Unity08. A people's movement to take our country back.

I worked for the federal government for several years myself and saw some amazing things regarding budgetary concerns.

If the bureau I worked for did not spend every cent of it's yearly budget the next years budget would shrink, resulting in an atmosphere of waste that frankly made me sick to my stomach.

I witnessed parking lots repaved every single year, the painting of elaborate logos on water towers out of the view of anyone outside the installation, and the replacement of perfectly good equipment on a quarterly basis just to ensure that every penny was gone at the end of the budgetary annum just to name a few examples.

This is government waste at it's highest level. I know that my bureau had a greater than 40 million dollar surplus in my last year of employment. All of said surplus was wasted just to be certain that next year we had the same or an even larger budget.

The climate of waste in government (both federal and state level) must change. If this excessive spending was curtailed many of our deficit woes would be greatly lessened.

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When I came back from 'Nam, I was on a statside base, and was ordered to order "stuff" to use up what was left in the budget for that military unit - they all did it. "Use it or lose it".

US Marine vet Vietnam 4/68 - 8/69

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Retired but Active

You are right, of course. But there is another consideration I believe is worthwhile. Just look at the last 6 years or so. We currently have the highest DEFICIT in our history, the largest DEBT in our history, and the most bloated and pork-filled national budget in our history. And why? In the present case I believe it can be traced to the totally out of touch egoism of George W. Bush. He is a weak man. He is not very smart. He is basically a coward. BUT, he is the president and has tried VERY dilligently to repay his big buck cronies at every turn. There are countless examples of this.

The frequent disclosures of rampant waste by HALIBURTEN in Iraq. We only hear of the waste that amounts to several MILLION dollars at a whack but, believe me, there is a hell of a lot of waste in just about everything they do. Haliburten is not the only example though. Our govenment contracting procedures at every level reflect waste that is unbelievable. Just look at the fraud and waste STILL going on in connection with KATRINA, FARM SUBSIDIES, FEDERAL HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION, and countless others. This has been going on for many many years.

Of course the Bush administration is not the only one that is guilty of such fraud and waste. Clinton, Bush I, Reagan, Carter, Ford, and of course Nixon and Johnson ALL had wasteful programs that preyed on the American Taxpayer. But, maybe because of the increases in our economy and tax revenues, etc..., the BUSH administratin stands out. Using ANY administration you care to chose as a base, the waste, in THOSE dollars has increased more under Bush than under ANY other president in our history. One more example and I will shut up.

Think carefully about the expenditures in IRAQ for a few minutes. We have all read reports of faulty military equipment, useless infrastructure rebuilding projects, BILLIONS in monetary aid to Iraq that cannot be accounted for, and many other things. We are currently spending in excess of $1,000,000,000 PER MONTH in Iraq. We have spent well over $500,000,000,000 in the past 6 years. LOOK at the zeros here. I am talking about BILLIONS of dollars. Where does it all come from? Mainly from irrational and (in many cases) unethicl/illegal increases in our annual federal DEFICITS and in our EVER INCREASING national DEBT. Wake up, these bills MUST be repaid sometime or our country is doomed.

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Under the radar and some good and bad that has occurred in the Budget arena re Surpluses/Hard Choices ahead to match the ends-means of our fine rhetoric. From the Concord Coalition:

http://www.concordcoalition.org/press/2007/070517release-budgetconference.htm

CONCORD COALITION APPLAUDS PAYGO IN BUDGET RESOLUTION BUT WARNS THAT PROJECTED SURPLUS REQUIRES HARD CHOICES

WASHINGTON --The Concord Coalition said today that the Congressional Budget Resolution to be voted on in the House and Senate this week would help restore fiscal discipline by applying a deficit neutral "pay-as-you-go" (paygo) standard to all entitlement expansion and tax cut legislation and by creating a "trigger" in the House to protect projected surpluses. Concord expressed concern, however, that the revenue numbers in the budget plan assume a waiver of paygo for certain tax cut extensions. This presumed waiver, along with the absence of cost cutting entitlement reform and an assumed slowing of discretionary spending growth in the outyears, makes the goal of a $41 billion surplus in 2024 seem optimistic.

"Budget rules are only as strong as the political will to apply them. A close look at the pent-up spending and tax cut demands in the budget resolution's 23 reserve funds shows how important strict adherence to paygo will be for the desired surplus to result. In this budget, paygo acts as a fiscal levee against a flood of red ink. If that levee breaks, there is little chance of reducing the deficit, let alone of producing a surplus," said Concord Coalition executive director Robert L. Bixby.

