Harris Sherline: The Sky’s the Limit

» Richard Foster on 02.14.10 @ 01:03 PM

From at least Lyndon Johnson through Bush the annual deficit was less than their predecessors under democrats than under republicans.  Where was the Patriot Post Digest when Reagan led the U.S. from the worlds largest creditor nation to the largest debtor nation.  Seven out of eight years he proposed a deficit greater than the democratic Congress passed.  Not to mention more than doubling social security for self employed individuals.   
  Their is plenty of blame for profligate spending by both parties and selective memories do not help to bring about substantive change.
During the Eisenhower administration the top tax rate was 93% and we created the greatest highway system the world has ever seen.  People want roads but they don’t want to pay for them.  The coorporations want the courts and other government run services yet feel they should not pay realistically either.
  The budget reality is, we are playing pass the hot potatoe with a lot of finger pointing by whoever is out of office.
Medicare, Social Security, and the defense budget consume 88% of our total budget so forget illegals and welfare cheats they are but a small drop in the bucket.
The US spends more on the military than the rest of the world combined.  This is unsustainable and we facilitate our own downfall by our fears.  If we need to spend that much to feel safe then perhaps we are doing something wrong as individuals and as a nation.
  As Walt Kelly said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” We (all of us) are the problem.  Our own greed and selfishness fuels the problem of good governence.  Self- centered parties and politicians simply put into practice what has become a national zeitgeist.

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» Allan Ghitterman on 02.14.10 @ 06:21 PM

This opinion is more factual than Mr. Sherline had ever gone before. But, he did not point out that during the Reagan and younger Bush administration neither of the these two Presidents include their proglificay to waste money on military efforts in the budget.
Had either administration been honest the budget would have been far worse. And one of the reasons the Obama budget is so large is that he chose to include all government expenditures in it.
But, Mr Reagan, at least, did not lower taxes when he went to military actions, and we all remember that W did a massive tax decrease as soon as he went to war.
And what puzzles me is where was all this desire to minimize the increasing public debt when the Republicans were in power? 

It would also be too much to expect that Mr. Sherline would point out that both the   Johnson and Clintons administration had balanced budgets during their administration. And if I am not mistaken Mr. Clinton gave W a balanced budget!!!!!!!!

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» AN50 on 02.15.10 @ 09:19 AM

Fair enough my liberal neighbors. Now that we got that entire stupid finger pointing out of the way, what is the solution? We went from a net creditor nation to a debtor nation because of government spending? We had a highest tax rate of 93% and built highways from that?
The problem is (and both parties are part of it) we only look at the surface and never venture very deep. Way down deep at the economic fundamentals that make or break an economy. A 93% tax rate on less than one tenth of one percent of the GDP of our private economy wasn’t even close to covering the cost of government’s planning for the federal highway system. Look at the numbers. You libs really believe you can tax your way to prosperity but you can’t. What paid for our highway system was a net trade surplus and an economy that produced more wealth than it consumed. And no, investor wealth, paper profits, though attractive in the GDP is not “real growth”. What drove us into the tank during the Reagan Admin was this insane idea of allowing pirates like Maxim to raid the assets of healthy manufacturing companies and liquidate them. This appalling activity reduced our manufacturing base from 33% of the GDP to less than 16% in 10 years. Yet not one damned economist or politician had a problem with this. It was only the robustness of the tech sector that kept us from bankruptcy during the Clinton years. But I bloviate too much.
The point is it doesn’t matter what distribution system you have, capitalism where individuals have control or socialism, where the state controls, if your economy is not producing what you consume you will go broke. That is what needs fixing right now boys. We need to make what we consume at least that much and if you are really interested in helping the poor then we need to make more than we consume. Get that through your heads first then we can go back to our stuffy partisan rants about which system of control is best at the delivery.

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» Cut and Run on 02.16.10 @ 05:18 PM

Good rebuttal Richard!

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» Richard Foster on 02.18.10 @ 08:15 AM

To AN 50

Cuts will need to come out of the 88% of our budget
1 smaller military with less sophiosticated toys.
2 fewer bases as we are not the worlds policeman

reform government pensions.  if United can restructure their pensions then so can the federal government

health care.
  help federally fund 24hr med centers and move the uninsured out of the e.r.s average er billing $700 a clinic is much cheaper.
  legislation that requires insurance companies to sell flat fee packages.  No prequalifiying, no restrictions on listed coverages.  All companies would be on the same playing field and this would end the practice of consolidating people into sicker and sicker groups until they are priced out completely.
  If you go into K-mart there shouldn’t be twenty different prices for the same product.

legislation Full time committee to eradicate legislation from our books.  Consolidate and simplify.

Social Securirty Raise the cap and cap the raises

Taxes Face the fact we are in debt and begin to pay it down.  As with any household at some time you have to pay the piper.  A certain percentage of the budget should be set aside for debt repayment before we decide to inflate our way out of it and make all our money worthless.

Credits for savings.  Yes I know we need the economy to grow, but we have a nation that doesn’t know what a savings account is.  The best sign that inflation may stay checked and the economy rebound is that recent reports put the savings rate at 5% a far cry from the negative one a few years ago.

Less de-regulation.  That said much of government regulation just serves to give regulation a bad name.  But if the investment banks had been regulated like the commercial banks there never would have been the sea of money to loan and it would not have mattered what clinton-bush-fannie may-mac’s policies might have been.

Start at the bottom and work up.  Go to your city council meetings and demand balanced budgets.  demand that costs be explained.  Establish endowments for cities.  The revenue generated by them to be used for the enhancement of the community.

Stop the practice in government police. fire, school, of shopping the state for the highest wage and then using it to inflate benifits and wages. ie santa barbara school admin

Be willing to pay more tax in the short term if that is what it takes to stay solvent, but there must be a sunset clause and tight restrictions such as no budget growth if the tax is implemented.

Expect less from your government and be willing to do more. 

Such are some of my thoughts

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