[BRIGADE] PJB: In Earmarks Lies Salvation?
Published: Tue, 12/09/08
By Patrick J. Buchanan
December 09, 2008
In a deepening recession, what does the reasonable man do?
Seeing friends laid off, he will get rid of all but essential
credit cards, dine at home more often, terminate unnecessary trips
to the mall, put off buying a new car, give up the idea of
borrowing on the vanishing equity in his house. He will begin to
save and start paying down debt.
A company that has reached the limits of its credit and is staring
at Chapter 11 will batten down the hatches, lay off nonessential
workers, cut employee hours, put off expansion plans, cancel
year-end bonuses and try to ride out the storm.
This is the natural behavior of people responsible for others in an
economic storm of the magnitude of the category 4 hurricane heading
our way. Yet, to see and hear our government, folks are doing
exactly the wrong thing.
For the U.S. government is set to borrow on a colossal scale,
unprecedented save in World War II, and to take America trillions
of dollars deeper in debt to pick up the slack in the economy
caused by the rational decisions of individuals and corporations.
The Fed, whose easy money policy created the housing bubble that
has exploded in our faces, is back printing money and shoveling
cash into the banks. And, though the Bush deficits are said to have
been responsible for our troubles, a new Congress and president
have advanced a deficits-be-damned, full-spending-ahead policy.
On top of Bush's $455 billion deficit and hundreds of billions in
bailouts for AIG, Bear Stearns, Fannie, Freddie and CitiGroup,
Obama is talking up a new stimulus package of $500 billion to $1
trillion.
Our governors and mayors -- who, facing deficits, had been cutting
back -- have now reversed field and are demanding to follow the
federal formula.
When Obama arrived at the National Governors Association Conference
in Philadelphia, they pounced. Led by Pennsylvania's Ed Rendell,
they handed Barack a bill: $138 billion. The governors want U.S.
taxpayers to relieve them of what U.S. families face: the need to
cut spending, pay down debt, make sacrifices, take pain and live
within their means.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the mayors have now followed
the governors' lead, declaring they have 4,100 projects "ready to
go," which they want U.S. taxpayers to fund.
What are these projects?
Under the ever-popular rubric "infrastructure," they include roads,
bridges, schools and public buildings. California Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger says he has $28 billion worth "ready to go," which
he would like folks in the other 49 states to fund.
Now, historically, bridges, highways, roads and public buildings
have been regarded as pork. In the campaign, they were "earmarks"
-- payoffs for powerful constituents, a form of political
corruption that reformers like Barack and John McCain were going to
end.
Now, it seems, earmarks are our salvation.
Why are governments at every level doing this?
Because government believes that the restoration of economic health
requires us to act against our natural instincts in a recession,
and start buying and financing new homes and cars, and get back to
the malls, lest this Christmas season become a bummer for retailers.
After all, 70 percent of our gross domestic product is now based on
consumption, though Americans in recent years have had a savings
rate of zero.
The disconnect between the instincts of average citizens and the
policies of government could not be greater. Governments want us to
act prodigally, while natural instincts and inclinations are
telling us to act conservatively.
Conservatism and capitalism are giving conflicting signals.
Average Americans are behaving as though in rehab, trying to kick a
bad habit of spending more than they earn and borrowing more than
they can pay back, while the U.S. government is suggesting that
what we really need is to return to the auto showrooms and malls,
and start spending again, only in radically increased dosages.
Beyond the present recession, questions arise as to whether the
U.S. model is sustainable. If government spending were the remedy
to recession, why, after Bush's deficits, are we in recession? And
if the easy money of Ben Bernanke's Fed is the cure for what ails
us, how did we get sick when Alan Greenspan's Fed was conducting a
never-ending policy of easy money?
How does it stimulate the private economy to pump hundreds of
billions of dollars into consumer checking and credit-card
accounts, when more and more of what we consume -- from computers
to cars to clothes -- isn't even produced in America anymore?
What do conservatives, few of whom have opposed the Obama plans and
fewer of whom have called for repeal of Bush's big-spending social
programs, believe is the alternative approach to ending the
recession and creating a sustainable economy?
For the economy we have seems to be condemned to an ever-deepening
and widening cycle of crises, each brought on by the cure for the
previous crisis, which is always the same: more government.
SOURCE:
http://buchanan.org/blog/2008/12/pjb-in-earmarks-lies-salvation/