Under the budget resolution, revenues and outlays would balance at about 19 percent of GDP in 2024. That is a slightly lower number than this year's projected level of outlays (20.2) although the budget resolution does not require any major cost cutting initiatives. Revenues by 2024 would be slightly higher than projected revenues this year (18.6) although the budget resolution does not instruct the House Ways and Means or Senate Finance Committees to raise taxes. The revenue increase in the budget resolution is the result of current law "sunsets" that were included when these tax cuts were originally enacted.

Concord noted the following positive aspects of the budget resolution:
• It establishes a balanced budget goal.
• There are no expansions of mandatory spending programs. All such initiatives are constrained by deficit neutral reverse funds that require offsets to pay for them. It is a particularly positive sign that the budget resolution applies this restriction to a number of high priority items for the Democratic leadership -- such as expansion of the SCHIP program and reauthorization of the farm program.
• Despite the presumed waiver of paygo for certain tax cut extensions, the budget resolution does not exempt any tax cut legislation from the rule.
• Discretionary spending would fall as a percentage of the economy, provided that Congress sticks with its targeted spending levels.

There are other aspects of the plan that Concord finds disappointing. Specifically, it:
• Does not budget for likely war costs. Like the President's budget, the budget resolution assumes just $50 billion for the cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2024 and nothing in 2024 through 2024.
• Does not provide a meaningful spending reconciliation bill to achieve savings in entitlement programs. The explosion in health care and retirement benefits that looms on the horizon is the single biggest threat to our nation's fiscal health. Including entitlement savings as a regular part of the annual budget process is an important step in addressing our long-term challenges. Even if paygo is strictly applied to expansions of mandatory programs, this would still leave spending growth under current law on an unsustainable path. However, the reconciliation instruction included in this budget appears to be aimed at smoothing the way for controversial policy initiatives, not at deficit reduction.
• Does not provide for discretionary spending caps beyond fiscal year 2024. In projecting a balanced budget in 2024, the budget resolution assumes much lower increases in non-defense discretionary spending after 2024, including increases lower than inflation from 2024-2012. Overall, the budget projects a decline in non-defense discretionary spending as a percent of GDP in every year after 2024. Without caps, the spending restraint assumed in the outyears of the budget resolution will be much harder to achieve.
• Does not assume revenue numbers that are consistent with strict application of paygo. Under current law, the tax cuts enacted in 2024 and 2024 are scheduled to expire on December 31, 2024. Moreover, current law does not assume further relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax. Thus, under paygo, the revenue that comes from these provisions would be assumed in the budget resolution. However, the budget resolution assumes a revenue number that is $175 billion below what would be collected if paygo applied. This number, in effect, assumes a waiver of paygo to provide for extending certain tax cuts.

http://milligansstew.blogspot.com

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in the history of this Nation, all since the current President, and all owed to China. What happens if (and when!) China demands it back?

A large and growing trade deficit with China under NAFTA threatens a dollar decline that could well set the stage for the emergence of the Amero as a unified North American currency.

In 2024, the U.S. balance of trade deficit with China was $201 billion, a 25% increase over 2024. In 2024, China’s foreign exchange reserves topped $1 trillion, a staggering amount considering that before 1979 China’s foreign exchange reserves had never surpassed $1 billion. Approximately 70% of China’s foreign exchange reserves, some $700 billion, are held in U.S. dollars, about half of which are invested in long-term Treasury bonds that in turn fund our federal budget deficits. Prior to Thanksgiving 2024, China’s central banks suggested a possible move to diversify foreign exchange holdings away from the dollar. As a consequence, the dollar sold off on world currency markets, hitting a new 20-month low against the Euro, a currency which is beginning to compete with the dollar as an international foreign reserve currency.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.html?id=18564

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The rise of the Euro is a truly scary thing that all Americans should be aware of. The Euro is quickly on its way to becoming the most powerful currency in the world. As we speak, countries around the globe are deciding to take their money out of U.S. treasury bonds and into EU Euro bonds. If the Euro becomes the worlds reserve currency, which it is on the cusp of becoming, then the U.S. is in for a world of economic hurt. I don't know how to counter this, besides reducing the deficit and paying off the national debt quickly. Many economists have become alarmed at the movement away from the Dollar as the worlds reserve currency, and it is only a matter of time before the effects of this movement are felt by normal Americans.

