U.S. Needs a 12-Step Program for Spending
Crack cocaine is one of the most addictive substances on earth. It chemically alters part of the brain called the “reward system.” The drug traps dopamine in the synapses between nerve cells in the brain, reproducing the feelings of pleasure we get while eating or having sex — a euphoric high lasting anywhere from five to fifteen minutes. But then the drug wears off, leaving the person feeling let-down and depressed, and creating a desire to smoke more crack in order to feel good again.
Research has shown that monkeys addicted to crack will press a bar more than 12,000 times to get a single dose, and the second they get it they start pressing the bar for more. On New Year’s Day, America inhaled deeply on something far more dangerous and addictive than crack cocaine — government spending.
The House finally gave in to peer pressure Tuesday night and voted to approve a Senate “fiscal cliff” bill to be signed by America’s biggest drug dealer, Barack Obama. The deal increases taxes $41 for every $1 in spending cuts.
On November 6, 2012, a plurality of uninformed voters stumbled into the voting booths and despite the worst economy since the Depression, pressed the bar 59.8 million times in order to get another dose. The 57.1 million Americans who tried to remove the drug dealer from the neighborhood and the 13 million people (including 3 million Republicans) who voted in 2008 but closed their curtains and stayed home in 2012, watched on early Tuesday morning in stunned amazement as Senate Republicans, with pupils dilated and a light blue cloud of smoke following them, appeared nervously before the cameras and with straight faces denied smoking anything. The House — with a majority of Republicans voting against it — went along with the Senate on the deal.
The “fiscal cliff” Republicans “avoided” was the harsh terms of the Budget Control Act of 2011 which were scheduled to go into effect January 1. This included a 2% tax increase for workers as temporary payroll tax cuts expired, the end of certain business tax breaks, a rollback of the Bush tax cuts from 2001-2003, and the onset of massive tax increases that come with Obamacare. The payroll tax holiday was allowed to lapse, but the rest of the tax cuts survive — except for the top tax rate on the rich which moved up to 39.6%.
This would not have been good for the economy, but the cliff was not all bad. According to Barron’s, last year’s failure to agree on a plan to cut the budget deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over 10 years would also have automatically resulted in precisely the sort of behavioral modification treatment America needs — deep automatic spending cuts (known as “sequestration“) to over 1,000 government programs, including the defense budget and Medicare payments to doctors. Sequestration would have substantially reduced but not eliminated the federal budget deficit (from 7.6% of GDP to 3.8%). But it would have been a step in the right direction.
Congress’ fiscal cliff deal calls for $620 billion in new taxes while coming up with only $15 billion in spending cuts. Only a crack addict will fail to admit that the real cause of our long-term deficits is government spending, not low revenue. While revenue will surpass its historical average of 18.1 percent of GDP by 2018, spending remains above its historical average of 20.2 percent and would have reached 22.1 percent by 2022, even if the $2.1 trillion in spending cuts in the Budget Control Act had occurred. But then again, addicts always deny they have a problem. Ask a Democrat. They believe we are not spending enough. After 50 years of the War on Poverty, we are further away from victory than when we started. Yet America’s addicts justify firing up the crack pipe again by reciting the worn-out anti-poverty narrative – help the poor by spending more. Start another federal program.
America’s drug-dealer-in-chief has overseen a 50% increase in our national debt, which currently is at $15,355,838,921,022.16. This is more than the gross domestic product of the entire country and more than the GDP of China, Japan, and the UK combined. In less than four years the Obama adminstration has added $6 trillion to that number. Publicly held debt has increased by 80%. Instead of admitting its problem and checking into rehab, Congress simply keeps raising the debt ceiling. Each U.S. taxpayer now owes $111,414 — and counting. The budget deficit has now topped $1 trillion for four straight years. In a few short years we will be spending more on interest payments on the debt than on the entire defense budget.
The “crack” comparison is spot on. This is what we have become. A nation of debt “crack heads” who cannot survivie without the big government “fix.” Well I have a suggestion once again for these big talking republicans who want to negotiate with the crack head in chief. Just say no! No further spending can take place without the House. They need to send a message to the big O and the senate that they await receipt of the “President’s” budget after 4 years. Yes we want to see what the great one intends for us. The House will then make the necessary changes to this document to make sure there are “real cuts” so that it balances. Yes for you guys in DC that really does mean that receipts equal expenditures for the next year. (no you cannot balance it in year 10). After the house passes the budget, we then go about our business. That is keep spending within the budget and do nothing else until the next election cycle when hopefully we will ween some of the drones off the crack and elect someone who deserves to be president.
Not sure that medical analogies work to explain the recent election and what tommy gunn calls addiction. What we need is a strong defense of capitalism along the lines of the Founding Fathers, especially Alexander Hamilton. I wrote this blog the day after the election. http://clarespark.com/2012/11/07/capitalism-is-on-the-line/. If we don’t give up populist resentment, we really are cooked. Time to defend upward mobility and the meritocracy.
