In the last blog posts I have had some fun playing a fortune teller, even though I doubt the a great deal of my prognostications will come to be. As is usual, future discoveries and events will occur in ways hardly anyone could have imagined. Perhaps someone will find a way around some of the apparently intractable problems.
A subject I have always been interested in is politics. The art of governing, the way we select our leaders (or have them thrust upon us willing or not) and why people think the way they do is fascinating, and often disheartening. Many studies have been made in this field and is a full time profession for a fair number of people, usually in the self interest of their own political party. Everybody has on opinion about politics, so why not me?
Why am I a Republican? Good question. I don't back all the positions that appear in party platform, but I believe that the Republican Party's basic positions on the most important issues that confront our country is much sounder than the Democrats, and not just by a small amount. I believe that so many of the social issues such a gay marriage and abortion that seem to dominate politics,and a lot of passion of both political parties, are really religious in nature and really shouldn't be part of a basic part of either parties platform. They really have no significant impact on the well being of the nation, nor the individuals living here, which should be the primary focus. The nation is not going to fall if gays get legally married or if women want to have the option of ending a pregnancy at any time. The thought may be repugnant to a lot of people, even most, but it really isn't going to impact the average family or the future of the nation at all. It certainly doesn't have any impact on my ability to buy groceries, the nation to defend itself against potential aggressors, or the ability of a young person to start up a new company. How these issues became central to the election process is beyond me, even though I have a good idea. I think it was short shortsightedness on the party leadership to allow that to happen. The argument can be made that these issues go to to the very moral fiber of the nation, even though they can't be quantified. More on that later. What is most important to the health and well being of the nation, and to it's citizens in the long run, are probably a few simple things.
First and likely most important is the financial health of the nation. Every thing else follows from that. A country can supply little in the way of assistance to the poor, medical care for the elderly and non-insured, or any of the other tasks we have come to expect from government if they are broke. An individual, family, city, state or nation that is living beyond it's means and is having to borrow money just to meet day to day expenditures is heading for deep trouble. The national public debt stands at around 11 trillion dollars at this time. If you include the interdepartmental debt it grows to 16 trillion dollars. About 6% of the budget was allocated in 2011 just to pay interest on the money that had been previously borrowed and we had to borrow more just to meet that obligation. That's a ticket on a fast ride to bankruptcy. In 2011 the federal expenditures were 3.6 trillion dollars, 1.3 trillion of that was borrowed. That's about 1/3 the total budget. That increases the national debt and results in bigger portion of the 2012 budget dedicated to paying the interest on that debt. This is like a snowball rolling down hill. Unless it's stopped it will become unmanageable. Folks, we're living on borrowed money with no plan to get this monster under control. Through a whole host of entitlements, largely led by the Democratic party, the congress and successive presidents have let us into this quagmire. We only have to look at Europe to see the results of over indulgence in government spending on a lavish scale to see the results. Two countries have already needed to be propped up to avoid default on it's debts and more are in jeopardy. It's alright for a state or the federal government to borrow money, but they should not be in a position where they have to borrow more money just to pay the interest on that debt.
I don't know about other states, but California (a poster child for the Democrats) has spent itself into a hole from which it's going to be very painful to recover. This has been building for years with a Democratic legislature getting by with a budget that was really all smoke and mirrors, in spite of the requirement to have a balanced budget by the state constitution. The combination of the Public Employees and Teachers retirement packages are currently 165 Billion dollars underfunded. California spends 1.5 Billion dollars per year on medical benefits alone on retired public employees. Both of the above must be covered by the taxpayer. There has been some efforts by some to reign this in, but with little success. The unions are just too strong. But, the game finally caught up with this state and it's now time to pay the piper.
Governor Brown is pushing real hard to get tax increases to try to save most of the states entitlements and educational system or deep and painful cuts will have to be made. Lately he's tried to negotiate some pension reforms, but even he has run into a stone wall. The heavily Democratic legislature isn't going against the public employee unions. He ran for office promising no new taxes unless approved by the voters; an empty promise as all new taxes have to be approved by the voters anyway. It's the law. Of course the typical California voter heard the no new taxes part and didn't hear or understand the qualifier.
