The following article is an excerpt from our April issue. Have you subscribed yet to the leading conservative magazine in West Tennessee? Subscribe online, its safe and easy.
By Jonathan Lindberg
Ah, the rhetoric. Yes, the candidates. Tis the season when politicians turn into economists and voting records begin to spin. To hear our elected leaders stump on the federal deficit, you would almost have to think that our country was in trouble. And yet, to sit back and watch them vote, you would have to think Congress has been handed one of those oversized blank checks with endless zeros wrapping their way around the dome of the Capitol building. You may want to sit down for this one, but what a politician says and how that politician votes may be two different things.
Consider the national debt: 8,200,000,000,000. That’s eight-point-two-trillion dollars, if you’re counting the zeros at home. The number itself almost seems fictional, almost comical. The number trillion has notoriously been used for counting things like atoms and stars, not dollar figures owed and debts incurred. Something has happened along the way that has convinced our elected officials that there is nothing wrong, or rather that there are no consequences, for running a government constantly in the red.
Last month, Republican leaders descended on Memphis, sounding the call for fiscal restraint, promising accountability. Oh, the talk, the rhetoric. Five days later, those same leaders were back in Washington, approving an almost ten-percent increase to our already bloated federal deficit, raising the ceiling to just under 9,000,000,000,000. That is nine-trillion dollars, twelve zeros. Said one Republican Senator of the vote, “I am pleased that this budget reflects Republican efforts to restrain government spending/” Since when did big government become our friend?
Spin, someone has said, is knowing the right place to shift the blame. So who is to blame? The Democrats are blaming the Republicans; the Republicans are blaming the Democrats. The press is blaming the President, who is, coincidentally, blaming Congress. And all the while, dear taxpayer, we are left scratching our heads, wondering why so much of our money is being scooped up and carried away, to places we have never been.
So where does it all go? That is the nine-trillion dollar question. Seven-billion for education. Three-billion for heating subsidies. Three-billion for health care programs. One-billion for aviation security. All worthy causes to be sure. However, at some point, sacrifice must meet restraint. Painful cuts must be made, and that requires strong leadership in the face of opposition.
So who is to blame? Maybe the thirty-second television spot. Yes, the thirty-second spot, the bane of American politics. No politician facing re-election wants to be featured in one of those thirty-second clips with ominous music, having opposed education and health care increases. Not the sort of thing to run a campaign on. However, in a time of fiscal crisis, is that not exactly the kind of leadership we need in Washington? Someone who will actually put-their-foot-down and say enough-is-enough. What a novel thought, that the candidate accused of cutting health care and education costs might just be the candidate we need most in Washington, the answer to the nine-trillion dollar question.
