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It's What They Want

“It’s what they want,”  is the message we receive from both Dems and Reps,  and from the left of the Dems and from the right of the Reps.  The Freedom Caucus (Rep), for example, demands the people want fiscal austerity, balancing the budget, and therefore a reduction of all spending, no matter what. Period.  The Dems, mostly in locked-step, believe in ultimate humanitarian goals by providing everyone with all they need.  Just increase spending, they tell us.  The Reps want to rein in spending, develop more free enterprise, and “hopefully” grow an economy that will support a benefit-thirsty population. 

The anarchists simply don’t know what they want beyond their love of disruption.  Throwing crap into the fan and hoping it will land in the right place, is the extent of their thinking.  And this assessment is far too kind.

All claim that what they propose is what the public wants!  Not so.  All these groups somehow have equated what they want to what everyone wants.  My gosh, so strong are their views, they won’t even compromise with the people, much less listen to them.  My double gosh, the Reps won’t even compromise with themselves!

Where is the reality?  The USA has been on a spending spree, virtually addicted to spending money not there and thereby living on credit. Entitlements have been granted to an extent that taxing the wealthy to the maximum possible (i.e. 99%) will not even come close to fiscal balance. 

Addicts, that is us, must be weaned from their spending and benefit habits, and it will take time.  The economy must grow, or fiscal balance will never, ever be achieved.  The alternative?? Our children, as political leaders in a couple decades, will be forced to devalue our currency, diminish our preparedness for calamity, and ultimately reduce all the guaranteed services.  Irrespective of the party in control, if the country has no money and cannot borrow money, then no theology, no ideology, and no economic theory will create sufficient funds to alleviate fiscal desperation.

Summary.  Both sides are standing on impossible principles.  If the Democrats, for example, want a single payer health care system, that’s fine but costly.  They must be willing to give up big spending elsewhere.  The alternative is higher and higher deficits in perpetuity. Bankruptcy is the end game. The Freedom Caucus, with enough members to stop anything Republican, seem willing to lose their majority for their principles.  Loss of power in Congress is that end game.   The other Reps desire economic growth to pay for spending extravagances.  All are undeterred.  All think, no actually believe, “what we want is what the public wants.”  If Congress were converted into an asylum, it would begin operations with more than 500 patients.

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The government is the only organization still in business where if you give them a $20 bill and ask for change, you'll get $9.56 back. 

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