Are we sliding down a slippery slope?
As Inauguration Day approaches on Jan. 20, my concerns are many. But of greatest concern is Obama's proposed $1 trillion stimulus plan aimed at jump starting the economy. Obama has warned of dire consequences if his stimulus bill is not passed soon after he takes office.
It would not be unreasonable to believe that many readers of the Daily Herald have been scared into believing that this nation is in a hopeless mess, that in an emergency spending has no limits and debt doesn't matter, and that government must come to the rescue because capitalism and the free market system have failed.
Since May of 2008 the federal government has added $1.2 trillion ($1 trillion is a thousand billion) to its public debt to buy up, bail out or take over private enterprises such as banks, insurance companies and automakers. Of that $1.2 trillion, $150 billion was spent to send stimulus checks to the American people. Despite all the money that has been allocated so far, the economy has only gotten worse. Taxpayers should be angry that no one knows what happened to the first $350 billion of the authorized $700 billion financial market rescue fund, although banks are using the money. There is even a push being made by Bush and the incoming Obama Administration to release the second $350 billion. Government handouts by their very nature add up to corruption, incompetence and inefficiency. Obama's stimulus plan would be the largest government spending bill in world history, charged to this nation's credit card for our children and grandchildren to pay. The funds will either have to be borrowed or printed (unbacked paper) which could cause double-digit inflation down the road, for it is not possible to raise enough taxes from people or business in a down economy.
Of importance will be the makeup of the final stimulus package. Although $300 billion in tax cuts have been proposed by Democrats to sweeten the pot for Republican legislatures so the bill becomes bipartisan, most of the tax cuts would only be temporary in their effectiveness. A major share of the stimulus package spending will go for massive infrastructure, alternative energy investment, more health care spending and bailing out cities and states, all items on the Democratic wish list! Jobs created will be government jobs resulting in money being sucked out of the private sector. This at a time when the economic recovery calls for less government, legislated tax cuts across the board, and slashing regulations on businesses.
A lesson can be learned from FDR, who under the New Deal offered frantic spending programs to pull this nation out of the Great Depression. In 1939, five years into the New Deal, unemployment still stood at 17.2 percent. It took the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese to jump start this nation's economy through the start up of private sector wartime industry and production.
Too many Americans believe that the "general welfare" clause in our Constitution means a right to a college education, health care, employment, to own a house, etc., when as defined by Thomas Jefferson: "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but only those specifically enumerated (in the Constitution)."
We are becoming a "government with people" instead of a "people with a government." It is time that "we the people" stop acting like sheep. This nation stands on the brink of a socialist abyss which could very easily morph into a full-blown socialist society, minus a despot. Citizens in Lake County and all over this nation should care if our Constitution is being eroded and with it our constitutional form of government, if not for themselves, then for their children and future generations of Americans. Let your voices be heard!
Nancy J. Thorner
Lake Bluff