The
Rational Argumentator
The Importance of Fiscal Responsibility in Government
As the year draws to a
close, the battle over spending in Washington is heating up. The Democrats want
to expand government healthcare, while the President has vetoed the second
attempt to expand SCHIP.
The latest version of the State Children's
Health Insurance Program would have expanded the entitlement program and raised
taxes, just as the earlier version did, and the President showed fiscal restraint
with his veto.
Reducing our entitlement programs here at home is not
against saving the children, as the rhetoric goes; it is about saving the
country's economy. The fact is we have huge trade imbalances, massive
deficits, and a $9 trillion national debt, which balloons to $60 trillion if
unfunded future liabilities in social security and other promises we have made
to Americans are included.
We are at a crucial point in history right
now. We must think very carefully about our next moves. There is coming a
time, if we continue on this path, when all that our tax dollars and government
revenues will be able to do is pay interest on the mountain of debt we have
compiled in the past few decades. That will mean no government programs or
services of any kind will be funded, yet future generations of Americans will
still struggle under a crushing tax burden with nothing to show for it. That
is why fiscal restraint and common sense with the budget are so vitally
important in government.
The difference now is that our printing presses
at the Federal Reserve are getting worn out as we have expanded our money supply
to the breaking point with yet another rate cut this week. As the dollar
falls, it is losing its reserve currency status as many countries are shifting
to the Euro or the Chinese yuan or other currencies. The more that trend
continues, the weaker we become on the world stage. Those foreign governments
and entities that enabled us to spend so much for so long are wearing thin and
cutting us off.
The truth is our enemies won't need a nuclear weapon to
harm us if we keep spending phantom dollars at the current rate. In fact, they
won't need to do anything but sit back and watch as we spend ourselves into
oblivion. Historically, empires fail because they run out of money, or more
accurately, run out of the ability to spend or inflate. Unfortunately, that is
exactly the direction we are headed. We need to control spending, immediately,
before it is too late.
I applaud the President for his veto of the SCHIP
expansion bill. It is a step in the right direction. But it is just one small
step. What our economy needs right now is to go full gallop away from the tax
and spend policies that have gotten us into this mess.
Congressman Ron Paul of
To learn more about Congressman
Ron Paul, visit his Congressional Home
Page.
See Ron Paul's official website regarding his run for President in 2008.
Recommend this page.This TRA feature has been edited in accordance with TRA’s Statement of Policy.
Click here to return to TRA's Issue CXXXVI Index.
Learn about Mr. Stolyarov's novel, Eden against the Colossus, here.Read Mr. Stolyarov's new comprehensive treatise, A Rational Cosmology, explicating such terms as the universe, matter, space, time, sound, light, life, consciousness, and volition, here.