Thursday, March 26, 2009

The Debt

While spending time with some Republican relatives yesterday (and we all have some), the subject turned to the BAILOUT! Eeek!

Look, I am a moderate Democrat. And basically, I want health care…universal for all. Everything else---open to discussion.

So, when my relatives were going off on all this government spending, I did see their point. I didn’t agree with the finer points of their indignation: Debt for the grandkids! (Didn’t Bush do that, too?), I don’t want to help people who can’t help themselves! (Not even the autistic?), Government is too big! (Is it?), etc. But, I do have a foreboding feeling about this bailout, too. I feel like Obama and friends will be happy to hand out money until the cows come home, or, until the cows don’t have any home to come home to if absolutely everything collapses under this Weimar-esque money printing scenario.

But then, the closest Republican relative of all said, “Well, if you take a trillion bucks and divide by 300, 000, 000 people,” (I calculated it), “Then if everyone just pays $3,333.00 we can pay it off. It doesn’t seem that hard to pay that off.”

So, even the Republicans had different points of view about all this.

Of course, not everyone can afford to pay off $3,333.00 so it won’t happen that way…but rich people and businesses could pull a bigger load of it. And it could be done. (Obama’s plan, basically.)

Money.

Handing out cash like candy freaks me out. It makes me want to pull in the reigns.

But it is hard to understand the Republican cry against big government and huge spending when that is exactly what George Bush was up to. Why when our man does the same thing is it suddenly criminal?

It seems to me that Republicans are cool with enormous amounts of money spent on war but not on anything else.

Or something.

Or Democrats simply make them nauseous.

But I have to agree with their fear about this spending a little bit. It seems wildly monstrous.

I am a math man. Just show me the math---get on television, and show me the math of all this. I’ll even swallow projections. And then, we’ll just do it.

4 comments:

Todd HellsKitchen said...

I spend as little time with the Republican relatives as possible... Especially when they start talking politics... The party is immediately over...

40licious said...

We are so capitalist until we become too much so, and then everyone wants to tip it back to socialism. This country is too big. The theory now is that any group over 150 simply cannot function well. I agree. I can think of about 50 other people I'd like to come with me, and am taking applications for the other 99.

Dan said...

You gotta consider the cost of not taking action. Spend money now, get an energy policy that won't keep us a the whim of lunatics and having to build a giant fan to send our greenhouse gases to Mars. Spend some coin on health care, or in a few years a copay for a colonscopy will be the real pain in the ass.

Enough with those short-sighted Republican relatives. Their quick war that won't end and their fiscally conservative spending we have to pick up the tab on.

Rebecca Waring said...

Virtually all of the current 10 trillion national debt was incurred during Republican administrations. And mostly spent on defense. They have absolutely NO credence when it comes to fiscal responsibility. And think what the world would be like if we had spent it on healthcare and the environment? We are certainly hemorraghing money and I would like to see Obama give me some kind of model to show how and when we will pay down this debt.