Need I go further?  Apparently so, as our leaders in Washington seem to share the opinion that in all cases regarding re-election increasing debt is an okay thing.

Hence, to help get re-elected the majority democratic House increased the ‘legal’ debt limit of our wonderful nation to $14.2 trillion.  And then Obama signed the new ‘legal’ debt limit into law.  That was the easy thing to do.  The hard thing?  Balance the freakin’ budget you knuckleheads!!

What does the new debt ceiling accomplish?

For one thing the democrats in Washington (the ‘never met a government transfer payment too large or too extravagant to pass’ democrats) now have clear sailing to spend about $1.5 trillion MORE than they already have.  And, if history is any indicator, they will spend it fast and furiously with no consideration for the long-term consequences or their misguided selfish and ’socialist’ tendencies.

As I have said many times in the past, I am neither democrat nor republican (though I clearly lean toward the conservative side of nearly all fiscal issues).  Yet, when I see gross incompetence and even grosser ignorance I do not hesitate to call a spade a spade.

Therefor here I go.

The democrat majority in the House and the Senate, with a little ‘egging on’ from the democrat White House, are on a spend and expand (as in government) spree the likes of which we have never seen.

Nearly everyone in D.C. agrees that the current recession is either out or on its way.  Yet Demo’s are hustling through the House yet another stimulus.  And, as evidence that the public is rejecting their already extravagant spending, they insist on adding more $$ to pretend to create jobs and to do so without consulting (read ‘listen to’) their cohorts on the right.  This has nothing to do with really creating employment since any results would be many months (here read ‘after the coming election’) from being proven.  They are doing it just for show and for votes.

I hope the American people see through this sham.  Brought to you by the same people that promised unemployment of 8% or less if the $758 Billion stimulus bill was passed (it is at or near 10% now).

So who are we to trust?  Not the republicans, sadly, those guys brought a tripling and quadrupling of our deficit during the Bush years.  Fiscal conservatives? Hardly!

We must all recognize that our debt really does matter.  China owns a chunk of it.  So does Saudi Arabia.  Does anyone in their right mind think those dudes are our ‘freinds’?  Hardly!  What if the bank that owned your mortgage hated your guts . . . do you think for a second that they would ‘work’ it out with you?

On top of that is the cost of servicing any debt we ‘bear’ in that burden.  At current interest rates that cost is normatively low . . . but who expects interest rates to remain at all-time record lows?  No one outside of the Washington beltway.  Debt service could soon be HUGE!

You and I can’t operate our lives at a deficit — not for long anyway.  Cities and counties can’t either.  Most states can’t by law (even with Arnold the ‘Gobernator’  at the helm).

So how can the federal government?

Because of war goes the historical party line.

Yet the costs of the ‘wars’ we are in now are only a small part of our federal budget.   Don’t buy that old argument today.  We always have high defense costs and the incremental costs of the current  ’wars’ are really small overall — even though in the tens of billions of $$.   The federal budget for next year is over $3.5 trillion  and annual ‘war’ costs are less than 3% of that.

Government spending is totally OUT OF CONTROL.

We can’t continue with the current debt burden.  Politicians aren’t going to do anything but talk and ignore the problem.  They are ‘professionals’ after all . . . too smart to listen to you and I.

Solutions?  Get citizen politicians to serve for one or two terms.  Let them handle the purse strings like they would their own.  Tight and conservative.

Economics is too often about politics.  The vice-versa isn’t necessarily true.

Vote against ALL incumbents and for citizen leaders willing to serve for ONLY a few years.

I bet you that if we all do this the whole ‘burden’ issue will be moot in a decade.

And if you don’t think your voice can be heard then you are wrong.

United we stand . . .  divided we fall (and the fall would be much greater than any you ever heard of in the stock markets).

thanks to flickr’s azrainman for the photo

It passed early this morning.  The vote?  60-39.  No republicans voted for the plan.  Every single Democrat voted for it.

Jeeze Louise!  When will the partisan politics end?  When will the mantra of ‘what is good for the country’ replace the partisan one of ‘what is good for my re-election?’

I wish I could tell you the details of the democrats plans (the one that passed the House and the one that passed the Senate).  But I can’t.  Because I don’t have the time to read four or five thousand pages.  And you know what?  That goes for most of our Senators and Congressmen either (they have only read the parts they drafted).

Are the two bills that must now be merged before final passage any good?  Who really knows.

But this much is clear.  There was no real effort on the part of democrats to engage republicans so that the bills would be widely acceptable.  Further, there was no real effort by the republicans to seek such engagement and get strategies important to them in the bills.

Consequently these bills (as drafted) do nothing to limit frivolous medical lawsuits, nothing to effectively lower the cost of medications (Americans pay twice as much as other countries in some cases), do little to stop the incredible growth of health care costs,  do little to extend coverage to all Americans (about 25 million people are left out in the cold), do little to limit the extravagant benefits Congress has, and leave many other questions unanswered as well.

These draft bills are NOT what President Obama promised.  They are partisan and offensive to most knowledgeable Americans.

Why does onlyNebraska get added medicare costs payed by the government (at the expense of citizens of all other states)?  As a bonus thrown in to get Nebraska’s vote, that’s why!

And there are other unfair and ‘porkified’ benefits thrown in as well simply to get votes that otherwise would not be there.

I don’t know what the final bill will look like and I am not really interested in the details yet.

It is enough to know that this bill was cobbled together by democrats so that democrats will get re-elected.  Another case of incumbent politics.  It is enough to know that this bill was cobbled together without any republican help so that those republicans could oppose, oppose and oppose — to help them get re-elected.

How does Congress work?  Whatever it takes to get re-elected and NOT what it takes to make America a better place for our 300 million citizens.

Harry Reid should be ashamed.  Nancy Pelosi should be ashamed.  President Obama should be ashamed.  The democrats should be ashamed and the republicans too!

It seems that costs of the final bill will be much higher than the benefits.  This bill alone (when finally written and passed) could add billions of $$ to our already impossibly high deficit.  It has no hope of being anything but an economic disaster.

The problem is that it will take years to prove itself one way or the other.  By then it will be forgotten by the voters and new issues will arise that force the majority party to act selfishly  to get re-elected.  The minority party will act just as selfishly to fight anything new . . . not because it is the right thing to do but because acting selfishly will help get them re-elected.

This partisan approach to running our government must end.

America is NOT the place for life long, professional politicians.   The only way to make this happen is with term limits.  America is no place for entitled political leaders.  America is no place for decisions to be made based on re-election probabilities. The only way to make this happen is with term limits.

America should be the country where normal citizens take four or eight years off of their regular life to serve the country as best they can and then return to earning a living the old fashioned way (and with no life-long benefits or retirement for their limited service).

Term limits!

But, incumbents will NEVER vote for term limits.  So we must.  Do NOT vote for any incumbents anymore.  No more than one term for anyone.  When politicians at EVERY level get the message and vote in laws regarding term limits then we can start voting our conscience again.

Until then?  No more ridiculous one party bills.

Good-bye incumbents!!

Ignore this message at your own peril.

thanks to flickr’s joe beone for the photo