A sad day for all Americans

I haven't blogged in a while, because I think I'm becoming depressed. Depressed over how our country is saddling itself with a debt that will take decades to payoff. We've been told "we have to do something", and "spending is stimulus". This is the equivalent of an individual about to lose their home in foreclosure buying the best alarm system in the world because he had to protect it.

Their are two ways to attack most problems. Using a sports analogy, you can play to win or play not to lose. Democrats are play not to lose kind of people. Their stimulus package, now renamed The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, shows their thought patterns. You can read the entire thing here or here. Here's the difference in thought patterns. Republicans suggested that to create jobs we could lower the corporate tax rate from the highest in the world at around 40% down to European levels of 25%. Allowing companies to keep more of their money, which would allow them to hire people. Also a lower tax rate would encouraging companies to stay here. That's playing to win. Playing not to lose is the Democrats suggestion of increasing the amount of money we pay in unemployment benefits. One has to ask how is that stimulus? How is that recovery or reinvestment?

In 1996 Bill Clinton and a Republican House played to win by passing the Welfare Reform Act. President Clinton correctly predicted it would "end welfare as we know it". The number of people in 1997 on welfare was 12 million. Today it's 5 million. The first time in the history of the program that it dropped. Today the signing of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act ended welfare reform. Growing welfare is not playing to win.

The AP points out a few billion in pork in this plan. They over looked another 20 billion in pork going back to the Chicago airport, that would build a western terminal that all airlines have already assured airport officials they will not rent or use. Literaly the terminal to nowhere, but 45 times more expensive than the bridge to nowhere, that at least some people would have benefited from. And the bridge was correctly protested n both sides of the isle and stopped. No one blinked at this 20 billion. But who had the time to blink. This bill was thrown together and rammed down our throats all in the name of urgency to save jobs. However most of this money won't be in the system for a year or more. The President himself set a goal of 18 months to spend 3/4 of it. Why are we looking a year to 2 years down the road when the economy is tanking right now?

The answer is playing not to lose. Winners however play to win. Instead of bravely taking on the challenge and stimulating the economy by encouraging new companies to launch, we're bailing out failures so we won't lose jobs. Americans for the most part have been bred to be winners. That's why when they learned of what this bill was really about support dropped like the Hindenburg disaster that it is, and now only 37% think it's a good idea.

So it's a sad day for Americans because in spite of their objections, our government went ahead and did what they thought was best for our economy. By the way 200 of our nations top Economists took out a full page ad in the NY Times to let our government know this bill was a bad idea. This bill will cost over a trillion with interest and will negatively effect every living American the rest of our lives. It's a sad day. We'll overcome this like we do every challange, but it's a national day of mourning for lost jobs, and the further diminishing of freedom, by government extending it's roll in to all of our lives.