The party that is trying to steer us toward fiscal responsibility with an aim to reaching a balanced budget is the Republicans. The Democrats have shown repeatedly that they are not willing or able to even try. They have shown that they are perfectly willing to spend the taxpayers money to fund programs and organizations that will expand their political base and assure their support on election day, regardless whether we can afford them or not. They portray themselves as being the party that cares and is willing to help the downtrodden, the weak and the helpless. Well la de da. It's easy to be very compassionate and hand out money like candy when it's someone else's money. There really is no such thing as government money; it's money taken from the taxpayer. I'm not sure the public at large realizes that fact.
The Nation must have a high rate of employment at jobs that provide adequate income. That means most of the population must make enough money to afford a home, meet the daily demands of living and provide the children with a college education. You don't do that by strangling industry with regulations and taxes. You do that by unleashing the private sector to do what it does best.
The private sector must be strong and viable. It is the private sector that produces the products and ideas that can be sold on the open market and thus produce revenue to fuel the economic engine. And, it is private industry that needs the workers to produce these products. If we can create an environment where there is a lot of services and products to meet this criteria then a large number of workers will be required. Government workers do not produce anything that has value in a global economy. They live off the money collected from the private sector. That is not to say they are not essential to the process, but they have very little impact on the overall financial health of the nation. In fact they are a drain. Their primary function is to provide the services that support the private sector. They also enforce regulations, provide safety and other services necessary to support a free economy. The problem comes when regulations put such a strangle hold on the expansion of industry that the growth is hampered.
The Democrats have demonstrated over and over again that they are not friends of the private sector. Their constituency is the labor unions and they are constantly pushing for labor laws that will enhance the power of the unions and thus increase the Democrats support group for campaign contributions. A recent example was the thwarted attempt by the National Labor Relations Board to let unions organize without a secret ballot. This would allow union organizers to stand over a worker as he/she fills out a request for the establishment of a union, which would be all that would be required to establish one. No voting required. They fight tooth and nail to stop any move to institute any type of open shop in a state. See Wisconsin. They enforce legislation that forces employers to collect union dues directly from the employees paychecks and turn them over to the unions. This makes sure that the members pay the money to the unions, whether they agree or not on how the money is spent on political campaigns.
They cite the working conditions of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to justify the backing of the poor unions. But, we now have so many labor laws on the books protecting workers from the kind of excesses that existed then that those conditions are not likely to arise again. And, I will admit that most of those labor laws were championed by the Democrats. See, they are not all bad.
They led the successful efforts to allow the public employees to unionize, something that most states must now deal with. Something that even FDR said was a formula for disaster. The thing is that public employees were never really part of that downtrodden group that spawned the labor movement in the 19th and early 20th century.
Now we have the most powerful unions in the states deciding on who their bosses will be, and who will decide on their pay and other benefits, while they pour massive amounts of money into the coffers of the Democratic Party. This situation has led to the states and the taxpayers of that state being on the hook for outrageous pensions and medical coverage for retired public workers. The huge pension obligations to the teachers and other retired public workers are a major factor in the real budget problems faced by the state. Any attempts to modify those benefits are fought by the public employee unions and the Democrats. They successfully paint the Republicans who are trying to bring sanity to the process as being hard hearted and cruel and go right own catering to their big financial supporters.
Democrats love to tax businesses to raise capital for their programs. That sounds good to the uninitiated because it punishes those bad rich guys and they don't have to pony up the money. But. It is a fact that you don't really tax businesses. Taxes along with a myriad of other things are just a cost item to a business, and like all cost items they will be passed on to the consumer. If a business is not able to pass this or any and all cost items along due to market conditions, then they will cease to exist. So like all cost items the consumer is the payer of any business tax, whether corporate or whatever. Today we are in a global market place and we are competing with products and services from numerous other countries. So the cost of doing business, reflected in the price of products or services, determines how well you will do in that market. Do well and you expand and hire people. Not compete due to high costs and you close down and fire people.
