Monday, April 26, 2010

Desperation & the Debt Commission

The president has appointed something called the “National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform,” nicknamed the “Debt Commission” for want of a better term. Its co-chairmen, former senator Alan Simpson and former Clinton apparatchik Erskine Bowles, appeared on the Sunday morning Fox clambake on 25 April with Chris Wallace and delivered themselves of the same opinion, to wit, that nothing is “off the table,” including such things as budget-cutting and revenue-enhancement, a fancy term for new taxes. Both seemed sure of one thing, i.e., that there’s no way to tell what’s about to happen in this bankrupt country. They seemed to be as lost in the financial fog as everyone else.

If he’d had any idea of what to do himself or if he knows and would rather pass the buck, the president wouldn’t have appointed this new group, which apparently isn’t even supposed to come up with any ideas before next December. Fortunately for the democrats and not surprisingly, that’s AFTER the November elections. Handling any stringent measures suggested before then would mean that legislators would have to face the issue of bankruptcy squarely, something they absolutely want to avoid. While cost-cutting and non-earmarking are unpopular with the solons, raising taxes is absolute anathema.

No matter the subject, it’s always interesting to observe the bureaucrats’ use of the “everything’s on the table” approach, since they actually mean that they either have no clue as to what to do or that the remedy is politically worse than the disease. In this case, the greater part of the answer is that deep cuts in entitlements must be made. Despite that obvious fact, the Congress has just passed a health-care bill that’s so potentially expensive that no individual or institutional think-tank crowd – and certainly no one in Congress – has any idea of its cost…except that it will be off the charts and so bound in red-tape that it will take years for anyone to find out what’s involved.

The legislators haven’t read the health-care bill with any collective idea of what they passed, so they’re no help in solving the problems and they can only hope that the people back home are too disinterested to hold them accountable. To help sink the economy, the House (okay, just the dems) has already passed a cap-and-trade bill that no Congressperson had read. The experts say that this legislation will drive companies out of business but the president wants this silliness passed into law.

So…what are poor democrat Congresspersons to do in light of the pressures that can be brought to bear? They dare not think for themselves since they might suffer an attack of truth that they simply can’t control. After all, the best scientific minds in this country have thoroughly pooh-poohed the inconvenience that Algore has delivered as gospel, ergo, there’s no actual need for any bill.

Pick any of the talking-heads pundit-shows and their interviewees over the weekend. They were made up of folks who plainly had no idea as to what to do…or took the copout route of “everything on the table.” Some legislators had actually come to believe that a needless “energy bill” was in the offing. Energy (cap-and-trade) is no fun, however, so the big deal all of a sudden has to do with the “immigrant problem,” as advanced by Arizona in trying to protect its people and property. Senator Graham is ticked off but good. The main thrust seems to be the changing of the subject…or the legislation…or the SCOTUS vacancy…or anything that gets the people’s mind off the mess that this administration and Congress have foisted off on the public…after promising everything in Camelot and Utopia combined during the last campaigns.

The penultimate sticky wicket has now occurred in the fact that such disparate entities as Senate Minority Leader McConnell, Treasury Secretary Geithner of tax-cheat fame, and the democrat-propaganda sheet known as the Washington Post (gasp) have agreed on something – doing away with the $50 billion slush-fund (or whatever it is) in current legislation that could lead to more bank bailouts…maybe…who knows? What other unpleasant surprises are out there?

Much was made of the “malaise” present during the Carter administration, but that was nothing compared to the current situation. In any case, Reagan delivered the country at a time when unemployment was about as high as it is now and the prevailing interest rate was at about 20%. Either the people running this country now intend to destroy the capitalist system that has fashioned the greatest economy in history or they simply have no clue. This becomes more evident every day as they ride off in all directions at once. The result is that people will more and more lose faith in leadership. Perhaps the elections in November form the key.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

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