The Circular Financial Firing Squad Encore!
I wrote the following and
posted it on this blog in January of this year: “In February of 2010 the
circular financial firing squad known as congress approved a $1.9 trillion
increase in federal credit card spending. This raised the federal debt spending
limit from an already astronomically high $12.4 trillion to a new galactic high
of $14.3 trillion. Guess what? In just over a year they have exceeded the new
federal credit card limit and will have to vote to raise it again. Think about
it. Nearly two trillion dollars of new federal debt strapped like a financial
suicide time bomb on to each and every one of our kids and grandkids! For some historical prospective
on the financial insanity of congress consider the following facts: In January
of 2000 the national credit card spending limit was $5.9 trillion; in January
2005 it was $8.1 trillion; in January of 2010 it was 12.4 trillion; and now it
has exceeded $14 trillion. Wake up America! Let congress
know in no uncertain terms that the only acceptable answer to raising the
federal debt ceiling is “NO”! “ Congress gave us the $2.4
trillion finger this past week, raising the new debt limit to $16.8 trillion
and continuing their headlong rush to economic Armageddon.
Atlas Shrugged: The Most Dangerous Movie in America!
The key moral question raised by Rand in Atlas is simple to verbalize but not amenable to the shallow sound-bite analysis so prevalent in our Twitter-FaceBook culture. It is a question that goes to the heart of why the United States of America is teetering on the brink of a financial Armageddon that will economically enslave our children and grandchildren for generations to come.
What is the question? It is this: “Do some men and women have the moral economic right to make sacrificial animals out of other men and women?” Putting the question another way in which it more specifically addresses the pending economic disaster of our generation would be: “Do some men and women in US society (whether they are a majority or a minority of the people) have the moral right to take, at the point of a gun, that which other men and women have produced or earned and give it to someone else?"
Since the United States of America was founded “of, by and for” the people of our great country, it is fitting that it is the people that must determine the answer to this moral question. Atlas Shrugged gives one answer. The people of the United States, including you, will ultimately have to give their answer.
You will get the most out of the movie and Rand’s moral economic themes if you read the following books in order: The Virtue of Selfishness, Capitalism the Unknown Ideal, and, Atlas Shrugged. Why those books in that order?—because the first two books preview most of the philosophical themes expressed by the characters and events in Atlas.
One last note on reading Rand for those born to the Twitter-FaceBook generation: Rand is not a quick read. To properly absorb her philosophy, whether you choose to agree with her or not, requires some thoughtful consideration on your part. I found that reading a page or two of Rand’s books and then cogitating a minute, sometimes an hour, on what I just read was my personal key for unlocking Rand’s philosophical logic. I discovered that she challenged and inspired me to consider and reevaluate my own philosophical principles and world view. My hope is that she, her great book, and the movie will similarly inspire you.
The Unvarnished Truth
Lovers of economic liberty should not allow themselves to be taken in by the congressional dog and pony show surrounding the current 2011 budget. The proposed $61 billion in budget cuts by the U.S House of Representatives may sound like a lot of money to most Main Street Americans but the truth is that $61 billion is equivalent to one grain of all the sand on Florida’s beaches.
Here is the harsh reality of the economic numbers:
1. One third ($1.5 trillion) of the 2011 budget is borrowed money. (2011 budget year runs from October 1, 2010 to September 30, 2011)
2. Assuming that Congress can cut $61 billion per year out of successive year’s budgets it will take TWENTY-FIVE years to pay off the $1.5 trillion of debt accrued just this year! ($61B X 25YRS = $1.5 trillion)
3. All of the $61 billion of proposed spending cuts comes from either the national defense part of the budget pie or the discretionary spending part of the budget pie. The TOTAL national defense piece of the budget pie is $738 billion (approximately 20% of the overall budget) and the TOTAL discretionary spending part of the pie is $540 billion (approximately 15% of the overall budget). Even if Congress eliminated all national defense and discretionary spending (a total of $1.3 trillion) from the federal budget the US would have to borrow $300 billion to make ends meet this year.
4. The national debt of the US is currently $14 trillion. The entire value of all goods and services (GDP) produced in the US economy is only $14 trillion. Federal government accountants estimate that Congress will borrow one trillion dollars per year to fully fund the budgets for each of the next 10 years. All of this economically suicidal borrowing means that by 2021 the national debt will almost double to $24 trillion.
5. If by some miracle the Congress were to balance the budget this year and begin paying down the current $14 trillion national debt at a rate of $61 billion per year (excluding interest payments on the debt) it would take 229 YEARS to pay off the debt!
Wake up America! Congress is demonstrating by their actions that they have no serious intent to balance the federal budget and begin paying down the national debt. Every dollar they borrow is another squandering nail in the debt coffin they are constructing for your kids and grandkids.Deficit Reduction!!! Really???
Our national financial house is on fire and we still have politicians and media pundits talking about “deficit reduction” instead of focusing on cutting real government spending. Wake up America! Deficit reduction is not the same thing as cutting spending. The President, Senate and House of Representatives spent $1.3 trillion more than the nation’s tax collectors brought in last year. This is money they borrowed or printed out of thin air. To balance the 2011 national budget they would have to cut (not reduce) spending by the same amount--$1.3 trillion.
The current national debt excluding the $116 TRILLION unfunded mandates for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is $14 TRILLION. The Congressional Budget office conservatively estimates that if we do not make dramatic real cuts to federal spending our national debt will grow at a rate of one trillion dollars per year for the next ten years. This means that in 2021 our debt will be $24 TRILLION. This debt will eventually have to be paid by our kids and grandkids.
The President, in his state of the union address, revealed a plan to reduce the deficit by $40 billion each year for the next ten years. The new leadership in the House of Representatives is proposing to reduce the deficit by $100 million this year to show how “serious” they are about getting government spending under control. It does not take a Harvard PHD in math or economics to recognize that these ludicrous, politically motivated proposals do nothing to ultimately save our country from financial ruin. For even if Congress and the President were to “reduce the deficit” by $300 billion per year the national bank account would still be overdrawn by $7 TRILLION in ten years.
Those lawmakers who propose “reducing the deficit” are equivalent to fire fighters pouring thimbles of water on a raging national financial inferno in hopes of keeping their political asses in power by not making necessary and critical CUTS TO NATIONAL SPENDING.
Main Street Americans need to make it clear in no uncertain terms that they demand their elected representatives CUT spending not “reduce the deficit” for the sake of our kids and grandkids.
Pitiful $2.5 Trillion Fraud by House FCINO's
The Circular Financial Firing Squad
In February of 2010 the circular financial firing squad known as congress approved a $1.9 trillion increase in federal credit card spending. This raised the federal debt spending limit from an already astronomically high $12.4 trillion to a new galactic high of $14.3 trillion. Guess what? In just over a year they have exceeded the new federal credit card spending limit and will have to vote to raise it again. Think about it. Nearly two trillion dollars of new federal debt strapped like a financial suicide time bomb on to each and every one of our kids and grandkids!
For some historical prospective on the financial insanity of congress consider the following facts: In January of 2000 the national credit card spending limit was $5.9 trillion; in January 2005 it was $8.1 trillion; in January of 2010 it was 12.4 trillion; and now it has exceeded $14 trillion.
Wake up America! Let congress know in no uncertain terms that the only acceptable answer to raising the federal debt ceiling is “NO”!