Plans

View 698 Tuesday, October 25, 2011

If something can’t go on forever, it will stop. The US exponential growth in spending and deficits cannot go on forever.

The US budget system has a built in exponential rise in spending: that is, under the rules, any appropriation to any department that doesn’t include a rise is counted as a cut, and a freeze or actual decrease becomes for the lobbyists a “drastic cut” and generally “balancing the budget on the backs of the poor.”

Orange County sanitation workers earn an average of about $100,000 a year. That includes part time workers. That’s a bit high for public service employees in California but not outrageously so. That’s state and county, but it’s indicative. In general public service employees including federal have guaranteed jobs paying a good 25% more than they would earn in similar private employment subject to layoff.

Tax reforms are important, and both Cain and Perry have tax reform plans; but before the US will get out of this hole it has to stop spending money we don’t have. What I want to hear from the candidates is just what they will cut, not what they will do about taxes.

At least the candidates seem united in denouncing Dodd-Frank, ObamaCare, Sorbanes-Oxley, and much of the regulatory spate that has plagued us. Cutting regulations – freedom – is a more sure way out of this economic mess than adjusting taxes, and the most attractive part of Perry’s plan is that he wants to exploit American resources and move toward energy independence. Low cost energy and freedom will get us out of this economic hole, but not if we continue to spend more money than we take in. We’re not borrowing for the future. We’re spending like drunks.

If something cannot go on forever it will stop. But it can go on long enough that the stop comes too late. As in bleeding.

Ron Paul’s plan is the most drastic. http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/10/17/ron-pauls-economic-plan-cut-5-cabinet-agencies-cut-taxes-cut-presidents-pay/

None of the candidate plans will be adopted unchanged. All will have many adjustments. They are all moving in the right direction. And any of them is preferable to four more years of this.

Newt and the Next-in-Line Problem

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/10/newt_and_the_next_in_line_problem.html

"Of the remaining viable candidates, there is only one who is not a part of the establishment, has laid out a viable plan to rescue the country, is not intimidated by the mainstream media or the Democrat smear machine, is knowledgeable of how to get drastic changes through the congressional legislative meat grinder, is more than capable of overwhelming Barack Obama in a debate, is experienced in foreign affairs, has a record of conservative legislative accomplishments, and can articulate to the American people as to where he will take the country. It is time for the Republican primary voters to rediscover Newt Gingrich."

I thought this would entertain you. Certainly as I examine the flawed candidates, Newt has gone from my no possible way category to my consider category.

Gingrich’s flaws are mostly personal, and certainly no more severe than Cinton’s were. He’s generally still the smartest man in the room whatever room you’re in, and his conservatism is principled and founded on good historical knowledge. His major political flaw is a tendency to say things that he doesn’t mean and can’t really defend, but which seemed like a good idea at the time. In many cases they are ideas he hasn’t thought through.

This is a virtue in most circumstances, but it’s not a virtue when done in public. It’s one thing to be a Global Warming Skeptic who thinks there ought to be more conservative participation in the Climate Change debate; it’s quite another to participate in an Al Gore fund raising ad. That’s so far from a virtue as to raise suspicion of a temporary lapse of sanity. You don’t induce the Pelosi-Gore camp towards fair play by trying to set an example for them. That kind of negotiation only works within small communities, the sort of society that academia once was when everyone has a shared dedication to finding the truth. There is precious little of that in academia, less in American politics, and about zero in the world of international politics.

Newt Gingrich has many outstanding virtues.

“This day is called the feast of Crispian”

http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=27169

"Brandon reminds us that today is Saint Crispin’s Day and the anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 during the Hundred Years War and immortalized in Shakespeare’s “Henry V” who gave us the “Band of Brothers” speech."

Worth remembering.

Graves

I’ve been meaning to work these into an essay, but I haven’t. They are worth your attention. I’ve been saving them in open Firefox tabs, and I have to cut those way back since Firefox keeps crashing on me. You can’t keep a lot of tabs open for a long time. What’s needed is an automatic way to add a bunch of tabs into a pull down list attached to a bookmark-like tab but is for temporary bookmarks. Or maybe I just need to study the problem better.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/14/esa_amateurs_spot_near_earth_asteroid/

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=417361&c=1

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/64612.html

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/10/18/celebrated-redistributionists-discover-healthy-respect-for-private-property/

http://www.infowars.com/state-department-agitator-advising-occupy-movement/

http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=a08314c42670c972d435f9af0&id=9163420691&e=b825265d5a

http://www.aipnews.com/talk/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=19857 (hormesis)