Chicken Little Reigns

I have been trying to find a single piece to illustrate the madness we are experiencing in our government today.  I have searched the usual sources for an explanation that is clear and concise with little success.  However, when I opened my e-mail this morning, I received a missive from David (you are acquainted with him) that does just that.  I will share it, with comments, if the muse moves me to do so.

Take it away David,  "I thought I might pass along the bottom line in this sequestration business for those of you who might not be aware.

Our Chicken Little in Charge has been running all over the country giving campaign speeches about how the sky is going to fall if sequestration goes through tomorrow. Lacking in these speeches has been the fact that the whole thing was his idea to begin with, as well as the fact that he signed it into law last year with the whole hearted approval of the Dems.

Also missing in his hysterical rhetoric is the fact that these are not spending cuts as he is portraying them. They are cuts to future increases. They amount to 85 billion dollars, 2% of the proposed budget. Even so, there will be future increases. For example, even with the "cuts", the Defense Department spending will increase 121 billion dollars between 2014 and 2023. And so it is with the other agencies, also.

Of course, there is the fact that there is no budget. The Senate Democrats have refused to pass a budget for the past four years, even though they are required by law to do so. Perhaps I should have said they haven't even proposed a budget.

The last year before the Dems took over Congress, Bush's deficit, with two wars raging, was 245 billion. Then Senator Obama gave a speech about how incredibly "irresponsible" that deficit was and how it displayed "a total lack of leadership." Nonetheless, he has been running a 1.2 trillion dollar deficit ever since he came into office and that's perfectly okay.

Does no one hold this man accountable for anything?

We are to the point that we cannot balance the budget even if there was an attempt being made to do so. Just three programs, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security cost more than we take in each year. We could shut down the entire federal government except for those three programs and we would not be able to balance the budget. But never mind, we will keep spending more than a trillion dollars each year than the government receives in revenue. You know, damn the reality of the thing and full speed ahead. We will spend $180,000 and hour, and that's just for the plane, to fly Obama all over the country telling us the "cuts" are going to horrific while at the same time we turn illegals set for deportation loose because we can't afford to lock them up anymore. I would imagine just one hour of Air Force One plane time would keep a lot of illegals locked up.

This is insanity.

No, wait a minute. I know what we will do. We will tax the rich more. That's never worked in the past but we will do it anyway. Of course there is the unfortunate fact that taxing the rich the extra amounts that Obama wants to will only run the government for six days. I know. We will just take everything that rich Americans own. We will take their companies, their homes, their corporate jets, their bank accounts, and their little dogs, too. Well shoot. Come to find out, if we did that it would only run the country for 7 months. The only thing to do is take everything we can from everyone. At least that way everyone will be equal.....equally miserable.

Ain't socialism wonderful? There is only one problem as Margaret Thatcher said, "Socialism is great until you run out of other people's money." Oh well, when that happens, we will find somebody to blame....or maybe start a world war....or maybe just shoot anyone who complains.

Sarcasm aside, I would like to mention two history lessons which neither party seems to be paying any attention to. I have mentioned these to some of you in the past so please indulge me while I do it again.

Why do the politicians keep pushing for tax increases? History has proven that every time there is a serious tax cut, government revenues increase. It happened with John Kennedy, Bush the Younger, and Reagan. After Reagan's 1983 tax cuts, the revenues almost doubled in 2 years. Under Bush, revenues went up 40%. What's so hard to understand about that?

Everything Obama is doing with the economy has been tried before and it never worked. It didn't work for Hoover and it didn't work for FDR. When the stock market plummeted one year under Reagan everyone ran to him wanting to know what he was going to do. He refused to do anything, stating that the free market would correct itself without government interference. Within a couple of months or so, the market reached new highs.

In 1920 we had a relatively sorry president by the name of Harding. A depression hit which later indicators reflected would have been worse than the 1929 depression. Harding did two things. He cut government spending across the board by 20% and cut taxes by 50%(those percentage are as I remember them. I am not going to take the time to look them up right now). Within two years unemployment was 2.9% and the 20's were roaring.

So why can't the government learn from history? Well, there are several reasons, none of them good. I will leave it to you to figure them out, but mark my words, we are heading for a terrible economic disaster which doesn't have to happen."

David