This guy is a progressive democrat:
Local view: Protest needed against U.S. government spending orgy
The economy is in crisis. Elected officials, desperate to appear compassionate and competent, rush to implement alleged solutions without regard to their costs or unintended consequences.
By: Bob Hansen and Russ Stewart, Duluth News Tribune
The economy is in crisis. Elected officials, desperate to appear compassionate and competent, rush to implement alleged solutions without regard to their costs or unintended consequences.
At the state and local levels, politicians point to growing budget deficits, unemployment and slumping real estate markets and cry out for assistance from the federal government. Congress and the president hear the cries and use them to justify reckless spending and unprecedented public bailouts.
Bailout pledges by elitist elected officials and public bureaucrats now total $12.8 trillion. That’s more than $42,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. The total economic output of the U.S. was $14.2 trillion last year. Our leaders have committed to economic policies that spend 90 percent of that!
Where will the money come from? Apparently from a combination of borrowing and inflationary monetary policy. Our national debt is $11.1 trillion, and our nation faces trillion-dollar budget deficits for the next several years. It is inevitable the Federal Reserve will be forced to buy more U.S. Treasury bonds to fund these deficits. When that happens, expect double-digit inflation.
Those leading this orgy of spending do not represent the majority of Americans. Winners of the 2000, 2004 and 2008 presidential elections won with the support of 24 percent, 28 percent and 30 percent of eligible voters. Though they were picked by a small fraction of citizens, our current and former presidents have run up the largest debt in the world’s history — with no end in sight.
As bad as this is for the current generation of voting-age Americans, the real costs of irresponsible spending will be borne by those who cannot yet vote and those not born. Today’s decision-makers are economically shackling their children and grandchildren with debt so the consequences of decades of profligate spending punctuated by the past year’s unprecedented bailout of the financial industry don’t have to be faced.
Both major political parties are responsible for this tyrannical act, an act that steals everyone’s economic and personal liberties.
Thomas Jefferson wrote, “The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” For government to provide desired programs for the present generation through deficit spending is dangerous fiscal policy and fundamentally immoral.
Congress and the president have neglected their constitutional duty to promote the general welfare. Rather than managing the nation’s fiscal affairs in such a way as to place blame with those responsible for the financial crisis, they have ignored history and have directed scarce resources from the public treasury into the private hands of banks, insurance companies, auto manufacturers and other private interests.
It is clear they work more for them than for we the people.
It is time to tell our so-called leaders we see what they’re doing, we’re sick of it and it must stop! Since the ballot box cannot avail us, we must resort to protest and direct action, just as our forebears did in 1773. Colonists, tired of being subjected to taxation without representation, dumped British tea into Boston harbor. It was a symbolic gesture, but the message was clear: Government must represent the people.
We are, once again, faced with a government that doesn’t seem to care about average citizens or future generations. People who work are taxed. And those who created the problem are rewarded with hundreds of millions of dollars in executive bonuses.
The silent majority can be heard only if we speak out for our children and ourselves before it’s too late!
BOB HANSEN is a lifelong Duluth resident and the owner of three Duluth-based businesses. RUSS STEWART of Duluth served two terms on the City Council and is an instructor at Lake Superior College. |
