UNDERSTANDING YOUR ENEMY
Is it just me, or is the “debate” of this presidential race incredibly inappropriate for the condition we are in as a country? Neither candidate wants to talk about our debt crisis. Neither wants to tell voters that real pain will follow this election. I’m not talking about the so-called “fiscal cliff” of taxes and spending cuts that are scheduled to kick in January 1, 2013. You can count on the lame duck Congress to do what they always do—slash the cuts in spending and decrease the taxes. It will be hailed as a great compromise. Kick the can down the road one more time.
Neither candidate has looked the American people in the eye and made the correct diagnosis. From this point forward you should ignore any attack that one candidate makes on the other candidate. If you buy into the fraudulent issues of Romney’s tax returns, Obama’s birth certificate or college records, taxes on the rich, looking out for the middle class, and who is going to push granny over the cliff first, you are missing the greatest issue of our nation’s life: What is America going to do, now that it is already insolvent and incapable of paying back its debt or balancing a budget?
The candidates would like to avoid this issue at all costs. Who wants to vote for someone who promises pain? Both candidates continue down the Santa Claus road, acting as if we can continue to create, print, and borrow money indefinitely. Not only has neither candidate publicly made the correct diagnosis, neither has a believable prescription for improvement. Meanwhile, a few brave economists focus on whether austerity or more stimuli is the road to recovery.
I don’t know if the candidates will get past attacking each other before the election, because each party continues to cling to the idea that government can continue to service its special interests and entitlements. My view is that our political system is rotten to the core. Democrats and Republicans are guilty of taking every dime of Santa Claus money they could get. It is fraudulent to frame the presidential debate as a referendum over who deserves the most Santa Claus money. In a short period of time, Santa Claus money will dry up, or be worthless. This will not happen because of the foresight of either party or their presidential candidate. It will happen because of MATH.
Please recognize that massive austerity programs that gut the entitlement programs and the national defense will not balance our budget. No amount of government stimulus can change the fact that no country can borrow its way out of debt. No new tax hike that takes every dollar that “rich” people make can balance the budget or pay off the national debt. Obama’s attempt to stimulate our economy has added approximately 50 per cent to our national debt, insuring that the end will be near. What has all that money, directed toward big banks, insolvent states, Fannie and Freddie, and Obama’s ideological soul mates done for us? Last month 44 states reported increased unemployment. For a complete look at our national budget, click on the widget by the same name in the right lower corner of page one of my blog, http://www.thefirsttosayno.com
Stimulus was never the answer. Bailouts were never the answer. Sometimes I wonder how Harvard University can graduate so many stupid people. According to Keynesian economics, during times of recession the government can stimulate the economy by lowering interest rates and injecting money into banks. Unfortunately, this is not an ordinary recession. This is a government-induced debt crisis shared by democracies all over the globe. Most of these democracies can’t print more money. As businesses and people become more frightened about the future, they spend less. 70 percent of the U.S. economy is directly related to consumer spending. Less spending causes further contraction in the economy, more lay offs, and even less tax revenue. This is a self-feeding process that will change the face of America, just as the Great Depression did.
Think of it this way. Our national credit card is maxed out. This means that other countries will soon stop buying our bonds. The dollar is hanging on only because the Euro is in even worse shape and the dollar temporarily remains the reserve currency of the world. We have already entered a period of world-wide depression. Some countries, those few that have sovereign wealth funds and actually spend less than they collect in tax revenue, will weather the years of depression much better than the world’s democracies. Even the Chinese economy is slowing. Just how fast, they won’t say. Suffice to say, the Eurozone countries will markedly decrease their imports from the United States, and we will markedly reduce our imports from China.
For you to base your vote in November on more government or less government misses the point. Neither candidate is really for less government, which is the only viable way out after we crash. The Republican and Democratic budget projections for deficits the next 20-30 years are fraudulent, based on growth that cannot occur in the environment we have created for ourselves, and based on other struggling countries lending us more money.
There is no moral courage in Washington. Ryan’s budget is no different from Obama’s. Should we raise the national debt by over 80 percent or by over 60 percent in the next ten years? This is a ridiculous question. We won’t even be able to pay the interest on the debt we already owe once interest rates rise. The laws of mathematics will cause our house of credit cards to crash during the next administration, regardless who occupies the White House. We cannot continue deficit spending without destroying what is left of the dollar’s value.
If these candidates had any sense, they wouldn’t want to be president during the next four years. No one is going to be pleased when interest rates skyrocket, our national credit is cut off, and governments at all levels must decrease services drastically. Can you imagine the anger all over America when Santa Claus money is no longer available, or is worthless? I have tried to sound an advance alarm to the nation’s emergency departments, but most of my warnings have fallen on deaf ears. So many Americans cannot see beyond their own self interests.
It is my view that our government is so corrupt that it needs to fail. Who is going to volunteer to give up his Santa Claus money? No one. The entire system needs to collapse in order that we can start over with such ideas as self-reliance, hard work, a balanced budget, term limits for politicians, a flat tax, no deductions for anybody, no money from lobbyists, no picking of winners and losers by government, tight controls on the Federal Reserve, malpractice reform, and massive downsizing of all government programs. Nobody is going to vote for such things as long as they are sucking on the government tit. I don’t recall where I heard this saying, but it seems appropriate here: “Be vigilant in battle, but never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” Both candidates are hastening our day of reckoning.
If you can look at the same old pandering of both candidates to their special interests and not understand why our government is the enemy, I can’t help you.
Charles C. Anderson M.D. FACP, FACEP
