How to save the US economy?
By James Quinn,
a certified public accountant and a certified cash manager
TheBurningPlatform.com
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 "The
US government is on a “burning platform” of unsustainable
policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic
healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas military
commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken
soon."
David M. Walker
 David
Walker served as Comptroller General of the United States
from 1998 through 2008. He is now the CEO of the Peter G.
Peterson Foundation and leader of the Fiscal Wake Up Tour.
He has been a lone voice in the wilderness for the last
decade regarding our looming fiscal disaster. As head of
the General Accounting Office he would go before Congress
and explain that the country need to change course before
we flounder in a Perfect Storm of debt. They listened to
him respectfully and proceeded to add $5 trillion to the
National Debt in the next eight years. The borrowing binge
is now entering a hyper-speed phase. President Obama has
been only concerned with speed rather than long term corrective
actions.
“I don't believe it's too late to change
course, but it will be if we don't take dramatic action
as soon as possible. If nothing is done, this recession
could linger for years. That is why we need to act boldly
and act now to reverse these cycles.”
I prefer the wisdom of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.
”Delay is preferable to error.” – Jefferson
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend
the first four sharpening the axe.” – Lincoln
The $787 billion 1,074 page stimulus bill has been
passed. President Obama has signed it. The market immediately
dropped 500 points. It will have no impact on the economy
in 2009. The bill will stimulate nothing but the National
Debt. Within months, plans for another stimulus plan will
be demanded by the Democratic led Congress because speed
and the appearance of action are how politicians get reelected.
When I see Senator Charles Schumer of New York make a speech
on the floor of the Senate saying, "And
let me say this to all of the chattering class that so much
focuses on those little, tiny, yes, porky amendments, the
American people really don't care", I want to
throttle him.Only a U.S. Senator would consider $100 billion
a little tiny pork. His words prove that our leaders are
so corrupted and disconnected from real Americans that they
are running this country for their own self interest and
the interests of their corporate money backers. Abraham
Lincoln, an honest and wise man by most accounts, knew that
calling pork spending stimulus doesn’t make it stimulus.
“If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog?
Five? No, calling a tail a leg don't make it a leg.”
When I see annual deficits of $2 trillion to $3
trillion that Congress has committed the country to in the
coming years, I can’t help but associate our country’s situation
with the last voyage of the Andrea Gail. Anyone who has
seen the movie A Perfect Storm or read the book knows the
story of the sword-fishing crew that got caught in the Halloween
Nor’easter of 1991, known as the perfect storm. The story
is a precise analogy to what will happen if our country
doesn’t change course now.
The Andrea Gail (United States) is captained by
Billy Tyne (Barack Obama) with his young first mate Bobby
Shatford (Timothy Geithner). Their fishing boat was fighting
the rough waves of the North Atlantic (Financial Crisis)
as they sought their prize of swordfish (Economic Recovery).
While they were concentrating on the task at hand, the remnants
of Hurricane Grace (Unfunded Liabilities of $53 trillion)
was moving up the Atlantic coast. A low pressure system
($787 billion stimulus bill) moved off the East Coast and
a strong disturbance (Bank Bailout) along a cold front coming
from Canada combined to create a strong Nor’easter. The
intensifying storm was already dangerous (Causing Unemployment
and Bankruptcies), but when the subtropical power of Hurricane
Grace was sucked into the maelstrom, it became a Perfect
Storm (Financial Crisis of Epic Proportions). With 75 mph
winds (Deficits) and 60 foot waves (Unsustainable Spending
on Social Programs & Military Spending), the storm had
become enormously treacherous.
 
Source: Wikipedia
Captain Tyne (Barack Obama) received frantic warning
calls from Captain Linda Greenlaw (David Walker) that the
storm had grown into a killer and must be avoided. Cocky
Captain Tyne (Barack Obama) thought he knew better and could
make it through the storm and safely back to port in Gloucester
to reap the riches of his catch. Instead of maneuvering
(Reigning in spending and allowing banks to fail) to avoid
the storm, Captain Tyne (Barack Obama) decides to double
down and plough full speed ahead into the heart of the Perfect
Storm. The Adrea Gail (United States) gets caught in the
vortex of the storm. Ultimately, Captain Tyne (Barack Obama)
and Bobby (Timothy Geithner) realize they will never get
out alive. They make one last effort to climb a 60 foot
wave and the Andrea Gail (United States) capsizes (Collapse
of American Financial System), and all men are lost at sea.