They have no intentions of curbing spending, its part of the plan.
The Valerie Plame Case: Why was Patrick Fitzgerald appointed Special Counsel?
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2013/01/03/the-valerie-plame-case-why-was-patrick-fitzgerald-appointed-special-counsel/
We need a ONE-step program: tie the purse strings shut in the House.
But with Boohooner re-elected as speaker, that won’t happen.
This graphic shows why the latest bill is completely unacceptable.
We don’t need a 12-step program. We need a full-blown intervention.
Staying with the drug analogy, the Crack house is the Federal Reserve and Petro dollar system.
Without the Fed Reserve and petro dollar currency arrangement there would not be the massive deficit spending possible, credit markets would simply not allow it. Having the Fed and Petro dollar system allows nearly unlimited spending without responsibility.
This is not new, Rome had a similar system in place, they diluted their coins until were just issued credit, then it collapsed. We have been following the same path, diluting our dollar until today it is worth 8% of its 1971 value, the year petro dollar system was put in place by Nixon.
Secondly is the Derivative structure that underpins today’s banking system. 10 years ago it did not exist, today it totals 700 trillion dollars in Debt notes. In 2008, 300 trillion was shifted to commercial banks general ledger. This forced US Taxpayers to be liable for repayment of derivatives if the banks fail. This is the next great bubble; derivative debt.
This is the reason Gold and Silver have risen so dramatically against currencies the last 10 years.
I love analogies but they are often only understood by a small handful of thinking and reasoning people. What frustrates me is that those making a case against reckless spending and excessive taxing do so for the cerebral and not emotional, visual orientated mass of people. They need, instead, to make use of striking pictures. A site like http://demonocracy.info/ has made an interesting attempt though I think it is still too complicated. People need to understand the real issues in the simplest terms that they can relate to – perhaps simple visual analogies?
It is time that the PJMedia contributors stopped focusing on cerebral presentations to a converted audience – who often seem incapable to explaining things to the simplest voter – and instead give them brilliant visual and emotional explanations that can be widely used and distributed among naive voters.
The hard-left/eco-freak/pro-Muslim axis is busy putting out propaganda to keep those petrodollars flowing:
Matt Damon’s anti-fracking propaganda film financed by oil-rich United Arab Emigrates
The only solution to government crack is overgold. Mr T are you out there?
Since the boundaries of the constitution have been breached, there seems to be no way to constrain the politicans. They are the drug dealers of the political world–handing out goodies to an all to willing electorate to take from others.
So what’s the cure? The only cure is via the States to reign in the uncontrollable federal government. The politicans on the federal level are too far gone. No matter how much they prattle on about how conservative they are, how they’re not going to raise taxes and how may pledges to Grover Norquist they have signed, they’re not going to tell anyone no — lest they offend one voter and risk the rath of the Marxist Media Complex. Ain’t gonna happen.
So we either elect enough Republicans in State Legislatures and Governorships to effect Constitutional changes or we continue to descend into abyss.
After recognizing our spending problem, the next step is to recognize that the Republicans are as responsible as anyone else for this mess – and they just proved they aren’t part of the solution.
The GOP rides the DC gravy train just as much as the Democrats. I was listening to Jeff Landry on satellite radio last night. He talked about how planned this whole “crisis” ensuing sell-out deal really was. It was very depressing.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/01/02/Boehner-Will-Lead-GOP-to-2014-Loss
Apart from some of the Tea Party, DC politicians will do very little. See Greece and Spain, where talk of austerity will get you a riot. Default and collapse will get here before the 2014 elections. We need to go full bore on attacking corruptio, bank fraud and crony capitalism. That has vast support, including minorities. We need a new party, the Dems and Repubs are easy targets, guilty as sin. When people are really hurting, they have no patience for the crooked elites of all stripes. The Republican Party is beyond salvaging. Break the chains.
Why should they stop spending?
There is no personal cost to them – it is not their money! In fact, the spending actually helps them get elected by bribing their constituents. It also pays off their family members and cronies, etc., and buys them opportunities (like IPOs) that the “little people” never see.
The only way to fix this is to make the suffer like the taxpayers. If it were possible, I would withhold the entirety of their pay each year the Republic runs a deficit. Problem is, they’re in charge of their own pay…
The Math is simple:
The USA will have to reduce spending by $1 trillion a year for each and every year for the next twenty years.
The USA will also have to find an additional $1 trillion a year for each and every year for the next twenty years to be able to pay back the debt and interest.
The USA will have to keep interest rates at their current low and prevent an increase in inflation for each of the next twenty years.