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The U.S. federal debt has reached crisis proportions, approaching $9 trillion in 2024. U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker has warned that just the interest on the debt will soon be more than the taxpayers can afford to pay. He observed in 2024:

We cannot simply grow our way out of [the national debt]. . . . The ultimate alternatives to definitive and timely action are not only unattractive, they are arguably infeasible. Specifically, raising taxes to levels far in excess of what the American people have ever supported before, cutting total spending by unthinkable amounts, or further mortgaging the future of our children and grandchildren to an extent that our economy, our competitive posture and the quality of life for Americans would be seriously threatened.1

Nearly half the public portion of the federal debt is now owed to foreigners, and they are pulling out of dollars into other currencies as the dollar shrinks in value. Oil-producing countries are also moving to other currencies for their oil trades, removing a major incentive for foreign central banks to hold U.S. government bonds. In an April 2024 article in Counter Punch, Mike Whitney warned:

This is much more serious than a simple decline in the value of the dollar. If the major oil producers convert from the dollar to the euro, the American economy will sink almost overnight. If oil is traded in euros then central banks around the world would be compelled to follow and America will be required to pay off its enormous $8 trillion debt. That, of course, would be doomsday for the American economy. . . . If there's a quick fix, I have no idea what it might be.

Read the rest of the article at: http://www.globalresearch.ca/?context=va&aid=6288

Remember Sadaam Hussein began selling Iraq's oil in Euros before we last invaded. One of the first things we did there was to halt these sales in Euros and reinstate their sales to dollars. Iran has followed in the footsteps of Sadaam and halted the sale of their oil in dollars. Will their fate be the same?

Please read the article since it proposes a solution to the national debt that I would appreciate feedback on.

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By, Paul Craig Roberts

The American political system has failed. The fabled checks and balances of American politics were no match for a neoconservative administration with a secret agenda. The American people were deceived and tricked into supporting two invasions that are war crimes under the Nuremberg standard.

US aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq and the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians have radicalized Muslims throughout the world and swelled the ranks of insurgents. Despite the "surge" and an additional 30,000 US troops in Baghdad, the US is unable to protect its own embassy. On July 10, the fortified Green Zone, which contains the US and British embassies and the puppet Iraqi government, came under intense mortar and rocket attack. Within the protected Green Zone, 18 people were wounded and 3 were killed.

The US military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus said that the US is a decade away from victory in Iraq. Gen. Petraeus could have added another truth and acknowledged that the US military lacks sufficient fresh troops to remain in the conflict. Last year Colin Powell said the US Army is "about broken." The US military is exhausted by the insurgencies and will be driven out if not withdrawn.

Gen. Petraeus assumed command in January. Six months later, Petraeus says "the question is how can we gradually reduce our forces so we reduce the strain on the army."

In the US Senate, Republican support for Bush’s wars is fading as senators face a hostile public that has had enough of Bush’s pointless and lost wars based on lies and deception. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq never had any valid reason. The US occupations of these countries have failed, and no purpose has been achieved except the enrichment of the military-security complex and the swelling of al-Qaeda’s ranks and credibility.

One trillion dollars has been totally squandered. Moreover, Bush’s wars have had to be financed by borrowing abroad. The result has been a reduction in the dollar’s value and an erosion of the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. The dollar has fallen to a new low against the Euro and has reached a 26-year low against the British pound.

The latest comprehensive worldwide Pew poll reveals the complete collapse of America’s standing in the world.

This is a huge price to pay for Bush’s childish ego, for the enrichment of Cheney’s cronies at Halliburton and merchants of death, and for Congress’ appeasement of AIPAC.

Bush’s and Cheney’s lies and assaults on the US Constitution and American civil liberty, their plans to attack Iran, and the war crimes for which they are responsible provide an open and shut case for their impeachments. The latest polls show that 54% of Americans support impeachment of Vice President Cheney, with only 40% opposed. Bush hangs on by a hair with 45% favoring his impeachment and 46% opposed. But Democrats, like Republicans, have failed the electorate and refuse to do their duty. Congress is a creature of special interests and no longer represents the American people.

Obviously, some new method is needed for removing incompetent or dictatorial presidents and vice presidents.

Constitutional reform might be next to impossible, but before dismissing the possibility consider that according to British news reports, Britain’s new prime minister, Gordon Brown, intends a wide-ranging program of constitutional reform, including giving up the prime minister’s power to declare war.

