Recovery Through Massive Spending Is A Mirage

   Legendary tenor Jose Carrerras, the 1969 New York Mets and Herpes all share the miracle or misfortune of the comeback. Carrerras beat 90% odds of death and thrived after treatment for acute leukemia. The lowly Mets, never finishing better than ninth place since 1962, beat one of the greatest teams of all time, the ’69 Orioles, in a five game World Series. Finally, the herpes virus is notorious for silently smoldering only to revisit with a vengeance, especially when stress is cranked up.

   As I listened with rapt attention during Mr. Obama’s last press conference I feared our nation would face an unfortunate payback of monstrous herpetic proportion; smoldering at first, and explosively painful and debilitating at worst and last. Furthermore, Herpes unlike love is forever. Our president, enjoying a carte blanche political playing field, teleprompter trundled along evangelizing how we must trust his messianic sounding rhetoric. Softball questions pitched by doting parishioners masquerading as journalists were smacked high into the heavens. We all watched as this “Bambino of the world’s board room” assured us that spending hysteric amounts of our money insures and protects the American dream.

   Quicker and slicker than a Clinton White House Lincoln boudoir B and B deal, we were told spending obscene gobs of money we have not earned will actually erase multigenerational deficits and set us back upon the righteous path of what America is really all about.

   Wake up people.

   Governments do not run businesses. They regulate them and ensure that an ethical and rich business climate is provided. Unchecked, governments will “administrivialize” all individuality out of relevance. They rarely effectively manage anything except wars, and those are destructive by nature.

   The mathematical preposterousness of running up trillion dollar deficits is overwhelming. Compounding this idiocy is the notion that one should couple social engineering towards larger government into every dollar spent. Europe has shown us that Big Daddy does not know best from boardroom to bedroom. Soon, when we rollover to kiss our loved ones goodnight, we’ll be smooching congressional limestone.

   Once umbilicated into the meaty tissues of a nation’s womb, Socialism does not abort easily. It is insidious, creeping along like a cancer weakening our immune response and exploiting and then destroying our most vital functions.

   Do not be seduced with the bait of righting the wrongs of economic injustice. Do not believe we must spend a fortune cooling our soon to be toasted terra firma based on shabby science and an arrogant mismatch between the forces of nature and the farces on non deserving Nobel laureates. These are the same geniuses who eschew renewable nuclear power and think government will deliver us from evil.

   The herpes analogy doesn’t wear thin. Romantic moments or irresponsible romps with caution cast to the wind can come back and wreak havoc. So it is with irresponsible spending.

   Although it is not hand in glove that deficit spending leads to inflation, consider this. The spending plan will double the national debt in ten years and increase the per-household amount of that debt to $32,000 dollars. Excess spending also depends on other nations lending us the money by in essence buying “us”. If the value of “us” does not rise similarly, you can bet interest demanded and paid on those loans will go up. How will we pay it all back?

   Increased deficit spending coupled with “Father knows best” intrusive large government coddling the misguided notion that they can legislate everything is a fast way to kill truly American self reliance, responsibility and inventiveness. It creates dependency. Higher taxes to meet debts from inside and out reduce incentives to save as well as invest.  I fear our president is wrong. Comebacks, recoveries, or reversals of fortune that contradict human or economic nature are not miraculous, they are a mirage.

©Kevin Ryan 2009