Tuesday, February 8, 2011

"The Debt Commission and Government Excess"

The size of government is none of my concern. When I run across one of those Founding Fathers quotes about limited government, I like it. I don't object to reducing the size of government. But I don't want government extinguished.

Jeffrey H. Anderson (Dec 2, 2010) writes

The debt commission's report, to be voted upon tomorrow by the commission's members, is a provocative proposal that should help to jump-start serious discussions about paying off (or at least not continuing to add to) our $13.8 trillion debt...

While the debt commission's efforts are laudable, however, its basic premise that we have both a spending and a revenue problem is mistaken. And its notion that 75 percent of our debt-reducing efforts need to come from spending cuts, while the other 25 percent need to come from tax increases, is only 75 percent right. What we have is not a spending and revenue problem, but merely a spending problem....

The story is, it's the excessive size of government that hinders our economy.

The fact is, it's the excessive public and private debt -- especially private debt -- that hinders the economy. And the fact is, this problem has lasted so long now that it has got quite bad, so that now more and more people are taking an interest in the problem. But these people, too many of 'em, are looking only at the current situation. They're not looking at how we got into this situation.

They're looking at their taxes and government debt and stuff, rather than at the burden of private debt that has hindered economic growth for 40 years or more.

And the fact is, you cannot solve results. You have to fix the causes.

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