We just celebrated the birth of our first granddaughter. Amid the joy, I’m already thinking of how I’m going to attempt to explain some things to her – like how the government mortgaged away her future before she was even born.
In his recent state of the union address, Barack Obama stated “When times are tough, you don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage. You don’t blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you are trying to save for college.”
You don’t. I don’t. However, he believes that the government (a.k.a. the taxpayers) should pay for everyone’s college (amongst other things).
So, we’re buying yachts as a country as we’re trying to pay for college for all of our citizens (even the non-citizens, you know, the ones who are violating the law by being here illegally).
The recent increase in the debt ceiling amounts to purchasing 455 aircraft carriers. So, we the people didn’t buy a boat. We bought 455 ships; the biggest ships on planet Earth. That’s all we did. And that was just to raise the debt ceiling to pay for what we’ve already got on the books, not what’s coming.
I agree with the President (savor this moment) that in tough times, if you can’t pay the mortgage, you shouldn’t go to Vegas. Isn’t that what our grandparents called common sense? Do I need the president to tell me this?
How about a president who just says this: If you don’t have the money, just stop spending money.
But see, that’s not the policy, is it now? How could it possibly be the policy of the president, “When you don’t have the money, don’t spend the money,” when they say to us, we’re not going to save our way out of this recession. We have to spend our way out of this recession.
Probably because 70 percent of our economy is built on consumer spending, you going out and buying a boat, or you going to Vegas. Until we admit a problem, until we admit we’re addicted to debt, until we say we’ve got a spending problem, both at home and in Washington, until we admit that, we can’t change anything.
We are told it’s all sustainable. Well, actually, we’re told it’s unsustainable, but we’ve got to spend our way out of this unsustainable debt. Right. We have fallen into an extremely deep hole and the only way out of the hole is to dig it deeper. Excuse me?
I’ve never been to Vegas. Don’t really have the urge to go to Vegas. I have friends who go to Vegas. Some win. Some lose. However, I would say that at least in Vegas you have a chance.
The President’s spending spree is unsustainable. What is the difference between going to Vegas and spending money elsewhere? I mean, aren’t we creating or sustaining those jobs? I’m sorry, aren’t those union jobs at those hotels? Actually, they are the jobs (with SEIU) that helped him win the presidency.
So, by not going to Vegas, you’re hurting the hotels, you’re hurting the hotel unions, you are hurting the restaurants, you are hurting the restaurant unions, you are hurting the airlines, and the theaters. You’re hurting everything. I’m sorry, is that not — oh, oh, I see. No, I’m sorry, I forgot.
Only the government can tell you what you should put your dollars into and what you shouldn’t put your dollars into. I get it. See the problem? So for now, I’ll just go back to working on that discussion I will one day be having with my granddaughter.
David Edinger
Peachtree City, Ga.