Unsustainable Policies & Practices
The definition of unsustainable is, not
able to be maintained or supported in the future. To me,
a picture is worth a thousand words.
Source: Steve Barry & Robert Shiller
As Congressional moron after Congressional moron goes on
the usual Sunday talk show circuit and says we must stop
home prices from falling, I wonder whether these people
took basic math in high school. Are they capable of looking
at a chart and understanding a long-term average? The median
value of a U.S. home in 2000 was $119,600. It peaked at
$221,900 in 2006. Historically, home prices have risen annually
in line with CPI. If they had followed the long-term trend,
they would have increased by 17% to $140,000. Instead, they
skyrocketed by 86% due to Alan Greenspan’s irrational lowering
of interest rates to 1%, the criminal pushing of loans by
lowlife mortgage brokers, the greed and hubris of investment
bankers and the foolishness and stupidity of home buyers.
It is now 2009 and the median value should be $150,000 based
on historical precedent. The median value at the end of
2008 was $180,100. Therefore, home prices are still 20%
overvalued. Long-term averages are created by periods of
overvaluation followed by periods of undervaluation. Prices
need to fall 20% and could fall 30%. You will know we are
at the bottom when the top shows on cable are Foreclose
That House and Homeless Housewives of Orange County.
Instead of allowing the housing market to correct to its
fair value, President Obama and Barney Frank will attempt
to “mitigate” foreclosures. Mr. Frank has big plans for
your tax dollars, "We may need more than $50 billion
for foreclosure [mitigation]". What this means is that
you will be making your monthly mortgage payment and in
addition you will be making a $100 payment per month for
a deadbeat who bought more house than they could afford,
is still watching a 52 inch HDTV, still eating in their
perfect kitchens with granite countertops and stainless
steel appliances. Barney thinks he can reverse the law of
supply and demand by throwing your money at the problem.
He will succeed in wasting billions of tax dollars and home
prices will still fall 20% to 30%. Unsustainably high home
prices can not be sustained. I would normally say that even
a 3rd grader could understand this concept. But, instead
I’ll say that even a U.S. Congressman should understand
this.
Source : Barrons
Ray Dalio, the Chief Investment Officer of Bridgewater
Associates, in a recent interview in Barron’s made an irrefutable
argument that the United States consumers, companies and
Government must accept the pain of debt restructuring to
get our economy back to normal. His firm had been consistently
right, years before the financial crisis hit.
“Basically what happens is that after a period of time,
economies go through a long-term debt cycle -- a dynamic
that is self-reinforcing, in which people finance their
spending by borrowing and debts rise relative to incomes
and, more accurately, debt-service payments rise relative
to incomes. At cycle peaks, assets are bought on leverage
at high-enough prices that the cash flows they produce aren't
adequate to service the debt. The incomes aren't adequate
to service the debt. Then begins the reversal process, and
that becomes self-reinforcing, too. In the simplest sense,
the country reaches the point when it needs a debt restructuring.
We will go through a giant debt-restructuring, because we
either have to bring debt-service payments down so they
are low relative to incomes -- the cash flows that are being
produced to service them -- or we are going to have to raise
incomes by printing a lot of money.
It isn't complicated. It is the same as all bankruptcies,
but when it happens pervasively to a country, and the country
has a lot of foreign debt denominated in its own currency,
it is preferable to print money and devalue. The biggest
issue is that if you look at the borrowers, you don't want
to lend to them. The basic problem is that the borrowers
had too much debt when their incomes were higher and their
asset values were higher. Now net worth’s have gone down.
The Federal Reserve is going to have to print money. The
deficits will be greater than the savings. So you will see
the Federal Reserve buy long-term Treasury bonds, as it
did in the Great Depression. We are in a position where
that will eventually create a problem for currencies and
drive assets to gold.”
The debt service as a % of disposable income for consumers
is above Great Depression levels as we enter the Next Great
Depression. These levels are unsustainable. Consumers normally
have a limited number of choices. They can pull a Trump
and declare bankruptcy to wipe out the debt or reduce spending
dramatically while paying down their debt. This is what
is required to purge our capitalist system of its excesses.
Instead, our Government “leaders” are coming to the rescue
with your tax dollars. You have already given $7 billion
to Capital One and American Express so they can hand out
more credit cards with $20,000 limits to pizza delivery
boys. When you see someone carting a 52 inch HDTV out the
door of Best Buy, you may be making his credit card payment.