The London Telegraph says: "The measures are intended to restore trust in politics after the by-passing of Parliament and the Cabinet, as well as the culture of spin and media manipulation, that characterized the Blair decade."

If America is to remain a democracy, the people need refurbished powers to hold "government of the people, by the people, for the people" accountable. One way of doing this would be a vote of confidence by the people. The question can be put to a national referendum: "Shall the President remain in office?" "Shall the Vice President remain in office?"

The state of Florida does this for judges, including Florida’s Supreme Court, so there is precedent for allowing the people to decide whether officials may remain in office.

As the American people can no longer rely on elected officials to respond to public opinion, the people must do what they can to gather power back into their hands before they become the subjects of tyrants.

July 13, 2024

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by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

When Eastern Europe broke free in 1989, we all realized just how little thought had been given to the transition from socialism to capitalism. Mises had told us the collapse was coming, and we should have been prepared.

As America comes to resemble a command economy, we need a transition plan here too. Yuri Maltsev proposed a "One-Year Plan" for the U.S.S.R. We're not in that bad a shape (yet), so we could do it in 30 days.

DAY ONE: The federal income tax is abolished and April 15th is declared a national holiday. The 40% reduction in federal revenues is matched by a 40% cut in spending. The budget is still almost twice as big as Jimmy Carter's.

DAY TWO: All other federal taxes are abolished, including the corporate income tax, the capital gains tax, the gasoline tax, "sin" taxes, excise taxes, etc. Businesses boom, and the few legitimate federal functions are funded with an inexpensive head tax. People who choose not to vote need not pay it. (Note: this was a mainstream view in the 19th century.)

DAY THREE: The federal government sells all its land, freeing up tens of millions of acres for development, mining, farming, forestry, oil drilling, private parks, etc. The government uses the revenue to pay off the national debt and other liabilities.

DAY FOUR: The minimum wage is reduced to zero, creating jobs for ex-federal bureaucrats at their market wage. All pro-union laws and regulations are scrapped. The jobless rate falls dramatically.

DAY FIVE: The Bureau of Labor Statistics, like the rest of the Labor Department, is sent to that big hiring hall in the sky. Without detailed economic statistics, future economic planners will be blind and deaf.

DAY SIX: The Department of Commerce is abolished. Big business has to make its own way in the world, without subsidies and privileges at the expense of its competitors and customers.

DAY SEVEN: The plug is pulled on the Department of Energy. Oil and gas prices plummet.

DAY EIGHT: All regulatory agencies, from the Interstate Commerce Commission to the Federal Trade Commission, are deep-sixed. Competition is legalized.

DAY NINE: HUD is squashed like a bug. There's a building boom in cheap, private, apartments.

DAY TEN: The interstate highways reopen as private businesses. Road entrepreneurs price travel according to consumer demand. Using modern technology, drivers get bills once a month. Credit risks – and drunks and dangerous drivers – aren't allowed on the road. Non-drivers no longer subsidize car owners.

DAY ELEVEN: Government welfare is wiped out. Bums work or starve. The deserving poor find a cornucopia of private services designed to make them independent. Private charity explodes, as the American people, already the most generous in the world, find their incomes almost doubled, thanks to the tax cuts.

DAY TWELVE: The Federal Reserve closes its open-market operations and stops protecting the banking industry from competition. But banks can now engage in all the non-bank financial activities previously forbidden to them. The business cycle, which is caused by monetary expansion through the credit markets, is liquidated.

DAY THIRTEEN: Federal deposit insurance is scrapped. All insured deposits are redeemed from federal assets, which include the personal assets of high-level government employees. The threat of bank runs forces banks to keep 100% reserves for their demand deposits, and prudent reserves on all other accounts. There are no more inherently bankrupt banks propped up by the government, at taxpayer expense, and no more bail-outs.

DAY FOURTEEN: The shaky fiat dollar is defined in terms of gold, with the ratio determined by dividing the government's gold stock by all existing dollars on that day.

DAY FIFTEEN: The federal government sells National and Dulles airports to the highest bidder, and stops all subsidies to other socialist airports around the country. All constraints on airline prices and service cease. It costs more to fly during peak hours than off-peak, but overall, air travel drops in price.

DAY SIXTEEN: All government regulations that create and sustain cartels are abolished, including those for the post office, telephones, television, radio, and cable TV. Prices plummet, and a host of new and unforeseen services becomes available.