Regulations imposed on businesses are much the same story. They almost always cost money to implement. That cost has to be passed on by price increases on the products or services that sell. Democrats have shown a complete lack of awareness of the cost impacts of regulations they enact. As the regulations mount the cost of doing business in a state or the nation balloons. California is now the most unfriendly state in the union for business. That costs California millions in tax money and contributes to the fiscal problems in the state because, quite frankly, manufacturing doesn't relish moving into the state. The country is no different.
It's essential to maintain a strong military. If history hasn't taught us anything it should have made that lesson clear. The party that backs and supports the military since WWII has been the Republicans. The Democrats have continually tried to strip the military budget to fund their favorite social programs. The free world actually depends on the United States to maintain stability, and we are under attack from a radical element largely stationed in the middle east. The world trade center may not be last of the attacks; other attempts apparently have been initiated but stopped by intelligence agencies. That puts a tremendous strain on our military, so we have situations where individual service men have to spend frequent deployments with little rest in between because of fewer troops able to the deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Who knows where the next place will be.
And let us not forget, we are not the only large and potentially powerful military force in the world. I can think of two quickly that pose a potential threat to the United States due their adherence to an ideology so foreign to us, and because they have interests that conflict with us in certain parts of the world. We no longer have the luxury of time if attacked that we had in 1941. The broad oceans that gave us time before are just puddles in today's world.
Our infrastructure is falling apart. For the nation to thrive, for commerce to advance and produce goods and services for an increasing population, a sound policy must be made to bring our highways, our bridges, electrical distribution systems, power generation, and other systems which are essential must be brought up to snuff and maintained. The Democrats have continually stripped the highway funds to pay for other pet programs to aid their constituency. They are the party that you can usually count on to fight any expansion of infrastructure to transport water, oil or natural gas making it cheaper for the consumer. The so called stimulus package, recently enacted, was supposed to provide help in that direction, but much of the money was squandered on programs that aided the Democrats constituency. We are just now beginning to see the results of some of that money. And, let us not forget, that most of the ideas for the recovery program actually were germinated by the Bush administration, except Bush envisioned a massive building program to build and maintain infrastructure.
Social Security, once a financially viable program, is not sustainable without changes. The mythical Social Security Trust Fund in reality doesn't exist. Up till recently more money was collected from the taxpayers for Social Security than was paid out. That surplus money went into the general fund and was spent on other government programs, such a Medicare. That is how Bill Clinton, supposedly balanced the budget. Without the surplus Social Security funds the budget would have been way of of whack. There is mistaken idea running around that Social Security was some kind of savings account and the recipients were only getting back what they had paid into the account. Not so. SS is a pay as you go program. The politician that called it a ponze scheme was right on the money. It is only viable when you have a growing bunch of contributors at the bottom of the pyramid. That isn't happening anymore as the baby boomers are retiring and the pyramid is being turned upside down. The Democrats have made it a real effort to thwart any efforts to make the necessary modifications in the program by blocking efforts in congress and by spending millions in campaign ads scaring the hell out of the current recipients of Social Security and Medicare, even though no one has ever proposed any changes that would effect that group or the one approaching that age. The AARP, another Democrat mouthpiece, is in the forefront of this disinformation spreading their ideology to their large membership. The sad thing is that the media just passes these allegations along with no effort the discover or divulge the facts. The Republicans, especially Paul Ryan now, are pictured as just throwing grandma off the train, or a cliff, aided by cartoons and liberal comedians such as Jay Leno.
All of the above and perhaps a few more is why I'm a Republican. I'm afraid my party is not always on the side of the righteous, but the basic core of the party is trying to bring about changes in government to get the system upright and running smoothly again. Without that the social programs, so dear to the hearts of the Democrats, can not be afforded.
