Posted by
Pete Zimmerman on Wednesday, February 20, 2008 7:53:35 PM
Now that President Bush has signed into law the infamous
Stimulus Package that will send checks to Middle and Lower income families, it
becomes clear that about 43% of taxpayers will be paying off debt with the
money, a recent survey by the International Council of Shopping Centers
confirms.
Now how is this fair?
In essence I am paying off that debt through the taxes I pay to the U.S.
government. What kind of Socialist
society are we becoming? Why
should our tax money be redistributed for others to spend or pay off debt? This plan has made it clear of the
direction our society is heading, as both Democrats and Republicans buy votes
by redistributing wealth, with nobody even interested in stopping them.
It is unseemly for a democratic government to take this
approach. But our elected
representatives don’t care what I think or those like me; it’s too close to
election time for them to even think twice about voting against this. The only question and argument on their
mind is how much they can get President Bush, once perceived as a conservative
president, to sign off on before the checks go out! The vote was 81 to 16 in the Senate and 380 to 34 in the
House of Representatives. You
don’t get more lopsided than that!
It is the height of fiscal irresponsibility to agree to this
plan. Instead of addressing the
root cause of the problems that got us into this situation to begin with, they
are now going to throw a band-aid on it so that they can say they did something
to help.
The Stimulus Package does more to hurt than to help. It adds to the budget deficit,
redistributes income, and does nothing to address the behavior of financial
institutions that caused this mess to begin with.
Let’s think about it for a minute. The real problem here is that financial institutions have
been going crazy lending money to people that cannot afford to pay them back,
period. The sub-prime mortgage
crisis is all about banks lending money at high interest rates to risky
borrowers, and then they resold these mortgages on the open market. These same financial institutions lent
money through their credit card businesses to folks of questionable
credit-worthiness. Banking 101
tells us not to lend money to people that cannot pay you back.
So now the U.S. and world economy face a financial mess
brought about by these poor lending practices. In the U.K. today, the government actually took over control
of one of these lenders rather than see them fail. Will the redistribution of wealth and government controls be
the solution? Of course not, but
in the U.S. our politicians practically fell over themselves, Democrat and
Republican, to vote in favor of this solution. The presumed Republican presidential nominee, John McCain
made sure he was there to vote in the affirmative. Where is the political courage in that? Where is the “maverick” when you need
him?
John McCain knows that a vote against the Stimulus Package
would mean almost certain defeat in the fall election, as the American people
would not look favorable on this.
This is the case because most people do not understand the true root
cause of the current problem.
Politicians would be better off explaining the cause (that is, if they
know what it is themselves) rather than offering people taxpayer money as a
quick fix or as President Bush called it, “a booster shot.” Rather than a booster shot, America
needs a reality shot!