Barney Frank, and his band of merry Congressmen, has also
provided $9 billion of your hard earned tax dollars to GMAC
Financial and Chrysler Financial. GMAC Financial used the
name Di-Tech to lure millions of gullible poor people into
negative amortization no doc mortgage loans at the peak
of the housing bubble. When you see a BMW 525i parked in
front of a boarded up house in West Philly, know that you
are making the car payment for that deadbeat.
The stimulus plan will be a complete failure. Politicians
have not taken into account the damaged psychology of the
American public. We have been hit over the head with a baseball
bat and will not be stepping up to the feeding trough of
debt financed spending for a long time. If we do not let
people and companies fail, we will encourage the same behavior
that caused the problem. It will make sense for every upstanding
American to stop paying their mortgage and to run their
credit cards up to the limit. Pastor Adrian Rogers explained
how many Americans feel today.
"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by
legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person
receives without working for, another person must work for
without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody
anything that the government does not first take from somebody
else. When half of the people get the idea that they do
not have to work because the other half is going to take
care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that
it does no good to work because somebody else is going to
get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the
end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing
it."
Fiscal Deficits
“A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men
free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement,
and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it
has earned - this is the sum of good government.” Thomas
Jefferson
The chart below, which shows our National Debt from 1938
onward, is totally outdated. The projections through 2012
were made before the current Congress unleashed its hell
fury. The chart is now vertically challenged, topping out
at a mere $14 trillion. The little red line that was so
sedate until Richard Nixon took the United States off the
gold standard in 1971, is about to take off like the Space
Shuttle. The current “stimulus” package of $787 billion
is more than the entire National Debt in 1978 ($771 billion).
By 2012, the National Debt will easily exceed $15 trillion.
If economists like Paul Krugman have their way, the debt
will surpass $16 trillion. The bill has just been signed
and the ultra-liberal Krugman is already saying it isn’t
nearly enough spending. Keynes is his god. The man is so
disconnected from the real world, it is sad. He is only
comfortable in his secluded academic world at Princeton
with his models and theories. He needs to shuttle kids to
hockey games on the weekend so he can stop thinking of ways
to spend our money. He has probably never set foot in a
Wal-Mart or a Jiffy Lube. I truly believe that his goal
in life is that 80 years from now, people will say “We’re
all Krugmans now”.
Source: Cedarcomm.com (press picture to to view)
The chart looks eerily similar to the previous housing
chart. How far up can it go before the fat lady sings? It
looks like we are going to find out if Dick Cheney was right.
“Deficits don’t matter”. We all know Mr. Cheney has never
been wrong before. The annual deficit for 2009 is now estimated
at between $2 trillion and $3 trillion give or take a few
hundred billion. These figures seem incomprehensible to
the average person on the street. Some perspective is in
order. If we use $2.5 trillion as the estimated deficit
that means:
- We’re adding $6.85 billion per day to the National Debt
- We’re adding $285 million per hour to the National Debt
- We’re adding $475,000 per minute to the National Debt
In the time it takes to say Audacity of Hope, we’ve added
$25,000 to the National Debt. There are many pundits who
say the National Debt doesn’t matter. We are only paying
3.4% on our 30 Year Treasuries and there is always enough
demand. The dollar continues to be steady versus the Euro.
Government debt as a percentage of GDP was 122% during World
War II, versus only 78% today. All of these statements are
true, today. On March 1, 2008 I could have said that the
American banking system was sound. I would have appeared
to be right. Two weeks later Bear Stearns collapsed and
the downward spiral of our worldwide financial system accelerated
out of control. Are these reasonable questions to ask?
- How long will foreign countries fund our rapidly accelerating
deficits for a 3.4% return which will be wiped out by
a slight decline in the USD?
- Will foreign countries with their own economies contracting
and pouring billions into domestic stimulus even have
the funds to invest in U.S. Treasuries?
- Is there a tipping point when Bernanke has printed one
too many dollars? If there is, you can be sure he won’t
see it coming.
- When government debt reaches 110% of GDP next year,
will we be in better or worse position as a nation than
we were in 1945 as the only remaining power in the world?
- How do you solve a $53 trillion unfunded liability problem
while tripling your National Debt in the space of 10 years?
