Unsustainable Government

There is a simple graphic prepared by the White House Office of Management and Budget which speaks volumes about our problems. (click to enlarge) (thanks to tywkiwdbi.com)

I have three problems with ObamaBucks and his effort to “fundamentally transform America”

• WE CAN”T AFFORD IT. Even if I agreed with the President’s vision of America, and there are elements of some of his programs which may be laudable, we cannot afford the cost at this time and we are awash in debt that we cannot pay. Interest payments alone on the debt exceed 250 billion dollars (almost matching all funding for Medicaid) – and is sensitive to the potential changes in interest rates.
• UNPREDICTABILITY. The President’s policies for transformation have made the performance of the economy unpredictable. Business will not make the necessary investments in the economy needed to reverse the recession when nobody knows what the government will do next. The President has ignored laws and rules and his actions are seen as leading to inevitable undefined increases in taxes, inflation and interest rates . Business needs to plan – to know the costs and foresee the benefits of their decisions. Discussed in more detail <here>
• OPPORTUNITY COST. The function of government (in addition to lying, cheating and stealing) is allocation of resources according to some set of shared values. The President’s “transformation” will suck all the money out of the system. Just as our government debt instruments crowd out private business efforts to find money to borrow, the government programs for social engineering take dollars out of the budget needed for real government obligations.

The collapse of the I-35 river bridge in Minneapolis in 2007 is an indication of the catastrophe that is coming soon to an economy near you in the negligent lack of infrastructure maintenance that is endemic at all levels of government because of budget constraints. Our highways, bridges, dams, railroads, sewer lines, water systems and other essential examples of government services are past the point of collapse – all systems exceeding their designed 50 year life. In 1990 the government inspectors tagged the I-35 bridge as “structurally deficient” along with 75,000 other US bridges by the time of the collapse in 2007. Business and government always pay a price for deferred maintenance – and this bill is coming due soon.

In my view, the tyranny of the Administration and the Congressional Leadership violates the limited government mandates of the Constitution and upsets the delicate system of checks and balances built into our system of government by the Founders.

Wake up America.