For the past three years the United States Senate, under the leadership of Obama toady Harry Reid, has been an embarrassment for the United States. Now the so-called “Upper Body” has merely kicked the can down the road for two months on an extension of the payroll tax cut, and the House has rightly rejected the Senate’s maneuver.
Americans need to kick the Harry Reid Senate down the road not for a period of months, but for a lifetime. We have a clear message for Harry Reid and his utter failure to lead the Senate: The nation is angry and our anger is directed at a legislative body that under Reid’s leadership can’t do its job.
Reid seems to think that his job is to force the Senate to follow Barack Obama’s agenda. That would mean the Senate is obliged to put a rubber stamp on the president’s destructive fiscal policies.
He’s wrong. The U.S. Senate is not Obama’s footstool. The Upper Body needs to do what the late Bill Buckley once counseled the nation -- put up a red flag and yell “Stop!”
The United States is so drowning in red ink that the monstrous debt this administration and our spendthrift Congress have amassed cannot be repaid even if America survives another century. Washington has saddled not only our children with a horrific debt, they have put it on the shoulders of several generations yet to be born.
As we have just witnessed in Greece, the days of reckoning inevitably arrive for all spendthrifts. The piper must be paid, and he won’t wait forever to collect his monetary due.
Not long ago somebody asked a group of female Obama supporters how they think the United States can run up huge debts without going bankrupt. They replied that President Obama would see to it that the debts would be paid. Asked where the money would come from, they replied that Obama would come up with the money. Asked where he would find the money they replied that he would pay out of his “stash.”
They don’t seem to understand that Obama hasn’t got a “stash.” What money he controls is our money — our tax dollars — and that kitty, thanks to Washington’s squandermania, is just about empty.
Such widespread ignorance of the facts of financial life seems to be widespread. Americans appear to have bought into the idea that Uncle Sam merely has to print more and more money to keep us afloat on the financial seas. It has not seemed to have occurred to such people that the government printing presses cannot keep turning out paper money with nothing like silver or gold behind it without participating in a Ponzi scheme to end all Ponzi schemes. Paper money is exactly that: paper. And that’s how the world sees it even if Americans don’t.
In the past our excursions into fiscal insanity have survived became Washington kept kicking the can down the road. That’s over. We’re reaching the end of that road. Our sole hope of survival is to deny Obama and his toadies in the Congress another four years; otherwise we’ll make Greece look like the world’s most fiscally solvent nation.
It’s time to wave the red flag and yell “stop” as loudly as we can.
Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan and a political consultant. He is the founder and chairman of The Reagan Group and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his website at www.reagan.com, or e-mail comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com.
mnjcpa posted at 1:37 pm on Mon, Dec 26, 2011.
Dustbowl - while Bush did his share he doesn't hold a candle to this crew in office now. Both parties are culprits but Obama has accelerated the damage.
Study these facts:
Consumer debt is 117% of disposable income.
November's "strong" jobs report included more people dropping out of the labor pool (315,000) vs. those who found work (278,000), according to the Labor Department's household survey.
•Household net worth fell 4% in the third quarter, a drop of $2.4 trillion, according to the Fed. That's the biggest drop since 2008 and would be hard to overcome even if wages were rising sharply, which they're most certainly not.
Residential housing remains depressed, which is putting tremendous pressure on Americans' net worth and sense of financial confidence. There’s more downside for housing prices and another increase in foreclosures is coming in 2012.
dustbowl11 posted at 7:52 am on Mon, Dec 26, 2011.
Reagan never explains why we are supposed to believe that the Republicans, who ran up massive budget deficits under Reagan/Bush and Bush2, are now suddenly reformed and won't do it again.
mnjcpa posted at 8:42 pm on Sat, Dec 24, 2011.
Bravo! Very well written & spot on!
Reid is in charge & should be held accountable. We are hungry for a real leader that unifies the country - not one that blames everyone & everything other than who is the problem.
Dale Whiting posted at 8:17 am on Sat, Dec 24, 2011.
Michael,
Funny, but I did not read a single sentenance, phrase or even word hinting as to why Mitch McConnell has no culpability in your claims for Senate malfeasance. Those of us who did follow the negotiations understood that both Reid and Obama wanted a longer 12 month extension. But McConnell would not stand for it.
So either put something on this topic "UP" or shut "Down" your insane criticism!