Democratic Party, the party of fiscal responsibility

I've never known martin to be uninformed. Dismissive of information that he disgrees with, for sure. This is trait many good debaters have. Arrogantly self-centered contradictory pronouncements are martins hallmark, of course. Perhaps these tendencies are being mistaken for uninformed opinions.

I also don't find that he misunderstands much. martin refuses to accept clear and obvious facts from time to time, but he understands them quite well. martin also has a tendency to pull ones chain occasionally. And I have observed that often a martin cynical derision will, shall we say . . . pass unnoticed by some. One man's impudence is another man's misunderstanding.

 

Apples and oranges. An individual can make a decision to borrow money in order to buy a house over time. It is good that he can do this, but his house will cost him twice what it is worth. It is a price he has decided is worth paying in order to get a house right now. Why? Because he did not have the cash to pay for the house outright. If he had that cash available to spend, it would be waste for him to pay interest. Sometimes an individual can make more with his cash on an investment, so borrowing the mortgage at a lower interest may save him money. This is decided on a case by case basis by the citizen.

The government, on the other hand, is funded by tax dollars which the public does not want wasted. The government is not borrowing cheap money to buy an obvious asset like a house and investing its cash elsewhere for better profit. It is instead underfunding the projects that it approves and operates and it is borrowing money to cover the shortfall. It is putting off payments on the principal indefinitely. We are borrowing money in order to pay vast interest paymentson earlier loans, which are not being paid off in a timely manner.

Paying interest at such levels is a waste for a government which should be raising enough taxes on an annual basis to pay for the programs that are needed. Taxes are a natural brake on the tendency of politicians to spend too much. If they are required to cover each expenditure with real tax income, they will more reasonable about how they spend the money. And the taxpayers know their taxes are being spent only on the programs they receive, not in wasted interest payments.

The Bank of China is the largest foreign buyer of US Treasury Bonds. this practice hurts the US economy and strengthens our main competitor. The US should maintain a much smaller national debt as a policy. It is neccessary only as a flexible cushion between the inflexibility of the tax income and the inflexibility of real expenses. Borrowing power should be a tool to enable quick action on short-term needs. Not as a political strategy to spend money we don't have right now and let some future politicians worry about the fallout later. Alan Greenspan predicts higher future taxes and lower standard of living for future Americans because of the national debt.