We are now digging such a financial hole that we as a country may never get out. The level of indebtedness since 9-11 is crazy for this country. What is even more crazy is Bill Clinton totally balanced the budget and now look at us. The Republicans USED to be fiscally responsible but they've lost it now I think. Rand Paul is right! When you borrow too much money you might never bail yourself out.
In the early 1980s I thought the U.S. was going to go bankrupt then from the Viet Nam War. But, I was young and didn't understand that countries wanted to loan us money even when the Savings and Loan collapse happened and people were killing themselves right and left because their life savings was gone here in the U.S. That's why there are no savings and loans anymore. In 1980 I believed in burying non-perishable food in 50 gallon drums so my family would have food to eat then if the government collapsed from the Viet Nam war bankrupting us. Except for Bill Clinton who actually balanced the budget we have been borrowing our way forward since the Viet Nam war. But, as the cost of borrowing money rises there may be "NO WAY OUT" of debt for us as a nation eventually. We might already be there or Rand Paul wouldn't have shut the Government down to demonstrate the problem!
Then other countries in the 1980s loaned the U.S. money and bailed us out so we didn't go bankrupt from the Viet Nam war then?
But, what happens now if we become one of the foremost debter nations on earth?
This just won't work anymore. YOu have to be fiscally responsible like Rand Paul says or we lose the whole country to bankruptcy just like Osama Bin Laden Planned for us in 9-11.
This is the whole point of 9-11 was to BANKRUPT AMERICA!
Has OSAMA BIN LADEN posthumously succeeded because of the never ending war in Afghanistan and before that Iraq?
The Russians knew when to go and still it bankrupted the Soviet Union by staying in Afghanistan too long. No country has ever won a war with Afghanistan and stayed to dominate the country. Study history. No one has and likely no one ever will. It's not in the genes of Afghanistan to EVER be told what to do. So, why are we still there? It's a no win situation for ANY country down through history.
The Viet nam burned money and then the Arab Oil Embargo burned out money because the price of oil went up so high in the 1970s no one could afford to drive as much as before because the ratio between the minimum wage and the price of gasoline went crazy.
For example, in the 1960s I was making 3 times the minimum wage at age 16. Minimum wage was around a dollar and hour. But, Gasoline was about 17cents a Gallon. So, as a 16 year old I could buy more than 5 gallons of gas for an hour of work. And there were jobs galore for me from about age 15 on. So, at 16 I could afford to own my own car (from money I had already made) and drive 400 miles a weekend with friends or girlfriends or whatever then. Now Compare that to now. But, since I was making 3 times the minimum wage at age 16 working after school I could buy 15 gallons of gas per hour of work I put in. Compare that to now. The same with food or buying a car or buying clothes or anything else before the Arab Oil embargo. The first one was in 1973 when gas quadrupled in price here in the U.S.
begin quote from:
Analysis: Rand Paul is right
Rand Paul is right
(CNN)When
Rand Paul took control of the Senate floor just before 6 p.m. Eastern,
virtually every one of his Republican colleagues grimaced. Five years
ago, they would have cheered him.
Paul's
speech, which slowed attempts to pass a massive budget deal before the
government shuts down at midnight, was a savaging of his party -- a
party that appears to have turned 180 degrees from the deficit hawks of
the mid 2010s who insisted that government spending was ballooning out
of control and was crippling the country.
"When
the Democrats are in power, Republicans appear to be the conservative
party," Paul said at one point. "But when Republicans are in power, it
seems there is no conservative party. The hypocrisy hangs in the air and
chokes anyone with a sense of decency or intellectual honesty."
He is 100% right.
The
simple fact is that Republicans in the Obama era defined themselves
primarily as committed to reducing government spending and shrinking the
nation's debt. The ur-document of that age was Paul Ryan's budget, in
which he proudly touted the need to confront entitlement spending and
make the hard cuts necessary to keep the country solvent for the
foreseeable future.
"Our
debt is a threat to this country," Ryan said in a 2013 speech at the
Conservative Political Action Conference. "We have to tackle this
problem before it tackles us."
He
was far from alone. Republicans insisted that any spending legislation
-- even for disaster relief -- be paid for with budget offsets. Every
major Republican leader talked about debt and deficit relentlessly.
That
focus on deficit reduction and spending restraint bled into the 2016
primary as the top tier candidates -- including Paul -- championed it.
One candidate, however, did not.
That
candidate was Donald Trump, the self-proclaimed "king of debt." Trump
showed little care or concern for the issue that had animated the party
he was running to lead.
So cavalier was Trump about the deficit that Mitt Romney, the party's 2012 presidential nominee, lambasted him for it in a speech aimed at convincing Republicans to drop Trump.
"His
tax plan in combination with his refusal to reform entitlements and
honestly address spending would balloon the deficit and the national
debt," said Romney.
And then Trump
won. Not just the Republican primary, but the election. And suddenly his
priorities -- immigration, trade protectionism and a tax cut -- became
the party's principles. Curtailing spending and reducing debt went out
the window -- or at least way down the list of what the GOP cared about.
And Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and almost the entire
rest of the Republican Party -- sans Paul and a handful of House
conservatives -- went along for the ride.
Which
is how it came to pass that just before 6 p.m. Thursday, McConnell was
on the Senate floor pleading with his home-state colleague to drop his
push for a vote on an amendment that would maintain the current budget
caps. Paul's issue was a simple one: A two-year spending bill that would
increase the federal deficit by more than $300 billion was being rammed
through at the last minute -- and without any amendments being offered.
And he's right about that too.
The
natural result of our current style of governing -- lurching from
crisis to crisis -- is this sort of showdown. Paul is right that it is
absolutely ridiculous that a near-700-page piece of legislation that
senators got their hands on around midnight Wednesday should be passed
by midnight Thursday.
And yet, when
you are faced with the possibility of a second government shutdown in
the space of 17 days, passing this sort of legislation -- whether or not
it represents a massive U-turn on the very priorities your party touted
just a few years ago -- becomes your only option.
Which makes Paul either a principled hero or a misguided Don Quixote -- depending on where you stand.
"The
reason I'm here tonight is to put people on the spot," Paul said. "I
want people to feel uncomfortable. I want them to have to answer people
at home who said, 'How come you were against President Obama's deficits,
and then how come you're for Republican deficits?' "
Mission accomplished.
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