Forget Bailouts; We Need Belt Tightening
Barack Obama, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan “There you go again.”
Another president who promises to cut taxes yet balance the budget cutting “wasteful spending” in the federal budget. How many times over the last 40 years have we heard the exact same pledge? How many times has that pledge been broken? Every time!
From the days of trickle-down economic stimulus theory to todays approach of just plain handouts, the whole approach seems to be to encourage the people in this country to spend, spend, spend!
It does not matter whether or not the item is needed, just buy it! All that does is continue the wrong-headed approach to the country’s economy that has gotten us into the trouble that we are in.
Looking back, the country was in much better shape when, in fact the government actually had a surplus in revenues and was paying down the national debt. The way to get back there is not to increase the national debt! It is to increase taxes and cut government spending and go back to the days of less plastic and more cash.
We have gone from the days when only homes, cars and a few major appliances were financed to the days when people buy a soft drink or snack at a convenience store on credit.. Most younger consumers have lost a sense of watching what they spend until they are so far in debt that bankruptcy is the only way out.
We should be preaching fiscal reality and belt tightening from the very top down.
The above was from C.M.T.in a letter to the editor at the Albuquerque Journal and was published there on January 20 2009.
The Brass Monkey has to mostly agree with C.M.T because in our opinion greed and hubris at all levels from the corporation fat cats, the Washington politicians on down to the common folk is exactly why we are in the mess we are in now.
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Like The Brass Monkey Blog I mostly agree with CMT.
Most Americans are addicted to plastic, and a lot of them are in deep trouble. It is time to revert to the times before the greedy credit card companies controlled our lives.
Russia and a lot of other countries are having bad times just as we are but the difference in Russia is well over 90% of purchases are cash transactions and not charged.
C’mon do you really NEED that big plasma screen? Just think of the money you will save by just purchasing things that you REALLY NEED. A big side benefit would be no interest payments which really adds up over a year.