What Will Pass Then?

Senator Jim DeMint has for many months advocated a return to the budget baseline of 2008 which would reduce outlays this year, 2011, by 1.1 trillion dollars. The deficit this year is roughly 1.6 trillion dollars, meaning that if DeMint’s plan were to be enacted the deficit would then be reduced to about 500 billion dollars, a deficit that would still be one of the largest in history and larger than any yearly deficit enacted during the last administration. Yes, every yearly deficit record now belongs to the current administration. In two budgets and counting the stimulus bill, this administration has already increased the deficit by more than a trillion dollars more than the prior administration’s eight years of budgets combined.

Most concerning, for all this spending what exactly has been gained, anything at all? Persistent unemployment currently past 9% and in reality much higher as the government decides how many people have given up and doesn’t count them, has lasted longer than at any time in history since the great depression. Roughly 40% of every federal dollar spent this year is borrowed; essentially spending 67% more than the government takes in. And nothing is better. It is baffling to understand exactly how there is nothing to show for that level of spending. It is logically and eminently reasonable to conclude that this insane level of spending provides strong proof that increased government spending probably harms and does not have beneficial effects on the national economy.

Reality is apparently of no use to the current administration. In a petulant speech last week the President blamed every spending problem on his predecessor, completely ignoring the spending of the last three years. The political party that holds a majority in the US House was identified as obstinate for being unaccommodating of the President’s plan for the debt ceiling. A plan that is not known to be recorded anywhere and when details are requested, the administration’s press secretary mocks the requestors. The President has acted as an autocrat, summoning the representative leaders of a co-equal branch and demanding unspecified concessions from an out of power party, and the only branch that has submitted an actual plan and passed actual legislation only to be refused akin to a jester delivering an ill-received routine.

This administration refuses to flatly state what it is that they want, demonizing make believe ogres of society, the so-called millionaires and billionaires, really anyone who earns more than $200,000 a year singularly or $250,000 as a couple and whom already pay a vast majority of taxes collected by the government. The opposing party is badgered as not willing to say yes, to what no one knows and nothing they do is deemed good enough. One is left to wonder, what will pass then? What plan is good enough to deal with spending that is absolutely untenable? Reality simply cannot sustain what has seemingly become the spending status quo of late and phony proposals, such as that of the senate majority leader which “saves” nonexistent future allocations. The opposition party is credited with fiscal sobriety but find themselves in the unenviable situation of having just enough power to share responsibility while being incapable of actually passing anything. Future elections have suddenly become ever more important. The current administration deserves to be passed back into private citizenship.