printAt least those who tout the Republican budgetary version of a decrease in the increase in spending are no longer claiming to downsize the government.
So proud was Sean Hannity of Paul Ryan’s latest budget iteration that he boasted that, while it increases spending by trillions, it still manages to shave off $4.64 trillion in increases.
According to the Washington Examiner, the current spending trajectory will see “federal government outlays … rise from $3.61 trillion this year to $5.77 trillion in 2023, for a cumulative 10-year total of $46.1 trillion in federal spending.”
“Under Ryan’s new budget, federal spending would reach just $4.95 trillion in 2023, for a 10-year total of $41.46 trillion. That’s $4.64 trillion in deficit savings, which is a good start,” conclude the Examiner editors.
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan has dusted off last year’s budget, tweaked it a bit and resubmitted it to Republican applause.
Lauding so-called “balanced budget” initiatives is laughable. The real problem is that the quest to “balance federal spending and taxes” is meaningless. It does nothing to stop the federal government from raising taxes as it increases spending and grows in scope and size, ad infinitum.
Ultimately, “A balanced-budget requirement implies is that government has the constitutional right to spend as much as it takes in; that government is permitted to waste however much revenue it can extract from wealth producers, and that the bums must merely bring into balance what was stolen (taxes) with what is squandered (spending).”
“The Powers Delegated to the Federal Government are Few and Defined.” A return to the 18 or so functions the Constitution delegates to the federal government would be a much better start. This requires that entire departments be shuttered.
UPDATE: Scrap everything I’ve just said (NOT). This just in from the president: “There is no debt crisis.”
Without reading what TAWE (“The Ass With Ears”) has said, you know that, to dismiss a $16.5 trillion debt, you have to think that “macroeconomics and microeconomic are two separate solitudes, governed by different laws.”
To say such a stupid thing as TAWE has said, “You have to to believe that the values and virtues ordinary mortals hold themselves to don’t apply to government; that the laws of economics are NOT natural, but political, laws.”
“We don’t have an immediate crisis in terms of debt,” President Obama told ABC News correspondent George Stephanopoulos this week.
In uttering such a fatuity, BHO showed that he has no regard for or knowledge of what Thomas Jefferson was warning about, when he said:
“The greatest danger came from the possibility of legislators plunging citizens into debt. We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.”