By Isaac Yetiv , Ph.D.
LA JOLLA, California — The Jewish immigrants to the United States at the turn of the previous century, fleeing the pogroms and persecutions in Eastern Europe, chanted their hope to reach “the goldeneh medineh,” the golden country. And so did the masses of new immigrants from other parts of the globe who sought and found “gold” and freedom thanks to their hard work and ingenuity, the abundant natural resources, and the wonderful political system that the Founding Fathers had created for them.
I wrote elsewhere about the objective causes for the “decline of America” and the present deplorable state of affairs. But is the government, in all its branches at all levels, doing what is necessary to remedy the situation, or just kicking the can along the road, or even making things worse? Sorry to repeat the evident: it is making things worse, close to irreparable.
If we just consider three of the many indicators of the health of the nation, we will get a gloomy idea of the depth of the abyss.
1) The national debt is now $17 trillion, which comes to $56,000 per capita , impossible to reimburse. The debt service is $250 billion a year (and that because of the low rate of interest.)
2) The unemployment is endemic and may lead to social unrest. It is unconscionable to have more than 25 million people unemployed and under-employed with misery wages, and many who ceased even to seek employment. Whatever its “business” justification –high taxes, excessive regulations etc…–the flight of capital that had exported 45,000 factories and 5 million jobs is intolerable. It started with other administrations but it is inexcusable for the “socialist” Obama administration to let the situation continue and even deteriorate. Besides, the profit made by a few exporters of factories and jobs is more than offset by the unemployment benefits , food stamps, healthcare, and other expenses of the federal government that necessitate more “taxing and borrowing,” not to mention the affront on the dignity and the suffering of the unemployed. The government should slap a tariff on any product manufactured abroad by cheap labor that has caused massive layoffs here.And damn the “free market” which is not free at all.
3) The poverty rate has jumped ominously. The number of recipients of food stamps has gone from 23 million in the Clinton administration to 23.5 million in the (George W.) Bush administration to close to 50 million in the Obama administration. And one of five households receives government financial aid of any kind. This is also unacceptable.
One may think that this gloomy picture, getting gloomier every day, would sound the alarm and shake the powers-that-be, beginning with the president, out of their irresponsible complacency. But NO, the president is perpetually in campaign mode with that ubiquitous microphone and idiotic captive audience of selected sycophants, repeating ad nauseam the same stale slogans with the same contradictions and lies, blaming others for his own deficiencies and blunders , and …spending, and taxing, and borrowing. He calls with a straight face for “sharing sacrifice” while spending $20 million on “vacations” and $100 million a piece on a trip to Africa and the Middle-East ; while letting his federal employees spend $9 billion a year on travels, $340 million on government “conferences,” $70 million in “bonuses” to themselves in 2012 . His Attorney General spent $4 million in travel expenses, $ 700, 000 in just one trip. One division of the IRS held 225 conferences between 2010 and 2012 that cost $49 million..For one conference only, held in Anaheim, California, the cost to the taxpayer was a stunning $4.1 million, including $ 27,000 for one keynote speaker, and $ 135,000 for one event planner. It was reported that there were no receipts, no negotiations for the cost of hotels , an evident indicator of fraud and corruption.
And now, the Federal government plans to add 16,000 new agents to this careless agency to administer the health care of the people, to decide who will get what, who will live and who will die, and to pursue and penalize the “delinquents?” The same agency that has once sent 24,000 checks to one person, to the same address ?
These are only isolated examples. The wound is deeper. The GAO, a “neutral” government agency, estimates the amount lost to Abuse,Waste, and Fraud at $267 billion a year . AWFUL, indeed. This didn’t disturb the peace of the president as it happened when Miss Fluke was not provided with contraceptives. He didn’t even denounce it , let alone propose a plan to fight it, or at least to mitigate the damage.
The unforgivable “AWFUL”ness is not limited to domestic profligacy. Its nefarious effects extend beyond the frontiers. How many Americans know that there are 15,000 contractors re-building Iraq, paid by the US government,when our infrastructure, schools, and bridges are in a dire state of disrepair? And Afghanistan is still costing us billions of dollars we don’t have? Why are we still in Iraq and Afghanistan, sitting duck, and paying? Didn’t Obama promise, before his first election to get out?
This gloomy picture could have been alleviated by a determined effort to grow the economy and allow for the creation of jobs that will move people from idle “takers” to busy “makers” and taxpayers. But the Obama administration is doing exactly the opposite: nothing can explain why, for example, the government is still refusing to allow the Keystone project of the pipeline which, it was reported, would create half a million jobs and other benefits.
Instead, its preferred solution is, again, spend and tax and borrow. The federal budget deficit for 2012 was 1.3 trillion dollars .
It followed three years of $1 trillion deficit and, after his re-election, Obama ” demanded $1.6 trillion increases in taxes which, even if collected, will still leave an unbearable deficit that will be added to the already unsustainable national debt.
There is only one solution which is worth repeating: a mandatory balanced budget that will do away with the shameful periodic and unnecessary political haggling and mutual blaming for “a continued resolution to raise the debt ceiling” with the concomitant threat of “fiscal cliff” and “shutting down the government.?
The president and his acolytes said, as an excuse for their failures, that “the federal government is too big,” which is very true, and that balancing the budget is an impossibility. Therefore, it is imperative to return to the Constitution to which all elected officials pledged allegiance, namely to the 10th Amendment that “enumerates the functions of the Federal Government (Safety, security, treaties etc…) and devolves all the rest “to the states,” and that includes education, health, and other very expensive endeavors. This will be salutary to all, more efficient and less AWFUL.
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Yetiv is a freelance lecturer and writer based in La Jolla. He may be contacted via isaac.yetiv@sdjewishworld.com