September 11, 2023
Source: Bigstock What’s worse? When political leaders shut down the federal government, or when they lock down businesses, stores, schools, churches and restaurants– and almost all private commerce in America?
If you have not heard, the media and congressional Democrats are near cardiac arrest over the prospect of a federal government shutdown later this year. They might need smelling salts. How dare Congress closed down our crucial federal government services when they are deadlocked on the spending plan?
However we didn’t hear these sort of drama queen histrionics when Congress, governors and mayors locked down almost every personal business throughout COVID in 2020. That efficiently brought our economy to a dead stop for 6 months.
“The shutdowns throughout COVID were one of the best abuses of power in American history.”
Nearly overnight, millions of Americans ran out their jobs. Small business revenues collapsed, and tens of countless men and women who had put their whole life into their companies were thrown into insolvency due to federal government lockdown orders.
Some liberals wish to empower the federal government to shut down the private economy from time to time to fight climate modification.
Obviously, the brand-new rules are: You can close the doors of every small business in America, however do not you dare close down the Department of Education or Interior or National Public Radio for one day or there will be blood in the streets, seniors will not get their meals on wheels and disabled children will not have access to social services.
I’m NOT in favor of a government shutdown. But they aren’t completion of the world. The Congressional Research Service reports there have actually been at least 20 federal government shutdowns considering that Jimmy Carter was president. Did anybody outside of Washington really see that the Federal Trade Commission or the Commodities Future Trading Commission could not satisfy?
By the method, only “excessive” programs would be temporarily closed if there were a budget impasse, which raises the concern of why a government $2 trillion a year in financial obligation is spending so much cash on inessential anything.
The joke used to be that if you asked a New Yorker to draw a map of the nation, they would put a line down the middle of the U.S. and state everything on the eastern half of the U.S. New York. They had an inflated sense of self-importance.
Now that arrogance characterizes Washington– those who reside in “the swamp.” THEY are important, and the work the rest people do is unimportant. They have actually forgotten that they work for us, not the other method around.
Instead of a government shutdown, would not it be a joyous celebration if the 2 parties would pass an economically accountable spending plan that cuts wasteful spending and at least makes a pretense of trying to reach balance in the next five or eight or ten years?
The reality that the U.S. federal government now spends and consumes $7 trillion, almost one-quarter of our whole GDP, is a dismaying state of affairs. Cut it to 20% and we get near a well balanced spending plan.
Some things deserve defending. The Democrats’ option to a partial shutdown would be to continue to borrow $2 trillion a year from now into infinity. Did you understand that the fastest growing element of our financial obligation is the interest payments on the $33 trillion unfavorable balance on the charge card?
This is the genuine clear and present threat. This pattern line of financial obligation costs might plunge the economy into a deep economic downturn, with millions of Americans plunged into poverty and unemployment lines.
Never again should we permit government to close down our personal economy. The shutdowns throughout COVID was among the greatest abuses of power in American history. That’s doubly real now that we have strong proof that lockdowns didn’t have any favorable health result.
However if it takes a short-term shutdown of some government agencies to require Congress and the White Home to get serious about our financial ineptitude, then do it. It’s for the children.
Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Structure and a co-founder of the Committee to Release Prosperity. He is the co-author of “Trumponomics: Inside the America First Plan to Restore Our Economy.”
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