|
Red Sky at
Morning...
by Jack Anderson
The
worried talk in the backrooms of Washington is beginning to seep
onto the front pages. America may be heading for a calamity that
could change our way of life.
Jack Anderson
is a Pulitzer Prize winning syndicated columnist, the Chairman of
Citizens Against Government Waste and senior editor of Meridian
Magazine.
The worried
talk in the backrooms of Washington is beginning to seep onto the
front pages. America may be heading for a calamity that could change
our way of life. The worried whispers acknowledge that another great
depression is possible. Our experience with the last depression
increases our anxiety as we see the top-heavy economy petering in
the breeze.
Is the fear
justified? This will depend on the American people, because the
consumer confidence will determine whether we pull out of the slump
or plunge in deeper. The President will be praised or blamed, but
his influence on the economy, experts tell me, has no more impact
than 7%. It is still we the people who determine the economy of
America.
The darkside:
we have been spending more than we earn and our debtors could start
a dangerous chain reaction by suddenly calling in our notes. The
bright side: the baby boomers are still in their prime earning period.
Their wants have yet to be fulfilled. We have at least until the
year 2010 before the boomers will begin to retire and start receiving
rather than producing.
I don't want
to overstate what our political leaders habitually understate. But
there's no need to exaggerate the danger which is as visible as
a twister whirling on the horizon. Some will say I have taken too
little account of silver linings. Of course, nothing in history
is absolutely inevitable. Feats of rejunvenation or miracles of
circumstance could change history. And , to be sure, I have detected
optimistic glimmers here and there. But the only way we can prevent
the future from happening is to head it off before it arrives.
Our current
problems and future danger are the work of failed policies, self-serving
politics, and myopic vision. Democrats and Republicans alike are
ignoring the warning signs and the voters are still banking on wishful
thinking. They split their vote in November-half voting for Democrats
whom they thought would protect their entitlements. But they also
cast almost an equal number of votes for Republicans because they
wanted to slash government spending and reduce taxes.
How in the world
can the American people keep their benefits but pay less taxes?
How can they maintain government programs and, at the same time,
gut the federal budget? I have been one solution with all my lung-power.
JUST ELIMINATE GOVERNMENT WASTE!
But the response
has been a hollow whisper. Now the dynamics are beginning to change.
Having read the handwriting on the wall, a bi-partisan chorus is
suddenly singing the right tune and President Bush is leading the
choir. They want to make government more efficient, yes, by eliminating
waste.
Stalwarts of
both parties have pledged to slash waste with a vengeance. That
means the fat ought to disappear quickly from the federal carcas,
right? Wrong! Waste in Washington is too entrenched.
Powerful coalitions
form around every wasteful government program. They include the
people who benefit from the program, the contractors who provide
the supplies and services; the bureaucrats who process the paperwork,
and politicians who champion the program in exchange for contributions
and votes. Together, they lovingly embrace and protect the lard.
These special pleaders are politically active, vocal and organized.
The tax-paying public is politically inactive, silent and unorganized.
Does that mean
there is no hope for reform? Absolutely not. Here in America those
who govern still understand that their power is derived from the
governed. The state is not superior to its citizens. So--you still
count. I should warn you , however, that politicians by nature are
skilled at evading issues, shifting responsibility, and diverting
difficult decisions to someone else. So we must force a confrontation
with this Washington crowd which has been deaf to unwanted arguments
and indifferent to unpleasant facts.
As Chairman
of Citizens Against Government Waste, I must report that the worst
way to accomplish anything worth while is to assign the project
to the federal government. Of course, some expenditures are so massive
that only the government could raise the wherewithal. But I agree
with President Bush, that our money is best spent by us. We are
the best judges of how we want our money spent, and Americans have
proved that they are a generous people.
When the President
suggested that cutting taxes will actually increase tax revenue,
he is not blowing smoke. I have seen this happen in the past. This
is not an idle concept. It is not fantasy but reality. It was a
Democrat, the late John F. Kennedy, who proved that Bush is right.
When he settled into the White House, he inherited a recession that
he turned around. He simply cut taxes as Bush wants to do now. But
Kennedy and Bush did not agree on whose taxes could be slashed.
Bush wants to
give back more tax payments to the wealthy. His argument is that
they have the ways and means to repair our economy. They can use
their tax windfall to build new plants that will produce more products-this
would require more workers who would collect more in salaries and,
therefore, pay more in taxes. But let us assume that this rich tycoon
manufactures refrigerators. He is not going to invest his tax windfall
in the production of refrigerators that he cannot sell. He has no
interest in stockpiling fridges in warehouses. Instead, he is more
likely to deposit his tax refunds in a bank (perhaps even an overseas
bank) where the money will do the American economy little good.
No, Kennedy
gave the biggest tax break to the poor and lower income workers
who had no overseas bank accounts and were inclined to spend all
they took in. Some of them even bought refrigerators with their
tax refunds. Then the manufacturer built a bigger plant to produce
more refrigerators and hire more workers. This resulted, precisely
as Kennedy had calculated, in returning to the treasury more tax
revenue than the amount of the cut.
The cumbersome
federal apparatus must be overhauled; the careless, ceaseless spending
must be stopped; the piled-up accounts must be paid. Worse, yesterday's
extravagances must be paid out of tomorrow's bleak prospects. For
the money our government has borrowed belongs to those who loaned
it. This is money we have spent and now owe. The debt must be paid;
it cannot be wished away.
Cutting taxes,
wiping out waste, reforming government, should make the federal
apparatus more efficient, but it will really take thrift and industry
to get America going. We must work as hard, as inventively, as efficiently,
and as meticulously as do our toughest overseas competitors. We've
done it before; we can do it again. At the end of World war II,
we built an entire new nation that we called suburbia. We constructed
millions of homes with schools, churches and shopping malls to support
them. We laid a vast network of roads and pipelines
Certainly we
should now be able to repair our collapsing infrastructure, revitalize
our economy and prevent the anticipated future from happening. It
might take an Herculean national effort to turn things around, but
I believe we are capable of that effort. We must begin where we
are with what we have. We need to seek services we can perform,
goods we can produce, products we can sell. Each of us should be
able to find something productive to do. America can no longer afford
individuals who spend more than they make, take more than they produce,
and withhold their best efforts.
The future we're
striving to change for the better, after all, is our future.
Click
here to sign up for Meridian's FREE email updates.
© 2001 Meridian
Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
|
