Reality Check

By Clive Foster · Thursday, February 16, 2012

What we need to do, as conservatives, and Americans is educate those whom the public education, and higher education systems have failed. There are precedents that we can learn from, but the biggest issue facing us, is relatively new, an electorate that is the product of an intentionally 'dumbed down' education system, that concentrates on issues of social justice than the so-called STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) curriculum. The willingness and ability to actually look up facts and figures and check the numbers for yourself. Economic theories that are not in lockstep with socialism. I read that some North Korean (Or was it PRC?) college economics students were studying abroad, mostly here, and had to leave the United States, because there were no universities in the US that offered any courses on Capitalism! No wonder our system is broken, we aren't training our own youth on how the darned thing works! To educate someone, you need a syllabus, or you run the risk, as I will demonstrate, of getting off message, or sidetracked altogether. Some cases in point:

At a press conference yesterday, I saw several GOP congressmen slamming Obama's proposed budget. They had a printed and bound copy with a cover titled "Debt On Arrival". This was pure theatrics, which in and of itself isn't BAD, but among the points they made were NOT: 1) that according to the United States Constitution, the House of Representatives, NOT the Executive branch, originate the budget.2) that said House of Representatives DID in fact pass a budget last April, and sent it to the Senate, where the Democrat Senate Majority Leader tabled it, and never allowed it to see the light of day, much less an up or down vote. Much was made over the disingenuous claims of the Senate not passing a budget because of a possible GOP filibuster (filibusters are not allowed on a budget bill debate, a 51 vote simple majority will pass it, besides, why would the Senate GOP want to shoot down a budget that the GOP controlled House WROTE?). But not one mention of the budget that sits languishing and undebated, much less voted on in the Senate already!

Ever time I hear the Democrats carping about how much the government is 'spending' or 'losing' because of the Bush tax cuts, not one Republican has spoken up and pointed up that under those same tax cuts revenue went up!

I almost included this with the second paragraph, but it is so much more widely applicable, it deserves it's own paragraph. In conflicting economic theories, there IS a historic record to compare fixes. I did read one opinion that the Keynesian Theory hasn't truly been tested because while government spending has been tried in bad times (and has consistently failed, but the writer of that opinion never mentioned that little tidbit) the opposite end, setting aside a reserve in good times has never been done. The problem is, the Constitution does not allow the Federal Government to tax more than it actually needs to spend. On the other hand Hauser's Law which can be demonstrated against the economic cycles since World War Two, shows quite clearly that revenue generally averages out to 18-20% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Further the Laffer Curve, proven by the economy of Ronald Reagan, and again under the Bush administration (see the above paragraph). The underlying principle is: if revenue is going to top out at 20% of GDP, how to you stimulate GDP to raise the amount that the 20% comes to? Solution, you leave as much in the private sector as possible to be used for investment. This generates more activity, which in turn raises GDP, thus raising revenue!

We need to get all the politicians to start comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges. I hate to say it, but our society has turned out people who are thinking about so many things at one time, they stay in a semi-permanent state of distraction. If someone says "we are proposing spending two trillion dollars in the next two years, but we're cutting three trillion over the next ten years.", what they hear is "We are spending two trillion, but cutting trillion" which makes them think they're saving a trillion dollars, not realizing they'll be asking for that two trillion very year for the next ten years! Actually what we the People should be demanding from our representatives is clear speech. "We are spending two trillion dollars, but cutting three hundred million.". NOW anyone can understand that it is a net increase! Also, the next politician that quotes figures utilizing "baseline budgeting" should be impeached! Baseline budgeting is using an accounting gimmick that says since spending went up 10 percent every year for the past ten years, a zero sum budget for next year is this year plus ten percent. So they can increase spending 5% and claim they cut it 5%. This is not totally dissimilar to what Enron pulled, and we should treat our representatives the same way we treated Bernie Madoff!

We need to, individually, begin policing ourselves, and stop making mutually contradictory statements. On a popular right wing blog, I constantly read calls for term limits, then today I read about the need to find a replacement for John Boehner as Speaker of the House, and they dismissed all of the Freshman Republicans as "not experienced enough". If you want to limit Congrescritters to two terms, how much experience are you going to demand? I think the Freshman Allen West would be a GREAT Speaker of the House!

If we could educate the public at large about the blatant legerdemain being utilized by those we've chosen to represent us, there would be a lot of different choices made next election. But we need to stop preaching to the choir, and start informing the uninformed!

Clive Foster is a Navy veteran, an Electronics Technician. clive.foster@gmail.com (currently seeking gainful employment)

"A man’s physical hunger does not prove that that man will get any bread: he may die of starvation on a raft in the Atlantic. But surely a man’s hunger does prove that he comes of a race which repairs its body by eating, and inhabits a world where eatable substances exist." In other words, "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probably explanation is that I was made for another world." CS Lewis

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