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The US Government is simply spending way too much, and RINO Republicans like Judy Biggert are to blame. The Republican Party, whatever its proclaimed philosophy, has not been a party of limited government and restrained spending in recent years.
In short: the RINO Congresses of 2000 through 2006, and the present Democratic Congress are the most profligate spenders in world history. The people doing this must be retired – one of them is Judy Biggert. You can’t teach an old congressional dog new tricks, so if you’re interested in cutting federal spending, you’re not going to get it from Judy Biggert. The tired old line of “Speak no ill of a fellow Republican” is tantamount to intergenerational irresponsibility. Take a look at Judy’s website or any of her literature and see if you conclude that she either knows or cares about these huge problems. Sad, but by all evidence of public statements and published material, Mrs. Biggert is completely indifferent to these history-shifting facts.
To understand Washington spending, one needs to realize that US Government spending originates in the House of Representatives, is validated by the Senate and implemented by the Executive Branch. In the old phrase, “The President proposes, but Congress disposes” one can see that the true financial center of the US Government is not the White House, but Capitol Hill – and, specifically, the US House of Representatives. To comprehend this, one should look to the House of Representatives for patterns of spending. The chaos of finances that Congress has created in the past generation is nothing short of scandalous. The future prosperity of this nation is seriously at risk. In just the past year, the percentage of US Public Debt owed to foreigners surpassed 50% for the first time ever – mostly to the Chinese and Gulf Arab governments. Our public sovereignty is eroded by such indebtedness. [If one wants a historical analogy, this shift to foreign-held debt is comparable to British indebtedness to the USA post WWI – the swansong of Imperial Britain in the Interwar years was one characterized by a slide toward power to those holding the debt, in this case, the USA. ]
In early January 2008, Moody’s, the international credit rating agency, issued a warning on US Public Debt that suggested that unless the US Government restrains spending it could lose its top-notch AAA rating. Since its inception in 1917, the US has had a top rating. Having just a one-notch fall could cost the US Government hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Current trends are simply unsustainable. Take a close look at the annual Financial Report of the United States for 2007 – it is mostly depressing reading. What it demonstrates more than anything is that the 1990s crop of Republican Congressmen under Newt Gingrich were serious about righting America’s very long-term problems. The most recent crop of Republicans – like Judy Biggert and Denny Hastert – simply became another party of Big Government. The War on Terror, 9/11, Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – nothing explains the explosion of Federal Spending as simply: they can’t say “No.” We need a different result – we need a new Congressman: Elect Citizen O’Kane.
The federal government spent more than $2,100,000,000,000 in fiscal year 2003, rising to $2,600,000,000,000 in 2007. After taking out the government’s core functions of national defense and justice, it will still spend more than $1,700,000,000,000. That amounts to roughly $16,000 for every household in the United States. Clearly, the federal government has taken on a huge range of spending programs beyond its basic responsibilities. Do you feel like you received $16,000 worth of services last year?
Indeed, the government is so large that the activities of hundreds of federal agencies are beyond the knowledge and understanding of most citizens. The government has become too large even for our representatives in Congress to adequately oversee and control, as scandal after scandal attests. Judy Biggert’s response to the enormity of the charade of Congressional finances has been to retreat to pointlessly silly programs – yet ANOTHER program – to try to teach financial literacy through public libraries. How about financial literacy in Congress?!?
Congress has shown itself to be incapable of running a $2 trillion organization with an adequate degree of competence. For example, the General Accounting Office has not been able to certify as correct the federal government’s financial statements five years in a row because of weak accounting controls and widespread mismeasurement of assets, liabilities, and costs.
Modernist architects told us that ‘‘less is more’’ in building design. The same is true in government design. Americans would receive more benefit from the federal government if its size and scope were greatly reduced and they instead received a limited range of much better quality services. The federal government is like a bloated conglomerate corporation that is involved in too many different schemes for the CEO to properly oversee.
Reforms must begin to shed all non-core functions of the federal government so that Congress and the administration can focus on delivering high quality basic services and true public goods, such as national security, counterterrorism and adequate funding of America’s global interests. By giving back to the American people responsibility for their own health care, retirement and education, we will not only improve the services they receive, they will be more effective, more efficient and more closely tailored to individual needs. The future is not for the massive corporatist structures of the 20th Century’s industrial era.
If you agree that we need to get a handle on US Federal Spending, then Elect Citizen Sean O’Kane. If you think that the job of a Congressman is to feed you like mushrooms in the dark and that merrily trundling along ignoring big facts counts as a good public servant, then vote for the incumbent. We, however, believe that when confronted with facts, particularly Republicans – who are by habit, nature and disposition more likely to be responsible and mature people – wish to be treated like adults and make decisions in that knowledge. Please read other sections of this website for information that other politicians prefer you don’t see.
Source: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (2005)
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"Citizen O'Kane" Video
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