And we like the debt "reduction" deal because . . .?
The bill to increase the federal debt limit that has been put before Congress today would increase that limit by up to $2.4 trillion, which would be the largest increase in the debt limit in U.S. history by a margin of half a trillion dollars, according to records published by the Government Accountability Office and the Congressional Research Service.
For our editorial today, I dragged out a tired cliche that nevertheless seemed appropriate. If the debt problem is like a flooded basement, this compromise was a teasponful-of-water solution. But that's not quite accurate. All they agreed to do was slow down the extra water they're adding to the basement a little.
Comments
Yes, that's what isn't being talked about much in the media - this isn't really a reduction in the size of the federal government, it simply slows down the amount it will grow over the next 10 years. The best idea I've heard around is for the government to at least make a good faith effort to do what everyone else in the country has already had to do - trim their budget, lay some people off, cut salaries and benefits, etc. Instead, they are doing just the opposite, hiring more federal workers and raising their pay.
What it tells me is, this administration, in conjuction with a large faction of it's socialist disciples and the complicity of a huge number of career politician RINO's are either:
A. Too stupid to understand 5th grade math.
Or
B. Crashing the economy on purpose.
There aren't really any other explanations.
Tim - Yes there is - "If we don't get term limits- our republic is kaput!"
The first law of holes is, if you find yourself in one, stop digging. And that's what we've done. At least we've taken the first step.
Now, we need to fill in the hole.
When people turn around a failing business, the first thing they do is to stem the flow of red ink. Then they close down or sell enterprises that aren't central to what they're doing, they arrange additional credit and they invest in their core business.
Article 4, Section 4, of the Constitution says the federal government needs to guarantee the States a republican form of government. Not Iraq. Not Afghanistan. Not Korea or Germany. Instead of maintaining wars in 2 1/2 countries and military bases in over 100, we need to seriously cut back our military. The USSR collapsed trying to keep up with us, and we're about to collapse trying to keep up as well.
We need to overhaul our tax code, and get rid of the loopholes that politicians have gotten rich selling to lobbyists. Better still, since you get less of whatever you tax, we should tax consumption instead of production. If foreign companies want to sell in the world's largest market, they can pay a VAT. And if our companies produce exports, we ought to say "attaboy" instead of taxing those exports.
Politicians don't know how to create jobs; instead, they use tax cuts to steal them from other jurisdictions. We need to promote the formation of new small businesses by building shell mini-factory/warehouse facilities that can be rented without depleting a startup's cash, and provide interns to give assistance in those one-time tasks (incorporating, developing a logo, getting patents and trademarks, getting zoning variances and occupancy permits, incorporating, setting up books, finding insurance, hiring, etc.) involved in starting up a business so that the founders can concentrate on actually getting production up and going.
We need an educated population, so we should offer a fast track to citizenship for foreigners who earn degrees from accredited US colleges.
We need to make it possible for students to work their way through college - something that was possible after WWII, but impossible today with tuition at $24,000 per year for a relatively inexpensive college like St. Francis.
We need to expand apprenticeship programs for all the skilled trades. Journeyman millwrights, tool and die makers, HVAC men, etc., are in great demand everywhere.
We can't just cut. We need to invest as well. But we need to make sure that we're actually investing, and not just frittering away our resources. Trained chefs are in demand as well, and so are RNs, but there's a difference. Chefs make us a little more happy, but good RNs make us healthier and more productive. Unless you're doing something that increases our exports or reduces our imports, it's superfluous.
Having three kids in college a the same time, I found IPFW inexpensive. When I started there in 1975, the cost per hour was $27. Today it is $263, about 9 times over 36 years. It has increased faster because more people attend driving up cost while at the same time the state has decreased payments to the state colleges. So in all fairness to the taxpayers who did not go to college, those who are going should pay more of their own cost.
In engineering I found that many people have poor hand writing. this is being exaserbated by the public schools by using computers instead of insisting on hand written home work assignments. Hand writing also teaches setting up the problem, identifying what you are going write and how before you start. We need apprentice type training today as Harl wrote. In addition we need fewer classes in high School. How many types of algebra does a school need? How many different types of economics do schools need to teach? With more than 170 different classes to chose from, high school no longer prepares students for the outside real world with a good general education, but a specialized education that really does not lend itself to getting a job in the real world.
"Unless you