It has been a staple of the democrats for years that the costs of the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan and especially Iraq would lead to the ultimate bankrupting of the nation. There was much wailing and moaning about this during the presidential campaigns last year. President Obama made much of the fact that he was against the Iraq action, as opposed to the voting of then senators Clinton and Biden, even though he wasn’t even in the Senate in October 2002 and actually had and still has no idea of how he would have voted, given the circumstances as considered by them in real time.
While the war on terrorism has been in progress, the social engineers in this country and in the Congress have been demanding that the government see to it that everyone who wants to own a house must have one. This is mostly a democrat idea – couched in utter stupidity – but the republicans, basking in the glory of taking over Congress in the 90s, nodded off to sleep and, despite the advantage of being in the majority, just let the good times roll. Why knock a good thing? Besides, they were taking enough heat concerning the Iraq War anyway.
In January 2007, the democrats got control of the Congress at a time when the housing debacle probably could have been at least softened. Instead, they also let the good times roll...the unemployment rate was only at 4.6% then and people by the tens of thousands were buying houses they couldn’t afford, not that it mattered...they were ENTITLED, the watchword of the social engineers. The inevitable day of reckoning would come, of course, but couldn’t money always be printed? In the meantime, they could hammer the cost of the “needless” war. The Anointed One was in the Senate then, but he made no waves – actually, he was in the Senate only a comparatively few days before setting out to become the messiah.
This report was prepared recently by the Congressional Research Service:
“With enactment of the FY2008 Supplemental and FY2009 Bridge Fund (H.R. 2642/P.L. 110-252) on June 30, 2008, Congress has approved a total of about $864 billion for military operations, base security, reconstruction, foreign aid, embassy costs, and veterans’ health care for the three operations initiated since the 9/11 attacks: Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) Afghanistan and other counter terror operations; Operation Noble Eagle (ONE), providing enhanced security at military bases; and Operation ItaqiFreedom (OIF). This $864 billion total covers all war-related appropriations from FY2001 through part of FY2009 in supplementals, regular appropriations, and continuing resolutions.”
In eight years of all-out war requiring transportation nearly halfway around the world and involving hundreds of thousands of GIs and mega-mega tons of materiel, the government has spent $864 billion, a matter railed against by the “loyal opposition” during those years. The result: No further attacks since 9/11 on this country by terrorists or anyone else, as well as the dissolution of the influence/actions of Saddam Hussein, the most dangerous man in the world. There has been a toll in American lives, of course, involving both dead and wounded, but that toll must be measured against the lives that have been saved, especially in light of the fact that further plots against this nation have been both discovered and foiled.
Last fall, the Congress appropriated $700 billion to the financial institutions with the canard that at least some of it will be repaid, a claim no one believes. Last week, the ostensible borrowing of $1 trillion (counting interest, cost-overruns, bureaucratic theft) was enacted by Congress, so in four months the Congress has spent twice as much of the people’s money domestically (with the canard that this expenditure will save the nation) as has been spent in nearly eight years since 2001 in the interest of preserving freedom. It seems to be the consensus among those who are supposed to know about these things that about another $450 billion will have to be approved before the end of the year to continue saving the nation. In the meantime, during the majority tenure of the democrats in Congress, the unemployment rate has jumped to 7.6%, an increase of a whopping 65% in just two years.
The resulting deflation of the dollar, already in process, will soon be realized. A senior Chinese banking regulator said last week: “We hate you guys. Once you start issuing $1 trillion-$2 trillion [$1,000bn-$2,000bn] . . .we know the dollar is going to depreciate, so we hate you guys but there is nothing much we can do.” Indeed, they can’t and they’ll keep lending, knowing full well that if they called now, they’d lose their shirts. They probably will anyway, just as the coming generation in this country will pay through the nose. This nation is virtually without leadership. Through neglecting its oversight responsibilities, the Congress caused this mess but has no idea of how to handle it. The Anointed One, who must fly Air Force One 2,000 miles to Denver to sign the bill (streaming green-house-gas all the way and causing the Pacific Ocean to rise and threaten California), seems just as clueless,
George Bush and the regulators warned as far back as 2004 (information easily found by this corner on the Internet) that the housing crisis had better be checked. Congress (both republicans and democrats) discovered all this from the regulators in its hearings and did nothing. Now, the piper has to be paid...if it’s possible. No one seems to know how to do it at this point, except to borrow and throw money everywhere, and the average head-of-household knows how dumb that is.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
No comments:
Post a Comment