Among the issues most commonly discussed are individuality, the rights of the individual, the limits of legitimate government, morality, history, economics, government policy, science, business, education, health care, energy, and man-made global warming evaluations. My posts are aimed at intelligent and rational individuals, whose comments are very welcome.

"No matter how vast your knowledge or how modest, it is your own mind that has to acquire it." Ayn Rand

"Observe that the 'haves' are those who have freedom, and that it is freedom that the 'have-nots' have not." Ayn Rand

"The virtue involved in helping those one loves is not 'selflessness' or 'sacrifice', but integrity." Ayn Rand

For "a human being, the question 'to be or not to be,' is the question 'to think or not to think.'" Ayn Rand

04 October 2013

13% Spending Reduction Is Called a Shutdown?

The media, even Fox News, is generally calling the 13% reduction in government spending a SHUTDOWN of the GOVERNMENT.  This is surely an exaggeration.  Perhaps in a society whose government-run and funded schools have long exaggerated student achievement with grade inflation, this is to be expected.  A society that has long inflated the ability of government to solve problems and do it much better than individuals can by managing their own lives, is bound to be terrified by a mere 13% reduction in government spending.

Of course life continues despite the Obama Regime paying federal employees to put up barriers and to wire those barriers together to keep veterans from approaching the WWII Memorial, which is not even attended by federal employees in routine times.  It is amazing to watch the pathetic efforts of this administration to convince the People that they should be terrified by a 13% reduction in government spending and the subsequent furloughs of some non-essential government employees.  Except, of course, those employees so essential for barricading the various facilities such as the WWII Memorial and the Grand Canyon which do not even require the attendance of federal employees.

It is even more pathetic that many people buy into these scare tactics by the power lusters who rule the USA.

The failure of the Senate to agree to a spending authorization coming from the House of Representatives to fund so-called discretionary funding, means only that the small part of government activities which are both discretionary and designated non-essential by the administration will not be available.  Discretionary spending is only 20% of actual government spending!  Weirdly, the constitutionally required provision of defense is classified by our insane government as discretionary spending, while all of the transfers of money from taxpayers to individuals is called mandatory spending.  Since defense spending and other security spending and Veterans Affairs spending are hardly being reduced despite the Democrat refusal to authorize it and the willingness of the House to so authorize it, the actual spending reduction is only about 13%.

Meanwhile, despite all of the scare mongering, the government continues to spend $2.5 trillion in the new fiscal year on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, disability payments, unemployment insurance, and the interest on the national debt.

The government is not shutdown.  The monster has not even been slimmed down.  This is like making the monster wait at most 45 minutes longer before dinner is served.  It is no big deal however angry the monster may get about not being able to fully indulge its all-devouring appetite.

2 comments:

Merjet said...

http://www.creators.com/opinion/thomas-sowell/who-shut-down-the-government.html

Thomas Sowell on the "shutdown."

Charles R. Anderson, Ph.D. said...

Hi Merlin,

Thanks for pointing out a really good Thomas Sowell commentary.

It is amazing that we live in a society most of whose academic and media commentators either do not understand these simple ideas or choose to misrepresent them to a largely inattentive and uninformed People.

It is good to hear from you.