about it.  If that's what we're losing in losing Bennett, then every other state in the nation deserves and should be so fortunate.  We must collectively unite as a nation and say to Washington,

"NO MATTER WHAT THE PRICE TAG LOOKS LIKE IN SACRIFICE INDIVIDUALLY AND COLLECTIVELY, WE MUST STOP SPENDING MONEY WE DON'T HAVE!!!!"

And here's what our debt looks like:

$13,000,000,000,000.00

Just the interest payments alone so far in fiscal 2010 amount to $185.25 billion.  Here's what that number looks like:

$185,250,000,000.00

If you were a member of Congress with a record like that to run on in 2010 or in 2012, would any right-thinking American actually believe you deserved another term?  It's insanity or worse.  That's why this year, as never before, the popularity of Congress is at an all-time record low of 11%.  I'm wondering who the 11% are that have a favorable view.  REALLY?  It should be -11% at best. 

If that's a record you can be "proud of," Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama, then it's time to lock you all up and throw away the key. 


We can't solve it all in one year, but we can make a great start by hiring Mike Lee for the Senate and Morgan Philpot for the 2nd Congressional District.  Let's resolve here and now that we will hire new management as an electorate nationwide, and look for people who don't want to perpetuate their longevity in office based upon those numbers.

It's time to look for CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN this time around.

George W. Bush once famously warned, "We are addicted to oil," and coming from a member of a prominent Texas oil family that was quite an admission.  Seems like a million years ago at least, but it was only 2006 in his State of the Union address.  Bush had it partially correct.  We are addicted. . .

. . . but our addiction is to debt and deficit spending.

The withdrawal is going to be painful and protracted, but it must begin in the 2010 November mid-term elections.

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