Democrats on government spending and job creation

The William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Center web site claims that the country "Moved from record deficits to record surplus" and "Began paying off the national debt" while "[creating] nearly 23 million jobs" and supporting the "[f]astest and longest real wage growth in over three decades." The site also claims that during this time:

• "Family income reached record highs”
• "Unemployment was the lowest in over three decades"
• "Lowest overall poverty and child poverty rates since the 1970s"
• "Lowest percentage of Americans on welfare in 32 years"

So, how did the Clinton administration achieve all these wonderful things?

Well, according to the web site, they reduced the size of government, achieving the "[s]mallest federal civilian workforce in 40 years." They also reduced the burden of federal spending on the economy by having the "[l]owest federal spending as a share of the economy since 1966" and the "[s]lowest per capita growth of government spending since the 1950s."

TODAY'S DEMOCRATS ARE WRONG!

And, remember, the Clinton administration only achieved these things with the help of a Republican-controlled Congress.

What Obama said when he was a senator…

Remember this quote from Senator Barack Obama?

“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America 's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that, "the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.” ~ Senator Barack H. Obama, March 2006

If he was insincere then, what do you think he is now?!? Remember that quote in the coming election.

Wary of the Health Care boondoggle

Here's my latest letter to the editor, sent to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Finance and Commerce, Minnesota Daily, USA Today, and The Washington Post:

Don't be fooled by the unrealistic gimmicks in the Senate heath care plan, such as a "Medicare Commission" or a "Failsafe Budgeting Mechanism." This is nothing more than the absurdity of some empty commitment to being fiscally responsible at some point in the future while spending billions or trillions of taxpayer dollars today.
 

The federal government has never been able to accurately predict health care spending. In 1967 the estimate for Medicare spending in 1990 was $12 billion. The ACTUAL spending in 1990 was $110 billion (off by a factor of 9 times). Similarly, Medicaids DSH (disproportionate share hospital) program had a $1 billion estimate in 1987 for spending in 1992 (just 5 years hence). The actual spending for DSH in 1992 was $17 billion (17 times more than estimated).

What makes us believe that this Congress -- already demonstrated to be profligate spenders -- can estimate any more accurately just because they're starting with $900 billion to $1.2 trillion as their estimates?

Stop them!

Now, it's your turn to write to them -- and to your Senators and Representatives.  Do it now!

A Turning Point

"It's time to recognize that we've come to a turning point. We're threatened with an economic calamity of tremendous proportions, and the old business-as-usual treatment can't save us. Together, we must chart a different course.

"We must increase productivity. That means making it possible for industry to modernize and make use of the technology which we ourselves invented. That means putting Americans back to work. And that means above all bringing government spending back within government revenues, which is the only way, together with increased productivity, that we can reduce and, yes, eliminate inflation." -- Ronald Reagan (1981)

What About the U.S. Constitution?

Here's what I told more than 50 members of Congress in a letter sent today:

"Until the 1930s, the Constitution served as a major constraint on federal economic interventionism. The government's powers were understood to be just as the framers intended: few and explicitly enumerated in our founding document and its amendments. Search the Constitution as long as you like, and you will find no specific authority conveyed for the government to spend money on global-warming research, urban mass transit, food stamps, unemployment insurance, Medicaid, or countless other items in the stimulus package and, even without it, in the regular federal budget." -- Independent Institute senior fellow Dr. Robert Higgs

"Americans have long ago abandoned respect for the constitutional limitations placed on the federal government. Our elected representatives represent that disrespect." -- economist Walter E. Williams

"[W]hat could possibly be more reckless than spending a trillion dollars you don't have on a plan that you have no evidence will work? What could be more irresponsible than doubling the generational debt for your partisan pet projects in a time of crisis? And what could be more selfish than stifling debate by deploying fear to induce voters into supporting it all?" -- columnist David Harsanyi


PLEASE THINK ABOUT OUR CONSTITUTION -- WHICH YOU ARE SWORN TO UPHOLD -- WHEN YOU DO WHAT YOU DO!

What are YOU going to tell them?

Economists Against the Stimulus Plan

See the list of economists against the Democrat stimulus plan by clicking here.