The party of fiscal responsibility
While everyone’s watching the Kavanugh dog and pony show, congress is passing tons of spending bills.
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
Uncle Pays the Bills
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September 19th, 2018 at 5:56 pm
Well, that is their job. And I’d rather have actual spending bills voted on, than continuing resolutions funding the government. If they could stop being drunken sailors on shore leave, it sure would help, though.
September 19th, 2018 at 6:40 pm
mikee, [obligatory “drunken sailors were spending our own money” remark here]
September 19th, 2018 at 11:54 pm
No one is serious about spending. That probably will continue to be the case until we get some inflation and interest rates go up to keep a lid on it. As long as the government can borrow money on the cheap, it will.
September 20th, 2018 at 12:08 am
There’s little/no political upside, and a whole lot of political downside, for fiscal sanity.
Fiscal sanity means cuts, which means that people lose their rice bowls. The media stories almost write themselves at that point, and it’s immediately obvious who’s responsible. Huge political downside.
The usual profligacy means the rest of us embrace a little more suck, usually in subtle ways that are not easily or obviously attributable to any particular vote. And with a little luck, nothing will come to a head until long after the weasels have retired. In the meantime, more handouts = more strings on the handouts = more power. Huge political upside.
If the choice becomes crystal clear as “cut the budget or we’ll elect someone who will” there might be a reasonable likelihood of changing that. And that will last only as long as the voters continue to press the issue at the ballot box.
September 20th, 2018 at 1:26 am
We will run deficits until there’s a constitutional amendment that says any political unit, whenever it spends more than was collected in the previous session, the elected members thereof are prohibited from any position of public authority (elected, appointed, employed, under contract or any variation of funded of public expense or exercising public powers, at any level) for a period of time equal to their current term of office, or a multiple thereof per 5% expenses exceed revenue.
So, this plan doesn’t prevent a deficit, if needed so desperately that the legislative members are willing to be completely out of the political game for a period of time. If a war or other necessary expense is needed so much, the political body can run a deficit as necessary. The penalty is clear.
Right now, there is no penalty, so politicians will rob the future Peter to pay the present Paul.
Thee would also need to be some kind of clause to prevent current legislatures from obligating future sessions except in very specific circumstances (such as how the Constitution permits expenses for ship-building, etc). Ideally, that would torpedo any kind of taxpayer funded pension schemes or retiree benefits unless those benefits are paid into a non-state account that is outright owned by the recipient. I have no problem with pensions and benefits as long as the cost is paid in the year it is earned and then removed from public obligation. The disasters in California’s and Illinois’s public pension systems and the federal Social Security syetem would be proof enough of that folly.
Separately, there are laws to prevent exceeding legislatively passed budgets by executive mismanagement, but the penalties should be enhanced to include the guillotine.
September 20th, 2018 at 7:55 am
There are always repairs needed after Democrats-it’s like renting a house to frat boys. What did you think would happen? On the other hand, well, there are lots of other hands.