Originally posted by groobie:
The national debt stands at about $9.7 trillion and increases by about $2 billion a day. But no one seems eager to talk about how we're going to pay that off. Of course, that's not particularly surprising - politicians have a knack for avoiding candid discussions about difficult issues, and the public at large has a knack for withdrawing support for candidates that dare to honestly tell people what they need to hear. Whatever the issue, it's much easier to placate the masses with a quick sound bite that offers the illusion of a simple fix. As I remind my students, each presidential candidate can talk about whatever ideas he wants to, but as president, he will not have the Constitutional power to enact any of those plans. Voters need to focus some attention on members of Congress - they are the ones with the power to make real changes in the policies of our country.
I agree with you that politicians, for the most part, don't have the courage to tell us what we have to do to really solve the problem. Those who try usually lose elections. That's a shame but Congress really delivers what the people want. The people want everything and they want it for free. When people are free to vote on candidates who promise to take money from one group of people and give it to them, they are damaging the economy.
So, unfortunately, we get what we vote for.
I also agree with you that Congress is more important than people think. After all, they are in control of the purse strings and tax policy. It is there where corruption is rampant. Just why do we need fifty programs that all do the same thing? Why is it government agencies run commercials trying to get people to sign up for government services so they don't lose that money for next year because Congress will take it away? Why do we need to fund experiments to learn how fast ketchup runs under certain circumstances? We could probably cut the budget in half and not miss a beat and hardly anyone would notice.
Worst of the worst is the current services baseline, which is the method that Congress uses to create budgets. Most of us create our budget by figuring out what we need and budgeting money for what we need. Some years we'll need X and other years we won't but will need Y. That's called zero-based budgeting where you always start from zero and figure out what you need.
Congress doesn't work that way. They use the current services baseline, which is essentially taking what they spent last year in its entirety and adding the cost of inflation and adjusting for population growth as their starting baseline.
Once they figure that number out, then the changes happen and where Congress lies to us. If a program is slated to grow 10% because of current services baseline but Congress allocates only 8% growth to it, in Washington-speak, that's a budget cut.
But wait! The budget went up 8%, I hear you say. That's what it would be for everybody else but not Congress. That's a 2% budget cut. So when all these politicians are bragging about how much spending was cut, we now know what they're actually talking about. The money spent continues to rise at an alarming rate, all the while politicians are telling us how frugal they're being with all the budget cuts they are making. THEY ARE LYING.
The only thing that ever really gets cut is defense. Whenever Democrats come into office they gut the Defense Department with real, actual spending reductions. When Republicans get back into office, they find a pathetic, weak military and beef up defense spending. Defense spending goes in cycles, up and down. Spending for everything else just goes up and up and up.
Until we clear out everybody in Congress, that will continue.
