Friday, December 4, 2009
John Burke
Opinion Editor
It is never a good idea to spend more money than you have in your pockets. When you put yourself in a situation where you owe an exorbitant amount of money and you cannot pay it back, the debt will only grow and be left for someone else to have to pay it off. This concept is supported not only by basic economics, but also by common sense.
Yet, in a time when common sense is elusive to American policymakers, simple things, such as balancing the country’s checkbook, have been forgotten. With $13 trillion worth of bills to pay and staggering interest costs on the horizon, it is clear that a serious lack of fiscal common sense has found its way into America’s federal and state governrments.
The government’s spending issues originated with the previous administration. Abandoning the balanced budget of the 1990s, President Bush showed no scruples about spending money America did not possess. This led to one of the largest deficits ever experienced by the American economy: almost $10 trillion. This, in large part, led to the demise of Republican leadership following the 2008 election.
With his firm criticism of Bush’s spending and wasteful use of stimulus money, one would expect President Obama to have done the opposite of his predecessor. Unfortunately, the Obama administration has proven to be just as wasteful as the Bush administration in lowering United States public debt.
Since Obama entered office last January, the deficit has grown at the fastest rate in decades, by almost $4 trillion within the last year. Congressional bailouts have added more to America’s expenses, with billions wasted on pork-barrel projects and hundreds of billions more squandered on useless federal programs.
To whom is this massive amount of debt owed? The largest holder is the government of the Peoples Republic of China. This oppressive, communist regime is responsible for almost 70 million deaths of its own people since 1945, and now holds trillions of dollars of American debt.
The strains on America’s budget, meanwhile, are mirrored all too greatly by California’s state governments. With Governor Schwarzenegger possessing no more fiscal common sense than the Obama administration, severe budget cuts have been enacted with a shortfall of $11 billion. The result has been extreme measures to cut costs, such as two-day furloughs for state offices every month.
Some of the most severe cuts have been seen in the state’s educational system. UC schools have been forced to scale back on numerous programs and classes offered. Cal State schools have been forced to take in fewer students to make up for shortfalls, decreasing opportunities for qualified students to attain a college degree.
Even at the local level we feel the irresponsibility of America’s policymakers. The Manhattan Beach Unified School District was forced to cut millions of dollars off its own budget to make up for the state’s shortcomings.
These ills could have been easily avoided if our policymakers had paid attention to their pocketbooks as they supported bills that threw away America’s money on bridges to nowhere, but it seems that common sense has completely escaped the U.S. government.
Thanks to America’s finest public servants, this nation now holds a deficit equal in size to its gross domestic product. Voting out politicians who spend too much proved a failing strategy in the last election and only led to an increase of our ills.
Unfortunately, we will be forced to remove, in the future, the current crop of irresponsible politicians. As we stand at the polling booths, we must make sure that the man or woman we vote for is better than the one who preceded him or her.
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