Wednesday, November 3, 2010

WELCOME TO REALITY

Okay so the Republicans took over the House of Representatives and tied up the Senate where the Democrats can’t override a filibuster. If the Democrats want to do something stupid and the Republicans want to stop it…they can. Round one goes to the right.

Here is the problem. The government is spending too much money, borrowing too much money and growing exponentially. Entitlements are out of control and the political class fears to address them because they see these elections as their entitlement. The big lie is that Social Security and Medicare are solvent until some date in the future. We have a 14 billion dollar debt and about 130 billion dollars in unfunded liabilities. Nothing is solvent.

In the bizarre world of Washington DC something is solvent if they don’t have to address it publically until they are retired or dead. Letting the problem fester is just fine with them because any problems that can occur only exist in some hazy undefined future state. The screams of the electorate is just an annoying buzz. Besides, they have their own retirement plans and medical plans that are immune to the state of the programs they have stuck the people with. For some reason the political left is perfectly happy to let them lie about this as long as their party remains in power.

This is what the Tea Party was created to address. We got a few of them elected. A large majority of our newly elected Representatives and Senators are perfectly content to play lip service to the goals of the Tea Party as long as they get to ride the wave into power and don’t have to deal with the brutal reality of entitlement reform. Smaller limited government, if it is going to be anything other than a slogan, has to be both smaller and limited by law.

Here is what is about to happen. The Republican House of Representatives will propose changes to the spending habits of the government knowing full well that their proposals won’t get past the Senate and even if they did the President would veto them and neither party has the votes to override. The Press, that institution enshrined in the Constitution as our watchdog over government excess will claim that the Republicans are ineffective. The Republicans will pass a budget and refuse to compromise with the Democrats who will demand that government continue to spend at an unsustainable rate and the government will shut down.

This happened when Reagan was President and when Clinton was President. When Reagan was President the press blamed him for the shutdown. When Clinton was President the press blamed the Republican Congress for the shutdown. I am willing to venture a guess that when the government shuts down this time the Republican House of Representatives will be blamed by the press, the President and the Democrats and the majority of Republicans will capitulate and our country will continue to grind its way down the road to financial ruin until our economy collapses under the weight of this crushing debt. Then it won’t matter who gets the blame.

So what is the solution? I have one. Nobody is going to like it.

The solution is obvious and lies in the definition of the problem for all to see. The problem is high out of control government spending that is causing a growing unsustainable debt. We stand on a razor’s edge hoping that the interest rates don’t rise or that inflation doesn’t wipe out the dollar. One of the great truths of the human race is; if we wish in one hand and crap in the other we all know which one gets full fastest. We have our heads in the sand hoping these things won’t happen, knowing that they will and pretending that the cause isn’t the cause. If we are to address the problem we have to stop the growth of the federal government and reduce the outlay to entitlement programs. That means we have to spend less in real dollars next year what we spent last year indexing for inflation and repeat over and over until the debt is at least manageable.

This means that we have to repeal Obama Care. We can’t afford the entitlements we have adding another one was insane when we did it and the idea hasn’t gotten better with age. We need to get the government completely out of healthcare and understand that medical care isn’t a right it is a service provided at a price. The current price is too high and we cannot simply wish it were free and have it be so. Just because someone invents something doesn’t make you entitled to have it especially at the expense of your fellow citizen. We may be created equal but the resulting equality depends on you not the government. Despite sloganeering to the contrary you can legislate morality but you cannot legislate a new reality.

I told you nobody would like it. One alternative is waiting until the country can no longer prop up the government programs we have and simply falls apart. Another alternative is printing money until it isn’t worth anything. Still another is to hold our hands over our ears and chant “lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalala” hoping that this one time reality will be created by our desired perception. At some point what I am suggesting we do in an orderly process over a period of time will happen violently and all at once. It will get very ugly very fast and the government we get out of those events will not be an elected one.