Ted Rall for March 27, 2013
Transcript:
After decades of unbalanced budgets, policymakers from both parties decide to make deficit elimination the nation's top priority. (Man 1: We must balance the budget- even if it means selling our nukes to Iran!) Obsessiveness over arbitrary measures of economic health runs rampant. (Woman: Our domestic spending to G.D.P. ratio must fall below 25%- lest we anger the Gods!) (Man: Friedman has written it!) Those who question the crusade to conform to the random standards are shoved down with homey bumper sticker slogans. (Man 3: Families keep their domestic spending to G.D.P. ratios below 2.5%) (Man 4: Families don't have those ratios.) (Man 3: Econo-traitor!) Fortunately, the nation is saved by its tiny attention span. (Man 5: Iran got nukes somehow. They might point them at us.) (Man 6: Alert the mint! It's war spendin' time!)
You are Dead wrong here Mr. Rall. Our country’s spending is out of control by any rational standard. And those arbitrary standards to which you refer are the thresholds beyond which lenders will start demanding much higher interest rates to fund our government. Look at Greece, Cyprus, Ireland, Spain, Portugal and it doesn’t take long to understand the very real and bleak picture for our country if we don’t get our spending under control.
Where I think you and I DO agree is on where we should start cutting. I have long decried the Military Industrial complex that seems to consume an enormous amount of our Federal Budget. After that maybe we can look at reducing our domestic security budget by: Closing Federal prisons and turning out people who’s only crime was to consume/use/distribute drugs, Eliminate the Gropers at the airport that want to inspect every body that comes through, Stop testing every child 3 or 4 times to make sure that they are getting their fair share of education, and the list goes on an on of things the Federal Government does because somebody wanted to control somoene else’s behavior.
Back to the original point though: That money we are spending today is coming out of the wallets of my kids and grandkids down the road. If it really was an investment in the future that would be one thing but it isn’t. Much of that money goes into largess to be buttered onto selfish voters who want their freebies at someone else’s expense….Free Phone, Free Phone, Obama got me a Free Phone.