"Any traditional conservative should be ashamed that the country has been run so deeply into the red by a Republican administration. There simply is no excuse for the fiscal impropriety that we have seen under the outgoing administration.
Reagan took office during an economically challenging era. Inflation and unemployment were out of control. While Reagan's policies achieved results in many ways, he was, in my opinion, flawed in his following of trickle-down economic theory. He also increased defense spending to record levels, which in hindsight could have been avoided by realizing that the Soviet Union's economy was collapsing, and simply maintaining necessary levels while waiting out the fall of the Iron Curtain.
There was some good buried in there. Deregulation certainly helped to stabilize markets, and there was a bipartisan effort to clean up the tax code. It's debatable that all of that was due directly to Reagan, but his administration certainly played a large part in those acts.
To balance the budget, logic tells us that either spending must decrease, or taxes must increase. If you strip away all the flowery language and fancy charts, those are the two options which remain.
Military spending must decrease. How do we decrease military spending without weakening the national defense? We should focus on just that...national DEFENSE. I think that most Americans can agree that going after Al-Qaeda is an acceptable use of our military, and is in our nation's best interest. That said, I fail to see the connection between deposing Saddam Hussein and stopping Al-Qaeda. In Saddam, we had an annoying but toothless dictator whose secular beliefs made him a target of derision for Islamic radicals. He certainly wasn't financing those who despised him. A solid exit strategy for Iraq is the first step to economic recovery.
Gutting social programs wholesale isn't going to solve our problems either. My first step would be to institute more efficient management and more directed oversight. Make agency directors directly responsible for their spending. I have to account for every line item in my division's budget at work, so why shouldn't the head of a federal agency be expected to do the same?
As far as healthcare goes, I'm not willing to trust the government to manage a healthcare system, nor do I think it is their job. On the other hand, healthcare costs are absolutely outrageous. Want to blame someone? Blame the government for subsidizing and assisting the creation of HMOs. Those three letters cost the American people more money in a single year that most of us could ever imagine. Get rid of the HMOs, and you'll get rid of a large part of unnecessary healthcare costs. Let's get health insurance back to what it was designed to do, which is to pay for catastrophic care.
I'm the child of an educator, so I would never advocate a total war on education. I believe that No Child Left Behind has failed, and failed miserably at that. What I've always wondered is why we fill our educational leadership ranks with those who have barely set foot in the front of a classroom? I also have to ask why, if the teachers' unions are so powerful (and they are powerful), are teachers barely paid a living wage? The unions serve their own interests, not those of the rank and file teachers. Cut the constant federal reporting and the work / expenses that go with it, let the districts retain that money and use it to make teaching the highly-paid, respectable career it deserves to be. How DARE the federal government assume that the needs of a school in the inner city are the same as those in an upscale suburb. Let the schools decide how to manage their funds. The weak schools and teachers will fail, the strong schools will become beacons. My mother spent almost half of her time doing paperwork for federal programs during her last two years of teaching. It sucked the love of the work out of her, and she took early retirement. There is something seriously wrong.
As for trade...well, we're in a mess. I don't know what all the answers are, but more government regulation that we can't afford isn't going to help. The government needs to level the playing field within the nation, and protect American interests from foreign interference. Outsourcing is hurting our nation. We've increased taxation and fees to the point that it is more economical to move operations out of the US, and that's wrong. We're also all footing the bill for an economic bailout that places our financial infrastructure at great risk. The cost of no bailout? Some people are going to take it in the proverbial shorts. It's the risk you run as an investor. Let's face it, the stock market is legalized high stakes gambling. Sometimes you win...and sometimes you lose. We need to let some people lose.
I don't know if we have a leader in any party who can champion all these causes. The push-back from the bureaucracy will be huge, and the power of the bureau-bums is massive. It needs to happen, or eventually our government will collapse under its own weight." (I posted this on craigslist on 11/14/08)
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