Rationalist
Hail Voltaire
By Mark Trumbull, Staff writer / November 11, 2010
The Democrat and Republican who cochair President Obama's debt commission haven't offered a magic fix for federal deficits, but they've tried to make one point loud and clear: Answers to America's fiscal challenges will involve "shared sacrifice."
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politi...shared-sacrifice-necessary-deficit-chairs-say
While this is positive news, I remain pessimistic about the outcome. Those on the far left will decry cuts to welfare programs while those on the far right will object to repealing certain tax credits and cuts in military spending.
But the fact remains that Social Security and Medicare won't do much good if the United States is forced to default on its debt. And how anyone who claims to be a conservative could believe it is necessary to spend nearly a trillion dollars on "defense" is simply beyond me.
Ever since the United States has had a standing army, we have been in a virtually perpetual state of war. This, I believe, is a far greater threat to our liberty than the social welfare state.
"There are instruments so dangerous to the rights of the nation and which place them so totally at the mercy of their governors that those governors, whether legislative or executive, should be restrained from keeping such instruments on foot but in well-defined cases. Such an instrument is a standing army." -Thomas Jefferson to David Humphreys, 1789. ME 7:323
The Democrat and Republican who cochair President Obama's debt commission haven't offered a magic fix for federal deficits, but they've tried to make one point loud and clear: Answers to America's fiscal challenges will involve "shared sacrifice."
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politi...shared-sacrifice-necessary-deficit-chairs-say
While this is positive news, I remain pessimistic about the outcome. Those on the far left will decry cuts to welfare programs while those on the far right will object to repealing certain tax credits and cuts in military spending.
But the fact remains that Social Security and Medicare won't do much good if the United States is forced to default on its debt. And how anyone who claims to be a conservative could believe it is necessary to spend nearly a trillion dollars on "defense" is simply beyond me.
Ever since the United States has had a standing army, we have been in a virtually perpetual state of war. This, I believe, is a far greater threat to our liberty than the social welfare state.
"There are instruments so dangerous to the rights of the nation and which place them so totally at the mercy of their governors that those governors, whether legislative or executive, should be restrained from keeping such instruments on foot but in well-defined cases. Such an instrument is a standing army." -Thomas Jefferson to David Humphreys, 1789. ME 7:323