The answers to these questions will determine when
the great American Economic Ponzi Scheme collapses. It is
only a question of timing if we continue on the current
fiscal path. As we lay in our beds watching American Idol
and pondering whether Britney Spears is a good mom, our
beds are burning.
The time has come
To say fairs fair
To pay the rent
To pay our share
The time has come
A facts a fact
It belongs to them
Lets give it back
How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep when our beds are burning
Beds are Burning – Midnight Oil
Healthcare Underfunding
“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth,
they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis.
The great point is to bring them the real facts.” Abraham
Lincoln
The American people have not been given the truth
by our politician leaders since the Eisenhower administration.
By hiding the truth and not addressing the unsustainable
trend of our social programs, our leaders have insured a
painful outcome of this trend. In 1965, 27% of Federal spending
was mandatory. on Today, 53% of Federal spending is on auto-pilot.
The entire Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid system
will need to be overhauled or scrapped. Benefits will have
to be reduced and taxes will have to be raised. There are
no other choices. Medicare costs will explode over the next
40 years. The increasing debt will result in interest payments
on the debt becoming the largest expenditure in the federal
budget. The longer we wait to address this unavoidable train
wreck, the more likely it will result in generational warfare
between baby boomers and younger generations.
Source: Perotcharts.com
As entitlements and net interest grow, discretionary spending
gets squeezed. Non-defense programs, which include, activities
related to children, transportation infrastructure, education,
training and research that should promote future economic
growth and prosperity, come under increasing funding pressure.
We are forced to ignore investments in the future to pay
for commitments made decades ago. The short term focus of
our Washington politicians has ruined our fiscal future.
Children don’t vote, and younger people are less involved
in the political process. As a result, the political gain
from immediate increases in spending or reductions in taxes
outweighs the eventual economic benefits of more politically
costly but fiscally responsible choices. This is a criminal
and immoral act upon our future generations. It is time
to hold these politicians accountable for their actions.
Again, Abraham Lincoln’s wisdom from 150 years ago applies
today.
“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by
evading it today.”
Source: Perotcharts.com
The above chart proves we cannot possibly grow our way
out of this problem. On average, more than 10,000 baby boomers
will become eligible for Social Security benefits each day
for the next two decades. As they do, there will be fewer
workers supporting a growing number of retirees. This eventually
will place an unfair burden on younger workers, who will
end up bearing the brunt of future taxes. A politically
unpopular decision deferred today is a tax increase on future
generations. The United States spends 16.5% of GDP on healthcare
every year. This is far more than any country on earth.
This amounts to $2.3 trillion per year. Even with this immense
spending, there are 47 million Americans without health
coverage. Canada, Australia, and Sweden only spend 9% of
GDP and cover all of their citizens. The waste, fraud and
bureaucracy of our system are out of control. Nationalization
would be a disaster. Totally free markets favor only the
rich. There is no easy answer. It will take compromise,
sacrifice, and intelligence to solve this problem.
Immigration
As our country sinks deeper into this recession
and more people lose their jobs, anger at illegal immigrants
will continue to grow. This is not an unexpected reaction,
as anger has to be directed somewhere. According to a Pew
Institute report, there are 11 million illegal immigrants
in the United States, with almost 50% of the total in California,
Texas and Florida. Approximately 57% of the illegal immigrants
are from Mexico and another 24% from other Latin American
countries. The cost to the American taxpayer is huge. Estimates
of the annual cost are in the range of $300 billion per
year. Some disturbing statistics include:
- $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal
aliens each year by state governments.
- $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance
programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches
for illegal aliens.
- $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for
illegal aliens.
- $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and
secondary school education for children here illegally.
- $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for
the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as
anchor babies.
- $3 Million Dollars a day is spent to incarcerate illegal
aliens.
- 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal
aliens.
- $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens
for welfare social services by the American taxpayers.
Why are there 11 million illegal immigrants in
the country? So the rich can have housekeepers and landscapers.
So homebuilders have cheap labor to put roofs on their houses.
So farming conglomerates can have someone to pick their
crops. All of these people benefit from cheap illegal labor.
The American taxpayer foots the bill for the social costs.
