THE FINEST DYSFUNCTIONAL GOVERNMENT DEBT CAN BUY

(how to become a banana republic without hardly trying)

The Obama Administration has just handed us a $3.6 Trillion budget for the coming fiscal year, which starts next October. Such a load of zeros represents the finest dysfunctional government debt can buy.

If this is President Obama’s idea of “tightening our belts” and “making some sacrifices” to help us through our current hard times, I hate to think what his idea must be about wild-ass spending. Well, so much for all those campaign promises about reducing our National
Debt. Instead, this budget will simply ease us into becoming another banana republic…. without hardly trying.

Yes, he did inherit a financial and economic mess, one that had been accruing for the past 30 odd years or so (not just from the previous administration), and, he was forced to take some hard emergency measures to keep our ship of state financially afloat. Measures some of us might not agree with, but, at least they did prevent a complete economic and financial collapse….more or less. So we took on a further debt load (totaling some 20% of our GDP). This additional burden of debt, however, doubles that, and further lays the foundation for doubling that again, to near 80% of our GDP (assuming we have anything resembling one by that time), within the next 10-20 years. 

What are they smoking back there in DC?

But what’s most disturbing about it all is the arrogant assumption that this administration will still be in power ten years hence. At the rate they’re going, they may not last another three years. Frankly, this latest proposal of theirs suggests we should seriously consider voting them all out in the coming November elections. We’ve spiked their wheels in Virginia, in New Jersey, and in Massachusetts, so why not give them another kick in the electoral pants next November as well?

Here’s why, as taxpayers, we are….the “bankers”. Like any bankers worthy of the name, we owe it to ourselves to rein in their spendthrift ways. After all it’s our assets they’re hocking…. not theirs. So it’s time we said ….whoa, Nelly….and cut them off from all that green. 

Look at it this way….imagine going to our bankers saying – look, we realize we’re deep in hock already, and our current debt load is well above our GDP credit limit (which we recently raised, you might recall), and yes, our collaterals are a mite thin now, but, we’d like you to let us double up on our debt load anyway. What do you think their answer would be? It wouldn’t be – NO- but –HELL NO!-

Well, so should we be saying it, and just as loudly and with just as many expletives we can muster. 

Back in the ‘60s there was the Million Man March on Washington. That would be one way of doing it. But there is a better and more forceful way of doing it. Let each and every taxpaying voter begin emailing, mailing, faxing, calling, their Representatives and their Senators with the following message: “If you vote for any part of this so-called budget, without a radical cut in spending, we will vote you out in November. Rest assured we will keep track of your votes on this matter, and if you vote the wrong way….hasta la vista, baby!”

We might also point out to them we’re tired of their living fat while the rest of us have to make do with lean cuisine. They need to step up to the plate and show some leadership by example here. We want to see them vote themselves a 10% pay and allowances cut for the next three years, and for the President, the VP, and all Department heads of the Executive Branch as well. And let’s not exempt our Judicial Branch either. Granted, the sum total of those savings in costs won’t be more than a drop in our debt and deficit buckets, but it should take a notch or two out of those loads. It’s the least they can do to show they are sincere in cutting our deficits and debt loads. 

If we don’t start hollering at them about this we’ll deserve everything we don’t get! It’s up to us.

CENTURION