Death and Dishonesty

Democrats tell us that America needs more regulation. In the financial sector alone, they blamed banks, insurance companies, investment bankers, hedge funds and other private entities for bringing our economic system to the brink of collapse in 2008. It was under this rubric that they passed the Frank-Dodd financial reform bill in 2010, named for two men whose conflicts-of-interest led directly to the meltdown.

What Democrats won't tell you is that the greatest risk to our economic system lies not with Wall Street. It lies with the federal government's catastrophic debt -- and the wounded U.S. dollar -- inflicted upon us by the very same politicians scapegoating the financial services industry.

About half of the federal budget must be paid for by borrowing money from foreigners, primarily from China. This behavior has frightened global investors and severely weakened the dollar.

The Congressional Budget Office has warned the government for years that the "federal budget is on an unsustainable path -- meaning that federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy... [and] Rising costs for health care and the aging of the U.S. population will cause federal spending to increase rapidly..."

"... Large budget deficits [will lead] to more borrowing from abroad and less domestic investment, which in turn would depress income growth... The accumulation of debt would seriously harm the economy. [Or] if spending grew as projected and taxes were raised in tandem, tax rates would have to reach levels never seen in the United States [95%]."

Yet the same federal bureaucrats who decry the financial system are themselves addicted to spending far beyond their means. But why would they care? They will be long gone by the time their bills will come due.

Dichotomy: outside the U.S., the "biggest story in the world economy is the continuing fall of the U.S. dollar" (Wall Street Journal); while inside the U.S., the mainstream media gleefully markets the proposition that that Obamacare will somehow improve the budget deficit. Consider the lunacy of their proposition: adding tens of millions of new patients to the system will somehow save money.

Even before Obamacare became law, $9.3 trillion of new deficit spending was added to the national debt. And Obamacare used financial skulduggery -- like slashing Medicare payments by half a trillion dollars and using ten years of taxes but six years of payments -- to levy a complete fiscal fraud upon the American people.

But the mainstream media forgot to tell you that even the CBO doesn't trust its own numbers! For example, in 2009 the head of the CBO wrote Max Baucus, telling him that -- if Congress failed to cut Medicare (highly likely, given seniors' voting habits) -- the new entitlement would add catastrophic new debt to the federal budget.

But even if the numbers were real, the illogical thinking is shocking. President Obama told us that passing health care reform was central to a healthy economy. The Democrats proclaim victory with supposed deficit neutrality while our current "unsustainable" deficit grows like a devastating form of cancer.

Instead of just starting with cuts to Medicare and adding insurance taxes -- thereby cutting the 10-year deficit by $1 trillion (including interest) -- the Democrats nationalized 18% of the economy as a payoff to the union bosses who contributed nearly $100 million to Obama's 2008 campaign.

Helping a few million uninsured people get access to health insurance was a noble goal, but not at the expense of permanently destroying the United States economy. Adding entitlement programs while we can barely crawl out of the current deficit hole is suicidal behavior.

Washington must:

• Slash federal spending on needless programs
• Begin to raise the eligibility age for Medicare and Social Security
• Start offering optional, private savings accounts to young people to eventually replace the dying Medicare and Social Security programs

We are on a path of fiscal devastation. Our only hope is that a few patriotic and eloquent conservatives can pick up the gauntlet -- to brave the onslaught of media propaganda and Democrat dishonesty to lead us on the road to recovery.



Based upon: Tony Blankley's "Washington Is Nuts" via Mark Levin.