Source: Perotcharts.com
Now the really bad news. We need a large increase
in immigration in order to have any chance at maintaining
a decent standard of living in the future. The number of
Americans over 65 years old will increase by 75% between
2010 and 2030. These 70 million people will all be collecting
Social Security and sucking our system dry. There aren’t
enough young people to replace them in the work force. With
only 28% of Americans achieving a college degree, we need
to undertake a concerted effort to bring in as many smart
immigrants as possible and convince them to stay here after
graduation. Our educational system is graduating too many
Bluto Blutarskys and not enough Einsteins.
Dean Vernon Wormer: Zero point two...
Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
Bluto: Over? Did you say "over"?
Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when
the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!
Bluto: Christ. Seven years of college
down the drain.
Our only realistic chance to solve many of our
fiscal problems is through discoveries in science and medicine
that can only happen with highly educated people whether
they are born in the U.S. or elsewhere.
(press picture to to view)
If we could increase the expected 2030 population
from 351 million to 380 million, those added taxpayers would
greatly help the national fiscal situation. Regarding the
11 million illegal aliens already in the country, it is
not feasible to round them up and send them back. Mexico
is already on the brink of implosion, with drug lords controlling
much of the country. A realistic approach is needed.
Overseas Military Commitments
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched,
every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft
from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold
and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money
alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius
of its scientists, the hope of its children."
Dwight D. Eisenhower – Farewell Speech
The man who led the Allies to victory in WW II warned the
country that the Military Industrial Complex was too powerful.
We did not heed his warning. The United States, the only
superpower remaining on earth, currently spends more on
military than the next 45 highest spending countries in
the world combined. The U.S. accounts for 48% of the world’s
total military spending. The Cold War has been over for
20 years, but we are spending like World War III is on the
near term horizon. There is no country on earth that can
challenge the U.S. militarily. So, why are we spending like
we are preparing for a major conflict? The impression on
the rest of the world is that we have aggressive intentions.
Defense spending had peaked at just under $500 billion in
1988. The fall of communist Russia did result in a decline
to the $350 billion range from 1995 through 2000, and an
economic boom ensued. Since 9/11 we have doubled our spending
on defense.
George Bush’s pre-emptive war has cost the American taxpayer
$800 billion so far. The human cost of this war is worse
than the dollar cost. Almost 5,000 Americans have died for
the lies of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Thousands of
mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, wives, husbands, and
children have lost their loved ones for a false cause. Our
National Guard troops have been stretched beyond the breaking
point. Military families have been devastated by multiple
deployments. Soldiers are committing suicide in record numbers.
Returning soldiers are not being treated for psychological
illnesses. The anger of the Guns N Roses song Civil
War captures how I feel.
Look at your young men fighting
Look at your women crying
Look at your young men dying
The way they've always done before
Look at the hate we're breeding
Look at the fear we're feeding
Look at the lives we're leading
The way we've always done before
I don't need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor
You're power hungry sellin' soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh
I don't need your civil war
If as a country we continue to allow our politicians and
their military industrial complex corporate sponsors to
spend $800+ billion per year on weapons, to the detriment
of higher education, alternative energy projects, and national
infrastructure needs, we will be paying an extremely high
price. According to the Defense Department’s latest "Personnel
Strengths" report, the United States now has troops
stationed in 147 countries and 10 territories. Why are we
policing the world? What is the point of having 57,000 troops
in Germany and 33,000 troops in Japan? Germany and Japan
each spend $40 billion per year on their military. Can’t
they defend themselves at this point?
We have some of the brightest engineers in the country
developing weapons to kill human beings more efficiently.
There is an enormous opportunity cost that is being paid.
These engineers could be concentrating their brilliance
on developing alternative energy solutions which could free
us from our Middle East oil dependence. Which effort would
benefit our country more, weapons development or energy
independence? War and non-stop conflict benefit the military
industrial complex. It is in their best interest to support
candidates that favor an aggressive foreign policy. This
has led to Defense companies using their influence to provoke
conflict throughout the world. President Eisenhower’s final
words in his farewell address are the most chilling.
“In the councils of government, we must guard against
the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought
or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential
for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will
persist.”
If the words of a noble 20th century President aren’t
enough to convince you of a dangerous too powerful military,
maybe the words of our Founding Father will.
“Over grown military establishments are under any form
of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded
as particularly hostile to republican liberty." George
Washington
Are You Part of the Cure or Part of the Disease?
