Who, according to state and federal constitutions, has ULTIMATE (Bottom Line) authority and responsibility for spending, taxes and debt ... whether it's done well or poorly? Hint: it is NOT The People, governors OR the president! It is the Senate and House at state and federal levels, period!
When we have an unacceptable and/or unsustainable level of spending, IT IS NOT We The People who DID that. It's ALL the result of legislation and policies those in government created.
When we have an unacceptable and/or unsustainable level of debt, IT IS NOT We The People who DID that. It's ALL the result of legislation and policies those in government created.
When we have an unacceptable and/or unsustainable level of taxation, IT IS NOT We The People who DID that. It's ALL the result of legislation and policies those in government created.
AND IT IS ==>> NOT <<== the fault of those who benefitted from any 'government largesse' resulting from legislation. It ==>> IS <<== TOTALLY the fault of those in government who created the legislation and then usually ALSO mismanaged the resulting programs and policies. It ==>> IS <<== TOTALLY the fault of those in government who, KNOWING(!) that programs were going to cause fiscal/economic problems years or even decades(!) in advance, DID NOTHING OR TOO LITTLE TO FIX THE PROBLEMS. We The People RARELY IF EVER CAUSE THESE PROBLEMS but we are ==>> ALWAYS <<== the ones who MUST pay for the errors, arrogance and fundamental incompetence of those we entrust with the responsibility to take care of our governance; to whom we give the capability to do such awful harm to us.
I DO NOT accept the premise that they should be blindly excused because of their 'good intentions' because that's not an acceptable excuse for such gross fiscal ignorance and incompetence. There is NO acceptable excuse for not fixing these programs at the first hint of trouble. It is NOT an excuse for failing to fix it correctly and completely on their FIRST attempt to do so.
Is there room for excusing on the basis of good intentions? Some room, yes. For example, Social Security was well intended. But, legislatures IMMEDIATELY began mismanaging it by spending it all, rather than holding it in TRUST as they PROMISED! To make matters worse, they LIED to us who only lately have been finding out they spent it all, including all the surpluses that existed over the past 60 years! In addition, when they began to see this train wreck coming some 20 to 30 years(!) ago (they knew that long that this baby boom problem was coming ... they're not stupid!), they did little to fix it and basically kicked the can down the road for future legislatures to fix. ONLY the initial Social Security legislation gets a pass for good intentions. What they did to screw it up between then and now is nothing less than incompetence and complete failure to be responsible with it. And then they lied about what they were doing. Gads!
And what we're seeing they've done are not simply 'mistakes' unless we're to assume they're stupid. I prefer to think of all those lawyer and other professional types as being pretty smart. Most are college educated, many with multiple and highly technical degrees. If they're not smart enough to have figured out what problems THEY(!) were causing, then they've proven(!) they were incompetent to create and/or manage the programs that are bankrupting our country. If the programs were so complicated they couldn't be managed properly, they shouldn't have been created in the first place. There is nowhere for them to hide on this. They've been screwing these programs up for years.
Not only did they not fix problems that were coming, they LIED to us about what they were or were not doing about them. Lying about the extent to which their so-called fixes would actually fix the problems. Again, I don't buy the argument that they truly believed they were 'fixing' them. To accept that REQUIRES(!) us to accept they were stupid. I don't believe that. They've proven(!) themselves to have been at least incompetent however.
Pretty much every big 'social' program they've created has been mishandled to an astounding degree. Social Security. Medicare. Medicaid. Sub-Prime mortgage program. Various welfare programs in general. The first three are all about to bankrupt the country. The fourth one collapsed the housing and mortgage industries which in turn caused a serious recession. By the way, those programs are all pretty much the doing of the Democratic party, both in their creation and mismanagement. That's undeniably, factually true is it not? If not, how not? We ought to be mature/grownup about the reality of this because to ignore this truth will cause us not to fix the problems properly and to cause us to allow it (good intentions gone wrong and run amok) to happen again. We need to begin drilling down to the root of these kinds of problems. Not doing that will cause us to come up with fixes that don't really fix them. We can no longer afford to not fix things well the first time, can we?
Yes, it is Democrats who are mostly to blame for the current recession for at least two reasons. Their sub-prime mortgage program started out, like most things liberal/progressive, well-intended. First, Democrats mismanaged it and fought regulation of the program and of Fannie and Freddie. In fact, President Clinton required Fannie and Freddy to make half their mortgage holdings be this sub-prime type. The ONLY way F&F could do that is to loosen the qualification requirements ... no/little money down, no assessment of ability to pay it back, bad credit history's okay. Yes, F&F caused the sub-prime mess but it's because they had to ignore bad credit in order to do what Clinton required. Then Democrats fought regulation that even Bush attempted. Only one month before the sub-prime collapse bankrupted F&F, Barney Frank, the chairman of the committee responsible for F&F oversight, said F&F were sound and in NO danger of collapsing the way they did only a month later. He's a real visionary isn't he? Need any more proof these guys don't know what they're doing? Need any more proof that, based on actual history, we can COUNT ON these guys to mismanage big government/social programs? To think otherwise is to ignore actual history and the facts.
To blame Republicans for much of the failed programs OR mismanagement of them is erroneous to an extreme degree. After all, Democrats have held a veto-proof majority in one or both houses for 30 of the past 60 years while Republicans have done so ZERO times. Democrats, by virtue of creating all of those 'social' programs AND having the most control of these programs (via so much veto-proof control), clearly are the most at fault in allowing this to happen to our country.
As for ANY president's responsibility, remember that it is the legislature that (constitutionally!) has the most authority and responsibility over spending, taxes and debt. They legislatively control ALL those things. The president can only propose and veto. The legislature doesn't have to do what he proposes and they have the ability to override any of his vetoes. Bottom line: the legislature is responsible for both success AND failure in these areas, period, not the president.
Everybody makes mistakes. But patterns of repeated and severe screwups (severe enough to potentially collapse our entire economy) are inexcusable and should tell us something about the nature of our legislatures and the people we place therein. They've EARNED our complete distrust, have they not? They, and no one else, have for decades utterly failed in their fundamental (constitutional!) fiscal responsibilities. Bankruptcy and so much loss of freedom is too high a price for this progressive social engineering.
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