You thought the Greeks were big spenders? Profligate spendthrifts for whom pissing against walls is a national occupation? Well, 'you ain't seen nuthin' yet'!
Take a look 'over there' at what the New York Times is pleased to call "a responsible budget". If you are not sleeping well you can plough through their detailed analysis to Chart 5-1 on Page 58 of their 500-page appendix on "Analytical Perspectives." On the other hand, if you do, you will be awake with nightmares, particularly if you are a young American. On the basis that a picture is worth a thousand words, summon up your courage and peek at this through your fingers:
As Mark Steyn tells it at Investors.com:
[A]t the House Budget Committee last Thursday, Chairman Paul Ryan produced another chart, this time from the Congressional Budget Office, with an even steeper straight line showing debt rising to 900% of GDP and rocketing off the graph circa 2075.
But then, Paul Ryan is one of those flinty-hearted, Republican realists who understands money and compound interest. Needless to say, his dash of realism produced nothing more than chortles from the 'Sec. for Funny Money', Mr. Timmy Geitner, and his colleagues:
[T]he chart would have been even more hilarious if they'd run the numbers into the next millennium: "You could have taken it out to 3,000 or to 4,000" he chortled, to supportive titters from his aides.
To which Mr. Ryan offered a sharp, cold rejoinder that should send shivers up the American spine, assuming there is still one in existence:
"Yeah, right." replied Ryan. "We cut it off at the end of the century because the economy, according to the Congressional Budget Office, shuts down in 2027 on this path." [My emphasis]
It is some time since I mentioned Glenn Beck, mostly because he has moved from Fox News so I no longer see or hear him. However, I would remind you that beneath the fast-talking spiel that he produces 'on air' there is a considerable amount of erudition on the background of those who surround Obama. Beck warned years ago that the Obama administration would attempt to spend America into crisis because it is only from crisis that the extreme Left stands a chance of seizing power. Of course, the Left never being as bright as they think they are, when the crisis hits, it is usually the extreme Right who actually succeed in grabbing the levers of power - see Spain, Germany and various South American nations in the recent past, and Greece in the very near future!
That is why it is so utterly crucial that Obama be defeated in November. As I half expected, the Republicans have made a hash of choosing an opponent and now all bets are off. The only hope is that both houses of the Congress go Republican as a means of slamming the breaks on. If that does not happen then, in my opinion, the USA is on the way out as a global power.
Mark Steyn offers a suitably sad but sardonic commentary on the whole miserable business which is well worth reading in full.
Comments