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EDITOR:
I see Mr. Longhofer has moved from when life begins to the taxes on a GOP donor’s yacht (I guess he forgot about Sen. Kerry trying to dodge taxes on his yacht by registering it in a state he didn’t live in), but enough about Mr. Longhofer and his demonstrations of the intellectual bankruptcy of the left and on to something really important.
In the same issue as Mr. Longhofer’s latest babling drivel about yachts was a very important letter on fiscal responsibility by Terry Todd. I hope all readers read this letter carefully. If you missed it let my try to put some of the most sobering parts of it and some further points into a few simple basic parts. While we all talk about a balanced budget Mr. Todd points out just how far from that lofty goal our entitlements and promises we can’t afford to keep have taken us. Our entitlement promises exceed the entire income of the federal government. Balance the budget tomorrow and you have a small scale back of entitlements and no Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard and any other government agency including Congress and the President not directly pertaining to the entitlements. Nada. In other words we are on a course to national suicide — the way the Roman Empire died when it could no longer afford its army. The question is where do we go from here?
Well we can’t live beyond our means for decades and expect quick and painless cures. Won’t happen. After the next election we will go one of two ways. I warn you both are painful but one is fatal. Mr. Todd listed many things we will have to do to try to get back in balance but unfortunately we will also have to print money. We have gone too far down the drain to avoid it. The rich have barely a fraction of what we need to dig out of this hole even if we took everything they have and locked them up in camps. And austerity alone won’t be enough as Mr. Todd points out even if we abolished the entire government except for entitlements. So the two options boil down to this. Promote business and energy as Mr. Todd suggests and Obama opposes, make painful cuts in entitlements and many other government agencies as well as abolishing some of them, and hopefully only have to print enough money to give us bad inflation. The other option is continuing with the budgets that Obama has laid out with massive deficits requiring so much money to be printed that you risk hyper inflation like Germany had in the twenties where a wheelbarrow of money was required to buy a loaf of bread. What good is getting your full entitlement of Social Security if it takes $25 to buy that loaf of bread? Hyper inflation creates a death spiral where you finally can’t print the money fast enough to pay the interest on the debt. And while we are on the debt let me close with something really sobering and frightening. Historically 4 percent is not that high an interest rate. We all remember banks paying that not that many years ago. In 2016 we are on track to owe $20 trillion. At 4 percent the interest would be $800 billion. Our national income is only around $2.5 trillion or just over three times that $800 billion interest payment. That’s unsustainable. At that point we would either have to default or print a boatload of money fueling the inflation mentioned above.
We are like the Titanic a mile before it got to the iceberg. If we don’t change course in November you better get to the boat deck and don your life preserver.
GEORGE ALGER
Placerville
Has anyone noticed that Mr. Alger seems consumed
with me. But, not to be unexpected as he is only one of my many Tea/Republican friends. No, I didn’t forget Mr. Kerry with the docking of his boat to escape taxes. Hopefully, he was hit with the appropriate taxes and a healthy penalty. I do hope that Mr. Alger realizes there is no nexus between Kerry and Mitt in this case, because Kerry did not have 50 of his largest donors on board during the Democratic convention of 2004. Simply, Mitt had the real Republican convention on that yacht. A real slap in the face for the Tea/Republicans who could not afford to set sail with the uber-elite. Rail on Mr. Alger, I always enjoy your letters as a prime example of the “other side.”
Thanks George for your comments. I am still waiting for some ideas from our friends on the other side on how to fix this mess. Today, the FED decided to pump more money into the economy. Gold started moving up again. To fix the problems we have we need to increase our economy, cut spending and raise more revenue (not necessarily taxes). Printing more money is a tax on all savers and reduces the value of income for those on fixed incomes like James. It is essentially a tax that we do not get to vote on. What was that long ago fading cry, “No taxation without representation!”
Am I the only one who is laughing out loud when I read these repugs rail against the national debt and how big it is…..where exactly were you guys when Baby Bush was running two wars on the credit card….where were you when Baby Bush gave the richest 1% another tax break on the credit card…..where were you when Baby Bush created the largest (27 Billion a year) dept. with Homeland Security…..time to push that rock aside and join the real world……
It seems a lot of them were right there with you in 2006 and 2008. That worked well didn’t it. Crying about what is past will not solve the problem. The question is what do we do from today forward. Do we dig the hole deeper or do we take steps to start solving the problem? Do we keep pointing fingers or do we take responsibility?
I talked to a local business owner in Cameron Park — Lube & Oil business. Business has dropped 52%. Will have to layoff 4 employees. He said that four households will no longer be able to pay rent or shop at the local market. Four houses/apts vacated and local market’s business will drop further. So now the grocer will have to lay off some of his workers. ….. The Tea Party/Republicans thought-strategy is–> If the mortgage is due, we quit our job or work less hours to cut down the mortgage?….Look at the DEBIT guys….. some of it is Fighter planes……some of it is nuclear subs…. to fight who? Our Military Budget is the LARGEST in the world…..we have contracts with 20% administrative costs to MOW LAWNS and WASH DISHES….. When I was in the military, we cleaned our own barracks…didn’t pay contractors to do it for us…. $789 Billion a year to SUBCONTRACT to private contractors… (20% admin + 20% admin for sub-contract) … The Debt is important to Republicans ONLY when they are OUT of office….
Psydonym, California is a very BLUE state. The Tea Party does not control anything and the Republicans only hold the house. If you live in a Free Market system where the majority of taxes are from pay roll then naturally more people working would mean more payroll taxes. But here in California our economy is driven by our government. Most people in our state are dependent on our government. I take it that your solution is for our government to keep paying as many people as possible and to not worry about debt or forfeit our financial obligations. The Soviet Union tried this untill the world refused to trade in their currency any longer. You are a Progressive. Your Governor is slashing perks and laying off workers. Explain why he is wrong.
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