The government has normalized not living within its means. The swamp and its politicians have persuaded citizens that the government cannot be expected to properly manage the people’s money (tax revenues).
Simply put, the people are being defrauded by lies, Ponzi pension schemes, addictive borrowing, and mindless spending. This is Americana.
Most Republicans vote no different than Democrats. A uni-party system now usurps the will of the people. A handful of conservatives describe their poser Republicans as Democrat - Lite. The result is that most of each party vote to spend and borrow wildly. Politicians are unwilling to shrink the size of the bureaucratic monster.
Many citizens are convinced that their representatives have been compromised morally, ethically and/or financially by corporations, the police state or other politicians. Their votes are deviously controlled.
This is a totalitarian government devouring the assets of America.
Local authorities give celebrity-class pay increases and manage our affairs horribly. Their justification is “everyone is doing it.” Meanwhile, they put additional tax measures on the ballot implying that the people are out of touch and negligent. Neither Yuba nor Sutter County can pay its “pension debt” of more than $200 million each.
All levels of the swamp are out of touch with “we the people.” What is more tragic is that they don’t care. They are thieves and robbers. Their hand is in the till.
This behavior has corrupted the citizenry. We may have reached the point of no return.
However, it wasn’t always this way.
President Calvin Coolidge in his inaugural address March 4, 1925 said, “I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical form.”
Coolidge assumed the presidency upon the death of President Warren Harding. Coolidge delivered upon his idea of fiscal responsibility. Federal expenditures in 1920 when Harding-Coolidge won the election was $6.4 billion. Upon Harding’s death in 1923 spending was cut in half, at $3.2 billion. Then, after more than 5 years of the Coolidge presidency the outgo was just under $3 billion.
Tax rates in the 1920s were decreased dramatically while federal revenues rose. Nearly half of the national debt was erased. The budget had a surplus every year.
Sadly, nothing approaching this fiscal record has been witnessed since. Now both parties practice massive deficit spending, financially burying future generations long after the miscreants have enriched themselves and died.
Coolidge was a Republican, but Republicans today are but trash-talkers that vote bigger government and debt-ceiling increases. But what about Democrats and fiscal responsibility?
The last Democratic president of the 19th century, Grover Cleveland, vetoed more bills than all of the previous presidents combined. Cleveland, an advocate of fiscal responsibility, was elected in 1884 on a platform of restraining both federal spending and corruption.
Seeking a second term, Cleveland won the popular vote in 1888 but lost to Republican Benjamin Harrison in the Electoral College. Cleveland then came out of retirement in 1892 to run against the reckless spending of the Harrison administration. He defeated Harrison thereby being the only President to serve two nonconsecutive terms (1885-1889 and 1893-1897.)
In 1901, the federal government spent in today’s dollars about $12 billion. Today, Washington spends that in less than half a day. However, a retired Cleveland was harsh toward 1901 spending extravagance in his Saturday Evening Post article that year:
“Probably no one will have the hardihood to deny that the cost of our Government is excessive and wasteful, and that for this condition, the heedless neglect and indifference of our people are in some degree responsible….If the aggregate mass of our people are at all blameworthy on account of the present advanced stage of public prodigality, it is largely because they overlooked and tolerated its small beginnings, when at all times they should have been vigilant and uncompromising. A self-ruling people…should constantly remember that nothing multiplies itself more abundantly than national extravagance, and that neither an individual nor a popular government can easily correct or check habits of waste.”
Cleveland scolded not only politicians but noted that many Americans welcomed reckless spending. They were bought and paid for, being guilty of “accepting the bribes of selfish and personal advantage, which public waste and extravagance offer.”
Cleveland was adamant that no society that allowed itself to be bribed by its politicians ever survived such legal larceny.
(Lou Binninger can be heard on No Hostages Radio podcast, live on KMYC 1410AM 10-1 Saturdays, read at Live with Lou on Facebook and at Nohostagesradio.com)
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