My Mom left her copy of Glenn Beck's Broke with me. It just reconfirmed what I've already known, although I don't think I was clear on the magnitude of just how broke we really are as a nation. No holds barred, this book. It doesn't matter if you have an R or a D after your name. If a President had part in the financial crisis (that's too tame a word for it, but it will have to do) that we find ourselves in; well he doesn't give them (or us for letting it happen) a pass regardless of affiliation. Rightfully so. I've always said the Reps & Dems were just two sides of the same coin. And thus it is.
I really had a lot of disdain for George W. Bush's policies. He was definitely not a fiscal conservative. I was furious at the end of his term when he bailed out the financial industry from the disasters they had heaped upon themselves--private gains & public losses, a win either way for them, what a sweet deal, huh? Abandoning free market principles to save the free market. What drivel. Obama took that ball and ran with it, and were I in his shoes and held his worldview, I would have done the same--it was a free pass, and he is riding that wave to extreme. Maybe the shift in congressional power can slow him down.
Well, as I say, Beck doesn't hold back and it turns out that GW spent more, ran up more deficits, expanded more entitlements, and enacted more regulations then Clinton (and modern predecessors) ever dreamed of doing! That was an eye opener. I new it was bad, but that bad? TARP was his capstone.
I think only Obama has outdone him in fiscal recklessness in modern times. You will hear no defense of W from me.
I could go on & on regarding suspicions & statements I have made in conversations over the years that square with the research Beck demonstrates in his book. I told my mother, "It's just so sad." And worse, they all know know it. All of them--Presidents, Congress, even some of us who follow these things. They know what's been done in the past. They know what they have done. They know what it means. They cover it up. They have no will to fix any of it. They change their tunes with the change in public mood. Democrat. Republican. From Woodrow Wilson on, there have been precious few who have been willing to take a stand against doomed "progressive" policies and exorbitant, unconstitutional spending we could not afford. I can't believe the U.S. still has a AAA credit rating per S&P. I have the sneaking suspicion that this is mostly artificial. A ratings drop would precipitate market panic world-wide. These artificial props, like the "hidden tax" QE2 recently rammed through the day after election day; they can't last. The music has to be faced at some point. It's going to hurt, really REALLY bad but we need Statesman / Leaders willing to make the tough choices now or we will suffer worse & longer we procrastinate...
What's the answer? Well, as I said with the Bush bailout, (and again) take the pain in the short-term to avoid the worse and longer term economic suffering in the future... but no one has the stomach for it. From politicians on down to the individual--we don't have the national will to take on the challenge. At least I don't see any indicators that we will. The longer we wait to make the very hard decisions to right the ship, the more it will hurt us all in this generation and beyond. Enforce a real cap on the debt ceiling. Force the government to live within it's means--no loopholes for any programs. We have to start somewhere. Stop monetizing the debt. That is a cycle without end, it will amass the ire of the rest of the world and lead to currency / trade wars or worse if it continues. I fear that as with other "empires" in the past we are just this side of moving from hubris excesses into the assured self-destructive implosion of Ate...
Cloward's & Piven's strategy has already panned out. They won. The government entitlement programs have ALREADY overwhelmed it. It hasn't collapsed yet because a) we are artificially propping it up and b) the rest of the world markets are scared to death of an American bankruptcy...
