While far-afield from our usual efforts in New Mexico, the recent European elections have direct relevance to our current situation here in America. Why? The media have played up the “fact,” much like they did here, that spending was being “slashed” and that people are upset about it.
The reality, as Veronique de Rugy points out, is that spending in Europe has continued to grow. Does that sound familiar (remember the so-called “Supercommittee” and its alleged cuts).
In Europe, taxes were raised, but spending wasn’t cut. Thankfully, conservatives here like Grover Norquist aren’t going to fall for that one. Also, it just shows how pathetic politicians are when it comes to actually cutting spending. They just can’t bring themselves to do it.
The easiest way to get Europe and America back on a pro-growth trajectory is to massively deregulate our economies. Unfortunately, the political will to do that seems limited as well.
Or, instead of regulating the economy towards socialism, we redirect the regulation to actually (for once) promote growth, wealth creation and capitalism. Politicians will never deregulate on their own. We need to change out the politicians with people who will get together and change the regulations to promote freedom instead of socialism.
It’s unfortunate, but actually cutting spending at the Federal level is almost impossible to do! The “budget system” they use in Washington virtually never cuts anything. They might reduce the increase, but never actually cut.
Until they get rid of the absurd “Baseline Budget” system, which automatically builds in spending increases, not much will be accomplished. But, if we rely on the current bunch of politicians to get rid of this budget system it simply won’t happen!
Well-said. “Baseline budgeting” simply guarantees that the corrupt government never has to actually cut back. It is always assumed that it has a right to what it stole last year and must steal more this year.