Very few politicians seem to have the stomach to run on policies that will practically and realistically address these – instead they run for life away from them. And even more disconcerting is that most of the naive voting public are not prepared to replace these politicians with representatives who are honest and willing to take drastic measures.
the only way out is hyper-inflation. it has occurred in several countries before, and it will happen in the us. there is no other way.
When hyper-inflation occurs, any money people have invested or saved will have its valued extremely reduced. It will be like a hughe tax was given to everyone, especially anyone who was frugal.
Budget math
2013
Lesson # 1:
* U.S. Tax revenue: $ 2,470,000,000,000
* Fed budget: $ 3,620,000,000,000
* New debt: $ 1,150,000,000,000
* National debt: $16,271,000,000,000
* Recent budget cuts: $ 38,500,000,000
Let’s now remove 8 zeros and pretend it’s a household budget:
* Annual family income: $ 24,700.00
* Money the family spent: $ 36,200.00
* New debt on the credit card: $ 11,500.00
* Outstanding balance on the credit card: $ 161,710.00
* Total budget cuts so far: $ 38.50
Lesson # 2:
Here’s another way to look at the Federal Debt Ceiling:
Let’s say, You come home from work and find there has been a sewer backup in your neighborhood…. and your home has sewage all the way up to your ceiling.
What do you think you should do ……
Raise the ceiling, or remove the waste?
You have cleverly brought the numbers down to a level that the average family should be able to understand. The next step is to present this in some visual way to powerfully drive home the shocking reality. I hope some capable reader will do this and post a link.
I used the exact same analogy a month ago on a blog post here.
My figures were from last year and were a little more conservative, i.e. it’s gotten worse. The scary thing is that using the same ‘reduce the figure by 8 zeros’ method, the unfunded liabilities are around $2,380,000 for this ficticious family on minimum wage.
Only tax cuts by a democrat could be labelled as tax increases.
The only solution I see is to repeal the 16th Amendment and end the Graduated personal Income Tax and shut off the gravy train to Washington. The policians can’t squander the money fast enough. It’s surprising they don’t just take a pile of it and set it on fire on Capitol Hill!
The Income Tax could be repealed over a ten-year period with all funds going to pay the interest and principle of the national debt. there should be a provision that using the money for any other purpose would be A FELONY PUNISHABLE BY NO LESS THAN A FINE OF $100 MILLION AND IMPRISONMENT AT HARD LABOR FOR NO LESS THAN 25 YEARS.
Let States keep tax money at home and used locally where it can better be controlled.
Any of y’all trust anyone in Washington with your money?
In November Helicopter Ben gave a speech where he implored government to get the budget in order, then announced QE3. That’s like telling a crack addict to get off drugs but then providing a free lifetime supply of crack.
So lets take the analogy further. How do most crack and heroin addicts quit using?
They lose everything and end up on the street.
I, too, worry that the money printing machine will be cranked up. (Cranked … pun intended). Even if we make the addicts go cold turkey by refusing to increase the debt limit.
Dare I hope there will be no nose-holding in a couple of months, but a House vote against raising the limit on the national credit card?
Friends, it’s a CON. The whole game is a con aimed at convincing you that political ideology has some real meaning in politics. It doesn’t. It’s a charade that hides the fact that no matter which party appears to be in power, there is an underlying continuity of agenda that moves forward regardless of which party “seems” to be in control.
Overall, both parties endorse and push big government and do nothing to rid government of banking and corporate control. Things have gone so far that there is no longer any meaningful distinction between government and big business. Criminal global banking cartels and their to-big-bail corporations have seized the coercive power of government and are using it to impose their will on us all.
The simple truth is, if Congress was doing its job, the Congress could set everything right. It’s not about El Presidente. It’s about Congress. The Congress has more power than the executive branch. Sure the President can sign or veto bills but the important point to remember is it all starts with Congress. REMEMBER . . .
Comparing big government spendaholics to other forms of addiction is absolutely correct!
Ask anyone who’s ever had to deal with an addict. They begin by denying there is any problem at all. When forced by events to acknowledge something may be wrong, they minimize it for all they’re worth. Then come the phony promises of reform, the tearful entreaties that they NEED this and it would be cruelty to refuse them. And of course the ready, ready lies. There is no lie they will not tell, no trust they will not betray, to get their fix one more time. Press them about the results versus the promises, and watch them turn ugly. They accuse everyone else of being the problem. They will steal. They will do harm to people who trust them-the nearer the relation, the greater the peril.
The big money, big government advocates have followed the exact same path, accusing anyone who even ventures to suggest fiscal sanity of lacking “compassion”, of being an enemy of “social justice”, and whatever other accusations they think might stick, aided and abetted by a fawning, partisan media establishment.
This is a sickness. but when the addicts have taken over the rehab clinic, when the iron triangle of media, government, and academia controls the public discourse- where do we look for an intervention?
I fear that the sky is growing very dark over America.