The National Debt

Originally Posted; Monday, February 23, 2009,

Oh boy here we go!!!

In today's news I heard that the president (Barack Obama) wants to pay down our national debt! He wants to reduce the debt from it's current level of 2 trillion dollars (not counting the trillion he just spent for "stimulus"!) to 500 billion by 2013.

Now this, I believe, is a noble goal and one which truly ought to be applauded.

But wait before we break out the band, we must ask how?

I mean honestly! How does the President plan to draw down the national debt, when he is spending like there is no tomorrow?

Apparently he plans to do this two ways, first by raising taxes on the "rich". As I understand it, anyone worth more than $500,000.00 (that's five hundred Thousand... half a Mill) is going to get a tax increase,
I think this is for business and individuals. But really I am a little fuzzy because I was just too incredulous of what I was hearing for it to really register.
And the second way to pay off debt? (ominous music plays here) He will reduce the troop strength of our armed forces even while he is increasing the soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan.

Memo:
To : The commander in chief,
RE: troop size.
We already have seen what happens when we do not have a large enough army to meet the needs we face as it is.
I bring your attention to the point that there were insufficient troops to meet our commitments from the beginning. (troops were spread too thin especially with the demands being placed on us by the U.N.)
Then we ended up in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for which we had too few troops.
This resulted in a need for us to "stop loss" troops, and it engendered bad feelings towards the government and the military, it increased battlefield casualties and an increased a need for long term commitment in a field of battle where, apparently, we didn't want to be in the first place.
(If we had had the troops we needed to go into Iraq and/or Afghanistan to begin with we might have been out of those countries by now.)

And in our economy what will this translate to?

Since taking office a month ago Wall Street has fallen an additional 11 percent,
The Fed is printing money with nothing to back it,
the business outlook is dismal,
consumers are refusing to spend because their dollars won't go far enough anymore,
banks still are not lending and now to sign the Death Nell of corporate America,
We will now charge you MORE taxes,
so you cannot afford your employees,
so you will have to close your doors,
so more Americans will be out of work,
so more people have to live off their meager savings,
so more people will be poor and needing welfare,
so More money will have to be spent by the government to fund the welfare programs,
so...

In my humble opinion I believe this will only serve to make the situation worse.

I will grant that I am no economist.
I will also admit that I was not in favor of this man as the president.
But I really did have some hope that he would try to do the right thing.
When he was elected into office and all the fervor for him erupted I hoped that all these people would find true relief. As an American, one who has served and will again of need arises, I wanted to be able to support this guy.

But I am a realist!

And Even I can see the truth!

I do not know what dream world he lives in but why can't he see these ideas really won't work?
They have no validity in reality.
So please let's get this right now!
Speak up people! Tell Mr. Obama that we need to get back on track! We need to think about our actions, we need to take care of our children, and we need to let history show us what we really need.

In the 1920's there was a recession, we never hear about it in history because it was a small blip. Why? Because the government decided to let the free market system do it's thing and it self corrected in a matter of months.

In the 30's we had the big depression. When Hoover and then FDR tried to meddle to fix it, by manipulating taxes, creating a bunch of work programs and increasing government and spending, The depression lasted until World War Two.

in the 80's there was a recession. Ronald Reagan CUT TAXES across the board, Lessened the amount of government and again the recession proved to be self correcting. (we even went into our largest boom EVER)

Now here is a new recession. Your predecessor increased spending, increased government, and passed stimulus bill/s. and so far it hasn't worked! ( in point of fact it made the situation worse.)

Please let's learn something here, because I for one do not want to see us having to go into World War Three in order to get out of this.