Come out upon my seas, curse missed opportunities (am
I)
A part of the cure, or am I part of the disease Clocks
- Coldplay
I think I’ve made a valid case that our government is on
a burning platform of unsustainable policies. The important
point now is how do we put the fire out and save the country
from imploding under a mountain of debt? This is where ideology
needs to be put aside. The best ideas from anyone should
be considered. I believe that Samuel Adams was correct.
"It does not take the majority to prevail, but
rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush
fire freedom in the minds of men."
Some ideas for consideration follow:
- We know that Congress is corrupt and in the pocket of
lobbyists. They show no courage to make necessary unpopular
decisions because they won’t be re-elected. The founding
fathers envisioned representatives who did their civic
duty for a short time and then went back to their real
profession. Almost 200 out of 535 members of Congress
are lawyers and lifetime politicians. This explains much
about our predicament. Term limits would inject our leaders
with a dose of courage. Maybe they would do what was best
for the country if they knew that they would only be in
Washington for six years.
- Outlawing lobbyists and PACs would remove the buying
and selling of votes in Congress. We must remove the corruption
from Washington DC.
- The PAYGO rules that were allowed to expire in 2002
must be reinstituted. These rules would not allow new
spending initiatives without an equal cut in other spending.
These rules allow Congressmen to pretend to have a backbone
and say no to constituent demands.
- The banks that are insolvent will need to be nationalized,
investors wiped out, and good assets sold off to good
banks. Nouriel Roubini lays out a logical scenario. The
sooner we purge the system of its bad debt, the sooner
we can get this economy on a positive track.
- Dr. John Hussman has a solution for the foreclosure
disaster that would not stick the U.S. taxpayer with the
bill. Banks could write down the mortgage balance but
receive a PAR (property appreciation right) back from
the homeowner. The idea is discussed in more detail here.
- The U.S. carmakers need to be restructured within a
pre-packaged bankruptcy. They want another $39 billion
of your tax dollars. No more taxpayer funds can be wasted
on these bloated pigs.
- A truly non-partisan commission appointed by the President
with the power to put forth a comprehensive plan to restructure
Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security for an up or down
vote by Congress is the only way to create a viable future.
Congress must be forced to confront this issue.
- John McCain’s moderate approach of allowing
a path to citizenship seems like the best immigration
plan. Most came here to try and live a better life. If
they have committed crimes or don’t follow the prescribed
path to citizenship, then they need to be expelled from
our country. We need to encourage foreign professionals
to immigrate to America with incentives, if necessary.
- If 50% of the $1.4 trillion annual military related
budget was redirected to debt reduction, energy independence,
and infrastructure rebuilding, we would actually get a
positive return on our tax contribution. Our military
is supposed to defend our country, not invade sovereign
nations.
- A “Manhattan Project” to develop new energy sources
which would eliminate the $400 billion per year that we
send overseas for foreign oil. The number of high paying
jobs that could be created by building nuclear power plants,
wind farms, and converting vehicles to natural gas would
be in the hundreds of thousands.
- A tax system that eliminated all the preferences and
loopholes for corporations and individuals while lowering
rates would be fairer. Maybe even our Treasury Secretary
could do his taxes correctly. Congress and lobbyists use
the tax system to push their agendas. A flat tax or replacing
the income tax with a national sales tax are other possible
options.
- The Federal Reserve needs to be abolished. A currency
backed by gold or a basket of precious metals would restrict
what Congress could spend. This would save us from ourselves.
The dollar has lost 93% of its purchasing power since
Nixon closed the gold window in 1971 and the National
Debt has gone from $389 billion to $10.8 trillion, a 2,800%
increase in 38 years. Politicians will spend your money
if they are given the chance. Let’s not give them the
chance.
“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of
good conscience to remain silent.” Thomas Jefferson
When I was a kid and I’d read something fascinating in
a book, I’d breathlessly tell my Dad what I’d learned. He’d
look up from his newspaper and say, “Don’t believe everything
you read”. I’d be so mad, but his advice produced a world
class skeptic. Don’t believe anything or anyone until you’ve
verified their facts and figured out their motives. If you
are tired of remaining silent and have ideas you want to
discuss, join me at TheBurningPlatform.com
to have a forum for ideas that can put our country back
on track.
Bio: James Quinn is a senior
director of strategic planning for a major university. These
articles reflect the personal views of James Quinn. They
do not necessarily represent the views of his employer and
are not sponsored or endorsed by his employer. He can be
reached at quinnadvisors [at] comcast . net.
Published - April 2009
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