Sense on Cents

People can debate the relative strength of the economy all they want. I firmly believe that from a macro-level, our economy has years to go before it has a real chance to recover. Why years?

1. The banking system overall remains loaded with an excessive amount of delinquent loans. Uncle Sam will continue to siphon money from the American public and deliver it to the banks. In the process, these “earnings” will be utilized to write down the values of loans and securities it holds at inflated levels.

2. Credit will not truly flow until the health of banks, especially the smaller and community based banks, is substantially stronger.

3. Municipal finances remain a mess. As these municipalities endeavor to work their way out of their fiscal nightmares, unemployment will remain high and cities and towns will remain strapped.

4. Washington remains a larger part of the problem than the solution. Although the free flow of money from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury would appear to cover a lot of the holes in our economy, the fact is those holes are very real. In fact, I believe the holes are increasing in size given the manner in which Washington operates. Washington’s modus operandi is all too often dismissed as ‘merely politics’ or ‘business as usual.’ I don’t buy it.

I detest those on both sides of the aisle who continue to mortgage our children’s futures while lacking the real integrity to forthrightly address the American public. The bums who engage in political and financial artifice should be sent packing. I would never do business with people whom I can not trust, and I trust very few politicians in Washington. Why?

If our economy were truly improving, why is the administration lobbying for another economic stimulus package? The administration is speaking out of both sides of its mouth currently. No surprise, perhaps, but I am past the point where I care to listen to the lies. The lies to which I am referring in this commentary do not actually address the economy. (Although the administration lies plenty about the economy, as well.) What lies then? Let’s review an article put forth this morning in The Wall Street Journal, American Jobbery Act:

President Obama and Democrats on Capitol Hill are publicly fretting about the dangers of spending and debt, which can mean only one thing: Another big spending “stimulus” bill is in the works. And sure enough, the House plans to vote this week on $190 billion in new spending, $134 billion of which it won’t even pretend to pay for.

The nearby table gives a flavor of what’s in this grab bag of political payoffs, corporate welfare and transfer payments.

The biggest item is $65 billion to prevent a 21% cut in Medicare physician reimbursements. Democrats promised this to the American Medical Association in return for its ObamaCare support, but they left the $65 billion out of the health-care law to make it look less expensive. Now they’re pushing it through under separate cover when they assume the press corps won’t notice.

Call it what you want, but from my standpoint I call this financial chicanery, lack of transparency, and absence of integrity nothing more than ‘cooking the books.’ Again, apologists can and will dismiss this as standard politics.

When will America wake up and realize that ‘standard politics’ is killing our country and our future? Why should America trust Washington, if Washington itself will not be straight and honest with America?

In my opinion, America should not trust Washington.

I don’t.

LD

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 25th, 2010 at 11:47 AM and is filed under General, Washington D.C.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.