The Founders on Responsible Fiscal Spending
My wife just came back from a routine grocery store run. She said, “These people are destroying the country.” She wasn’t talking about the store—she was talking about our elite political class that are spending our country into great inflation. And now they are poised to spend even more.
They have recently passed a bill touted as something to “reduce inflation,” but it would only increase it.
These days, you can tell that whenever the left wants to deceive their way into passing a bill, they provide an Orwellian name for the exact opposite effect.
This inflation-promoting bill is labeled “the Inflation Reduction Act.”
This $750 Billion bill delivers a wish come true for those who believe that man’s activities can control the weather—in other words, our activities exacerbate climate change.
An article in Breitbart.com notes, “Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) detailed the 50 most radical policies in the Inflation Reduction Act.” It is a wish list for every left-wing scheme imaginable. But it will not do what it is touted to do—reduce inflation.
The article adds, “Banks emphasized that the legislation would not reinvigorate the economy, as the Penn Wharton Budget Model found that the bill would not curb inflation. ‘That’s reason enough to vote against the package,’ Banks remarked.”
Obamacare—which is bolstered by an infusion of cash in this new bill, because it can’t sustain itself otherwise—was known as “the Affordable Care Act.” But hasn’t it really proved to be the “Unaffordable Care Act” for working class families?
The left labeled their abortive takeover of running elections at the federal level—even though the Constitution stipulates that this is to be at the state level—the “For the People Act.” For the people? Critics note that this could be more accurately labeled the “For the Corrupt Politicians Act”—since it would give the current politicians in office a distinct advantage over potential ordinary citizens who want to run for office.
The crazy thing about the left’s runaway spending is: Where does the money all comes from? From we the people. Government has no money of its own. So all this money, much of which is borrowed on the future, comes from the productive citizens.
This will raise taxes on Americans of virtually every socio-economic status.
In his 2021 book, Beyond Biden, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich explains how there really is an American majority that is not being represented by the left today. For example, Gingrich said that 75% of Americas support income tax cuts, not increases.
The founders of America believed in sound fiscal policy.
Thomas Jefferson once said, “To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, ‘the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, & the fruits acquired by it.’”
As to government debt, Jefferson once noted: “I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labor and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.”
I remember hearing President Ronald Reagan say in 1984 that the Congress was spending money like drunken sailors. Then he added that he must apologize to the Navy men because at least the sailors were spending their own money. How much worse in 2022.
When you have debt that gets into the trillions of dollars, then the situation is totally out of control. Somebody once gave this illustration to help grasp how much a trillion is, say, in comparison with a million:
If I owed you $100 and said I’d pay you in a million seconds, when would I pay you? In 12 days.
If I owed you $100 and said I’d pay you in a billion seconds, when would I pay you? In 32 years.
If I owed you $100 and said I’d pay you in a trillion seconds, when would I pay you? In 32,000 years.
Reagan once quipped that the closest thing to eternal life on this earth is a government program. Yet this “Reduce Inflation Act” will add more government programs. So the chance of stopping all the reckless government spending is an uphill battle. But it’s a battle worth fighting—for the sake of our country and our children and children’s children.