Government Spending Will Prolong the Depression

The Congress must recognize the instability it creates chasing the ideas it gets from the Progressives’ failed methods of issue selection. These include what I call the ‘parade of victims method’, the ‘unpopular causes method’ and the ‘sounds good but doesn’t work method’ and the “it’s a right method’.

The ‘Parade of Victims Method’ requires that members of congress find victims, isolated individuals and families, plain folks who lost their healthcare, couldn’t get a personal leave of absence or were attacked by a polygraph. Victims seeking congressional relief are usually hard-luck cases and there are not many of them. This one is right out of the union playbook and appeals to the entitlement crowd. This puts Issues like health insurance on the agenda. The 80% of us who don’t have these problems sit in wonder at the hand-wringing that goes on over issues that don’t affect us. We are dismayed that anyone can think healthcare costs will do anything but increase with any kind of government initiated health insurance reform.

The health insurance reform foray took a year and in that time all of the very ill and uninsurable could have moved to Massachusetts, where they could get health insurance. Congress should pass simple no tax cost reforms like a modest roll-back of Medicare Advantage rates to adjust for its’ overpayment, a healthcare bill that ends coverage cancellation or refusal and makes other reforms to produce cost reduction like malpractice lawsuit reform – NO FORCED ENROLLMENT, NO EMPLOYER MANDATES, NO EXPANSION OF MEDICAID, NO FEDERAL SUBSIDIES, NO FINES, NO TAX INCREASES AND NO INCREASED GOVERNMENT CONTROL. This Bill combines the ‘unpopular causes’ and ‘won’t work methods’.

The ‘Unpopular Cause Method’ is characterized by taking a standard Progressive goal, declaring that we must address this goal to insure “fairness” and forging ahead while we who disagree all go nuts. The issues are all fabricated so thinly as to be laughable. (like global warming).

The Cap & Trade bill created turmoil that is worse than the corn ethanol exercise. On energy policy, Congress must unmask the global warming hoax and kill this Bill. Utilities should be free to select energy sources based on production costs. Coal and nuclear costs 2 cents/kwh. Solar and wind costs 10 cents/kwh. Is this hard ? Solar and wind need to become more competitive before utilities should be able to consider them. U.S. based oil and natural gas drilling should be pushed. EPA and Environmentalist interference should be discouraged. Real businesses will simply NOT invest until Congress stops scrambling. Threatening to impose uneconomical electric power generation sources on power utilities has prompted gaming businesses to invest in plans that probably won’t be implemented – just like the corn ethanol scam. Government must first look hard at the cost of things being proposed, then determine if it is feasible. They need to have your bandwagon taken away from them. They do way too much damage.

‘The Sounds Good, but Doesn’t Work Method’ is best illustrated by the”jobs programs”.
Congress should not spend more money on jobs programs’ it’s sand hole. Demand is down 30% and won’t budge until government spending stops. A 10% across-the-board cut in federal budgets would do more to stabilize the private sector than anything else Congress could do and it won’t cost a cent. This would signal to all that they are trying to reduce the national debt from its’ current projections. Further “very important” initiatives designed to benefit a few must be curtailed and ignored. If government really wants drama, it should become embroiled in actually reducing costs and spending. Let the economy bottom.

The ‘It’s a Right Method’ includes healthcare, food, shelter, education and spending money from taxpayers, redistributed based on need, pure Marxist doctrine.

When these bills fail to attract enough votes to pass, Progressives tuck them away only to pull them out again when they think they might slip through. When anything goes wrong, they claim that the passage of their failed bill would have prevented the problem. None of the claims these bad bills were supposed to prevent are provable. The Democrats passed their $3 trillion Health Insurance reform and costs increased, they claimed that their bill made them increase less. If they fail to pass Cap & Trade and oil and energy prices rise, they will blame the failure of its passage. If they fail to pass Card Check, they will declare that it would have been the salvation of the economy. Count on excuses being illogical.