DAY SEVENTEEN: Centrally planned agriculture, as imposed by Hoover and Roosevelt, is repealed: there are no more subsidies, payments-in-kind, marketing orders, low-interest loans, etc. Farm prices drop. Entrepreneurial farmers get rich. Welfare farmers go into another line of work. The poor eat like kings.

DAY EIGHTEEN: The Justice Department shutters its anti-trust division. Companies, big and small, are free to merge – up, down, or sideways. Stockholders can buy any other company, or sell their stock to anyone else. Marginal producers can no longer battle their competitors with bureaucratic weapons.

DAY NINETEEN: The Department of Education flunks the constitutionality test, and is kicked out. Private charities set up remedial reading and writing programs for the former bureaucrats. Federally subsidized sex education and other anti-family programs go out of business. Local school districts become responsive to parents or close, pressured by a fast-growing private school sector (which many more parents can now afford).

DAY TWENTY: All federal monuments are sold, in some cases to non-profit groups based on the Mt. Vernon Ladies Association, which owns and runs George Washington's home. The VFW buys the Vietnam memorial. There is much bidding for the Jefferson and Washington monuments. Nobody wants FDR's, so it's torn down and the land sold to a farmer. (With the federal government cut back to its constitutional size, much of Washington reverts to productive uses like agriculture, as in late 18th century.)

DAY TWENTY-ONE: The computerized financial and political dossier maintained by the government on every American is erased. The public wanders through the federal offices to make sure, in a reprise of the East Berliners' visits to Stasi headquarters.

DAY TWENTY-TWO: Equal rights are granted to all Americans, even members of non-victim groups. There is no affirmative action, no quotas, no set-asides, no public accommodations laws. Private property and freedom of association are fully restored.

DAY TWENTY-THREE: The EPA is cleaned out, with all "clean air" and similar big-government laws repealed. Ten thousand lawyers leap from their balconies. Private property is established in air and water. Americans harmed by pollution are free to sue the polluters, who are no longer protected by the federal government.

DAY TWENTY-FOUR: Americans are given complete freedom of contract, restoring rationality to malpractice and product liability law.

DAY TWENTY-FIVE: Government scrambles for more assets to sell (i.e., the National Zoo, also known as Washington, D.C.) to pay off the liabilities of the privatized Social Security system.

DAY TWENTY-SIX: Porno artists have to earn their own livings, as the National Endowment for the Arts tries to raise its budget through sidewalk painting sales.

DAY TWENTY-SEVEN: Foreign aid is outlawed as unconstitutional, unjust, and un-economic. Foreign politicians have to steal their own money. The World Bank, IMF, and United Nations close their super-luxurious doors.

DAY TWENTY-EIGHT: The American people are given the unrestricted right to keep and bear arms.

DAY TWENTY-NINE: The Defense Department is reoriented towards defense. American troops come home from all around the world. We adopt a policy of armed neutrality, remembering the Founding Fathers' teaching that we could not have an empire abroad and a constitutional republic at home.

DAY THIRTY: All tariffs, quotas, and trade agreements are put through the shredder. Americans can trade with anyone in the world, without barriers or subsidies. Japanese car prices drop an immediate 25%.

In just 30 exhilarating days, we have established the outlines of free market. Radical? Maybe so. Me, I can't wait until Month Two.

August 30, 2024

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. is president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, editor of LewRockwell.com, and author of Speaking of Liberty. This article appeared in The Free Market for March 1991.

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Fun things to pipe-dream about HC. But if you want facts click here,or click here

We do not need Meat-Axes that would just propel us into the Great Depression II but some true facts and some poltical courage to present those facts to the American Electorate!!

DC - 3rd ward - Send mail!

My Blog

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The only thing neccessary for fiscal control is a gov't that will abide by the Constitution of the United States of America. What we have now is a town full of lying criminal thugs who don't hesitate to shoot disobedient slaves.

Current fiscal policy has escaped congress and the white house, and is being dictated by multiple, nefarious bureaucrats, leading mostly unconstitutional bureaus, providing mostly unconstitutional services, and collecting mostly unconstitutional taxes.

What we get is $1 of service for $2 in taxes which costs $3 to deliver.

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can exist only until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury—with the result that democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by dictatorship.”
–Alexander Tyler (in England 400 years ago)

Thank you Franklin Roosevelt

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