The Edge of the Abyss
Mark Steyn
National Review Online
11/9/2012
…In the weeks ahead, Democrats and Republicans will reach a triumphant “bipartisan” deal to avert the fiscal cliff through some artful bookkeeping mechanism that postpones Taxmageddon for another year, or six months, or three, when they can reach yet another triumphant deal to postpone it yet again. Harry Reid has already announced that he wants to raise the debt ceiling — or, more accurately, lower the debt abyss — by $2.4 trillion before the end of the year, and no doubt we can look forward to a spectacular “bipartisan” agreement on that, too. It took the government of the United States two centuries to rack up its first trillion dollars in debt. Now Washington piles on another trillion every nine months. Forward!
If you add up the total debt — state, local, the works — every man, woman, and child in this country owes 200 grand (which is rather more than the average Greek does). Every American family owes about three-quarters of a million bucks, or about the budget deficit of Liechtenstein, which has the highest GDP per capita in the world…
…in order to generate every dollar of economic growth the United States had to borrow about five dollars and 60 cents. There’s no one out there on the planet — whether it’s “the rich” or the Chinese — who can afford to carry on bankrolling that rate of return. According to one CBO analysis, U.S.-government spending is sustainable as long as the rest of the world is prepared to sink 19 percent of its GDP into U.S. Treasury debt. We already know the answer to that: In order to avoid the public humiliation of a failed bond auction, the U.S. Treasury sells 70 percent of the debt it issues to the Federal Reserve — which is to say the left hand of the U.S. government is borrowing money from the right hand of the U.S. government. It’s government as a Nigerian e-mail scam, with Ben Bernanke playing the role of the dictator’s widow with $4 trillion under her bed that she’s willing to wire to Timmy Geithner as soon as he sends her his bank-account details.
If that’s all a bit too technical, here’s the gist: There’s nothing holding the joint up.
So Washington cannot be saved from itself. For the moment, tend to your state, and county, town and school district, and demonstrate the virtues of responsible self-government at the local level. Americans as a whole have joined the rest of the Western world in voting themselves a lifestyle they are not willing to earn. The longer any course correction is postponed the more convulsive it will be. Alas, on Tuesday, the electorate opted to defer it for another four years. I doubt they’ll get that long.
Read the complete article at National Review Online.
Related: Obama Administration Hid Record Food Stamp Numbers Until After Election
Also, Americans may have reelected Obama, but they still want to repeal Obamacare
How to Fix the Affordable Care Act In 2013 at Real Clear Markets:
Whoever wins the presidential election, changes in the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act are imperative to correct problems in four areas: coverage of low-income people, adverse selection, hiring of low-skill, low-wage workers, and discouraging doctors’ practice of medicine…
Update: What to Expect in the Next Four Years
…With the Obama campaign’s constant race-baiting and class warfare, a sour mood has descended on the land. Exit polls from the election suggest that voters have succumbed to the siren song of envy and really do want to make the so-called rich pay higher taxes. Yet they still stubbornly cling to conservative beliefs, a dislike of big government, and a distrust of both major political parties. America today bears little resemblance to the America of the Reagan era in which taxes and government were cuss words. We may not be a center-right nation anymore…
…In order for the America we know and love to survive, a belief in freedom, individual rights, and self-reliance will have to resurface throughout the land.
Another four years of Obama may do just that. Americans will have to fight for their country.
