Speaker John Boehner reported that during the fiscal cliff negotiations, Obama got irritatied with Boehner’s repeated insistence that they deal with the spending problem.  Obama said, “We don’t have a spending problem”.  That’s great news.

Robert B. Reich, Clintons Secretary of Labor, agrees with Obama.  He recently reported that, “Entitlement reform sounds like a noble endeavor, but it has little or nothing to do with reducing future budget deficits.”  More good news.

So spending isn’t a problem and entitlements aren’t a problem.   And even if high unemployment is a problem, Nancy Pelosi reports that she has found a solution for that.  The solution is paying people not to work.  Pelosi says unemployment benefits,  “create jobs faster than  almost any other initiative you can name.” She says spending on unemployment benefits, “creates jobs to help reduce the deficit ”.  So the spending has two benefits, more jobs and less debt.  

“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading”  ― Buddha

Things that can’t go on forever, won’t. Debt that can’t be repaid, won’t be.
Promises that can’t be kept, won’t be.                                               — Glen Reynolds

I started the new year off wrong by watching our leaders ‘solve’ the fiscal cliff crisis.  To make things worse, I watched some of them make speeches afterward, patting themselves on the back for their great work.  The President spoke and was pleased with himself and with the legislators for achieving the “balanced approach” that he had demanded and for taking important steps to cut the deficit that he cares so much about.  And then he flew to Hawaii for more vacation.

What a contemptible group of short-sighted posturing fools we have in Washington.  We can count on them not to do the right thing.  The ‘balanced approach’ in this bill gave us $41 dollars in new taxes for every dollar of budget cuts.  And the bill authorizes new spending that consumes over half of the projected new revenue.  There’s pork for Hollywood, pork for windmills, pork for algae and Nascar.  It’s dirty business as usual.   77% of taxpayers will see an increase in their tax burden.  This is how Obama is protecting the middle class.

There were a few lawmakers who spoke the truth during the deliberations.  They discussed our government’s out-of-control spending, they discussed the consequences of our staggering debt and they discussed the consequences for our grandchildren.  These are the people characterized as fringe extremists, Tea Party types, the ones who don’t want to compromise for the good of the country.  And by compromise, they mean spend wildly like there is no tomorrow.  Expand government.

Can we tax and spend our way out of our economic problems?  Who could possibly believe that?  Even the projected revenue from this legislation will only run our bloated government for a few days.  And it is likely that the legislation will actually reduce business activity and thereby reduce revenue.

We are in an economic death spiral.  If we don’t change direction, we will end up where we are heading.  The majority of our legislators either don’t see this, or don’t care.  Obama clearly wants to go full speed ahead in our current direction.  There is no reason at all to believe that he cares about big spending and the exploding deficit.   The mainstream media are lemmings who will blindly and obediently follow him over the debt cliff …leading their unthinking followers.

Too often, political stories are reported like a sporting event.  Which party is going to win the battle today?  By focusing on today’s skirmish, the big picture is ignored.    But, it’s not about them.  It’s about us. The relevent thing is not whether something helps or hurts Obama.  The relevant thing is our children’s future; our country’s future.

You and I know that our country is in peril. The government’s many obligations that cannot be paid will not be paid and there will be consequences.  The longer we wait to face this, the worse the consequences.  But there are people who see economic collapse as a good thing.  The followers of the Cloward-Piven Strategy are so immersed in this socialist utopian delusion that they seek an economic collapse, assuming that a wonderful socialist world will arise from the ashes.  There are powerful people who have this belief.  This strikes me as very similar to the delusion of those who committed suicide to join paradise on the Hale-Bopp comet.

I’ll end today’s post with a couple of paragraphs from Michael Auslin at NRO:

… we have crossed the Rubicon of political reality. The president holds a cheerleading session to ridicule Congress, not one plan offered makes even the smallest dent in our economic disaster, cynical political ploys by Harry Reid torpedo possible agreements — all these petty politicians fiddle while America burns. And then, we’re supposed to believe that a last-second deal responsibly solves the problem from a bunch of bickerers who had months (years, really) to tackle the issue?

