Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck who wrote (152759)	2/13/2013 1:11:07 AM
From: calgal	3 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224844

\ A Real State of the Union John Stossel Feb 13, 2013 Click if you like this column! We've heard another State of the Union speech, and my president said grand things like: "Think about ... a future where we're in control of our own energy ... I will not cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China ... I will not back down from protecting our kids from mercury poisoning ..." Actually, he said that in 2012. I write before this year's speech, but he says basically the same thing every year: With more spending, government can fix everything. But I have this dream -- one where my president walks to the podium, and he instead says this: I'm so happy I won again. Now that I don't have to suck up to my base, I will be the grown-up in the room. Yes, I know John Boehner claims I said, "We don't have a spending problem." Maybe I said that -- I don't remember. But we do have a spending problem. Now that I'm concerned about my legacy, I looked at the numbers, and they are scary. I made so many promises that there's no way we can pay for them. Take climate change. I think it's real and that man contributes, but even if America spent trillions to try to lower our carbon output, that would only make a microscopic change in world temperatures. The earth wouldn't notice. Some of my anti-poverty plans are worse. Now that I've been re-elected, it dawns on me that those programs I said need more investment -- always more -- well, they didn't work. They perpetuate poverty by making Americans dependent. The key to helping the poor -- and being rich enough to adjust to things like climate change -- is growth. America grew fastest when government was tiny. Government at all levels was only about 8 percent of gross domestic product in 1912. In the hundred years prior to that, we made the Louisiana Purchase and settled the West. Americans went from subsistence-level farms to the highest standard of living on the planet. Spending shot up during the world wars, but in peacetime it grew very little. Even the big boom in domestic spending during the New Deal resulted in government spending per person that was only about half what it is today -- half -- even as government went on to build dams, the interstate highway system and spacecraft. Spending was still only about $3,000 per person in today's dollars. Then came Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society. We would cure poverty! Government grew so much that now, at all levels, it spends $20,000 per person per year. But we didn't cure poverty. Americans had been lifting themselves out of poverty -- on their own -- but when government stepped in, we stopped that progress. We encouraged people to be dependent. The poor stayed poor.