Nate
MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM UTAHVOICES
Merry Christmas from all of the voices here at UtahVoices.com. May we earnestly seek to find peace for all, and bring joy to all that we may meet! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Not enough? We’ll print more!
Government has completely lost it’s ability to be fiscally responsible. We are facing a $10,000,000,000,000 debt. I intentionally wrote out all the zeros so it can be seen just how large that number is. I believe the problem is related to 3 issues:
1. Lack of faith in a “free market society”
2. Backwards budgeting
3. I’m not doing my job unless I’m spending money
1. First, what is a free market society? In a nutshell, it is a system where supply and demand manage all aspects of labor, competition, product pricing, etc. As far as I know, the U.S. has never truly been a free market society. Government manages our economy through regulation, tax-breaks, labor laws, and a bunch of other market involvement.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. I’m glad that we have quality requirements set by the FDA to ensure that in order to protect against competition driving the price of meat down, there’s a quality floor that must be met. But I think that the more government steps in, the less the market is able to work in many cases. Take for instance the $800,000,000,000 bailout. Many banks were failing because of poor operating choices, like any business would. But, many banks were not failing, and credit unions are booming. I view the bailout as an action that was being strongly pressured by bank execs that said unless you give us money to fix this, we’re going to close our doors. Banks can’t make money if they’re not lending it, yet that’s exactly what they were doing. Banks were faced with a choice, lend money or die. But the government gave them a 3rd option.
2. Backwards budgeting: We have a loose budget in my house. We know about what we spend in various categories such as food, clothing, mortgage, savings, etc. In my household, if we have less money coming in, we have to spend less. Governement doesn’t work that way. Their philosophy is, spend the money you have at all costs, or fear losing it from next years budget. There is no reward for trimming how much money you need to operate your branch, only what is viewed as a punishment. That puts government leadership into a bind. They honestly don’t have a clue which areas truly are underfunded and which ones are hiring additional employees because automating would shrink the amount of capital they need on an annual basis.
I spoke with a woman this week that has worked in the private sector but now works for the city of Los Angeles. She told me that 2/3 of the employees feel zero motivation to work; that includes the supervisors. She insisted that her department could be cut in half today and business would run as usual. But what is the motivation? Why fire people if you have no financial incentive to do so? This is the fiscal responsible government we have.
3. The biggest reason the $800,000,000,000 bill passed is because lawmakers wanted to show that they were doing something. If they’re not jumping in and spending money, then they could be perceived as sitting back and doing nothing while the country burns economically, right? Look at McCain. Typically the republicans are for scaling back the size of the government. Certainly the last 8 years have not been reflective of that and McCain looks to follow suit. If you go to his website and study his issues you’ll find that he has many ways to spend money, but few to reel it in.
I love tax breaks. I really do. I think the poor, the middle class, even the evil rich people should get tax breaks, but they have to make financial sense for the country. No politician has the balls to say, “listen, we’re living beyond our means. The government that you have become so dependent on for so many services is spending too much money. We need to start cutting back and that means sacrifices.” That’s not going to happen. Government likes to giveth, because it makes them look like they are working hard for you. But once the government giveth, it becomes very, very difficult to taketh away.