Our crisis is political, not economic. Politics is ultimately a moral exercise, no matter what it deals with. Leaders are stewards of our social patrimony. What we see in Washington today is not gridlock. It is collapse. It is the final triumph of political theater over political reality, of ignorance over reasoned governing, of self-interest over principle. A $12 trillion economy and 230-plus-year history can survive a great deal of abuse and neglect. But history proves no state is immune from the self-inflicted idiocy of its leaders or people. Just how long we will survive in this state is now a proposition fully engaged. It is the great social experiment of the 21st century

The fact that some thoughts are unpleasant does not make them less true.

It is very unpleasant to think about the mess our country is in.  And our concern increases when we evaluate the motley collection of so-called leaders whose task is to undo the mess.  In large part, they made the mess.

Unpleasant or not, facing reality is the best approach. There are two unusual politicians, both outside the mainstream, whose thoughts on our situation are worth considering.

Here is Ron Paul from a CNBC interview last Friday:

“I think we have passed that point of no return where we can actually get our house in order.  I believe there is too much bipartisanship on the spending. Nobody is talking about cutting any spending.”  [While others are talking about the need for bi-partisan agreement, contrarian Paul notes that the parties agree on far too much.  In reality, both support massive, growing government.]

“Republicans and Democrats,” he continued, “ pretend they’re fighting up there, but they really aren’t. They’re arguing over power, spin, and who looks good, and who looks bad, but they’re all trying to preserve this system where they can spend what they want, take care of their friends, and let the Fed print money when they need it.”

Paul expects a temporary fix, which, like all the ‘fixes’ in Greece, will be touted as a solution when it is not a solution at all.

Paul continues, “There’s no admission that they have a crisis. They have no admission that the country is bankrupt. There’s no admission that our government is spending way too much and it’s way beyond our means and there’s not a single bit of effort to cut anything,” the congressman continued.  “Even when they talk about slashing the budget and all these cuts, they’re only talking about tinkering along the edges of proposed automatic increases.”

“They are so they so far removed from admitting the seriousness of this crisis and if they don’t admit it, they can’t solve the problem. They’re like a bunch of drug addicts that just want another fix. That’s what they are looking for.”

In another recent interview, Paul said,  “I would raise the debt ceiling on one condition and that would be a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.  Barring that, people in Congress, those who I’ve met up here, they don’t deserve to manage any more money. They’re doing a bad job managing the money they have. We should not send them any more money.  They’re not to be trusted with money.“

Wayne Allen Root, a Libertarian Republican from Nevada, named the reasons that he believes our country faces the most serious economic crisis in our history.  The problems he names are real.  His article begins this way:

Everywhere from FoxNews.com to CNBC.com, I suddenly see commentators warning  of pending doom, economic collapse, and a new Great Depression. Welcome to my  club. Perhaps America’s politicians and economists should have paid  attention to an entrepreneur and small businessman that has been warning of  economic collapse and a new Great Depression publicly for over two  years.

More importantly, none of the current commentaries mention the “why’s” of  this slow motion economic collapse…beyond the obvious — mountains of deficit  and debt. None of them mention the dysfunctional structure of the current U.S.  economy and the massive changes in the work ethic and mindset of the average  American.

I am a successful small businessman and a patriot who loves America and  always sees its greatness. I am also an optimistic, positive thinker who always  sees the glass half full.

But not this time.

This time we are in such deep trouble, the only solution is a radical  restructuring of the politicians, the economy, and the way we view personal  responsibility versus government handouts. If those changes don’t come then we  are facing a long decline and the eventual end of America.

This time the results are going to be dramatically worse than 1929. This time  we are facing The Greatest Depression ever.

Why? Because The Great Depression had NONE of the structural, economic, and  social problems, nor the massive obligations we are now facing.

In 1929 America was not $16 trillion in debt, plus facing over  $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities.  That’s over $360,000 in debt per citizen.

In 1929, most of our states were not bankrupt, insolvent and dependent on  federal government handouts to survive….             …..Read the rest of Root’s analysis here.