Barack Obama requests $50 billion in emergency funding from Congress

Source

If we want to be generous we could say this is the result of a fundamental philosophical difference between the President of the US and the leaders of a number of other major economies. On the other hand, you could say this is yet another example of a policy reminiscent of a debt-aholic seeking to cover outstanding (unpayable) bills by opening yet another bottomless pit of debt.

While this mind-boggling new request will doubtless face opposition is it actually any different from the policy of the previous administration? Is this actually going to be the policy until the debt counter runs out of digits yet again?

Does this latest move remind anyone else of the 'Deepwater Horizon situation?

—Man vs. the unstoppable forces of reality.

already posted

www.abovetopsecret.com...

There is something telling in the title of this article, as if the POTUS is asking Congress to continue funding emergencies. Politicians thrive on emergencies, it is their life blood, and why the keep creating so many. Emergencies, often synonymous with catastrophe's are the foundation of government expansion. The so called panics of 1873, 1893, and 1907 were the foundation for the Federal Reserve, which in 1913 was passed the same year as the 16th Amendment, which was also the same year the 17th Amendment was passed.

From 1913 to the present, The United States of America has engaged in unprecedented expansion. Some would argue that this expansion was good for the people, and yet...here we are.

The current administrations solutions to job creation is to first slow down the loss of public sector jobs, (according to the source article 84,000 public sector jobs have been lost), and presumably add more public sector jobs. The flaws in this policy are many. First of all, job creation is hardly the answer to an economic recovery. Job creation is the outcome of economic recovery not the solution. As long as most people believe that they are entitled to a job, rather than go into business for themselves, there will be no economic recovery. Secondly, public sector jobs do not produce wealth and can only exist through taxation.

Further, when in a situation where the vast majority of public institutions have not only failed the people but have presumed to bully the people, it is increasingly unlikely that support of an expanded public sector will fly with those people. Consider as just one example, the institution of public schools. Prior to 1840 there was no such thing as compulsory education, and what existed instead of a public school system were common schools. Similar to the current model of public education, common schools were funded by local taxes, and there was no tuition charged.

It is arguable that prior to 1840 the average person in the U.S. were among some of the most literate people in the world. Much of this literacy came from a high demand of biblical literacy, but to be certain, many Americans were indeed literate. Contrast that literacy with today's standard and we begin to see a serious problem. Beyond the common schools of early America there also grammar schools in larger cities where both Latin and Greek were taught, and for good reason. The English language is heavily founded upon both Latin and Greek and anyone who can speak these languages fluently today know full well how unnecessary a dictionary is.

Yet, even with a plethora of dictionaries available to the public, very few people have a clear understanding of the words they rely on. Yet just another example of what is wrong with the public education model of today. The model of the state owned and controlled education system is actually imported from Prussia, where that monarchy used the state owned and controlled education system to further their own political agenda, and today in the U.S. we have a public school system that places high value on teaching students the importance of "civil rights", while virtually ignoring the existence of inalienable rights.

The current public school systems have economic classes that unfailingly teach students how to file tax returns, and learn much of Marxist and Keynesian economic principles, but fail miserably in informing those learning how to file a tax return what made them liable for the so called income tax to begin with, and certainly have failed them on free market principles. Combine that with the increasing proclivity of public school teachers to demand that parents begin medicating their children under threat of Child Protective Services, or arresting and charging young children with crimes for doing no more than scribbling on a desk, (reportedly Shakespeare did this), or bringing a pocket knife to school.

More and more parents have begun homeschooling their children and even heroically battling the state in the courts for their fundamental right to do so. A movement to return to the common schools of your has resurfaced, and while these movements battle the deeply entrenched state owned and controlled education system, the administrative agencies known as police departments have continued to cross that thin blue line and place thugs and criminals in uniforms in order to further oppress the public. Agencies such as the DMV smugly assert that "driving is a privilege and not a right" as if they have authority to make such declarations, the FDA continues to intrude further and further into the public's lives by insisting only they can approve of what individuals consume for health and survival, the EPA has just recently been expanded to control carbon dioxide, which ironically, there was a time when the public school system actually taught the public that trees need carbon dioxide in order to survive.

The failures of the public sector are many and glaring, and the loss of 84,000 public sector jobs is just not enough. Either we the people will put a stop to this long steady march towards socialism or we will succumb to it. The choice is entirely ours.

He should have thought of that before bailing out Greece, Fannie and Freddie, GM..........

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


First a quick question: are you perhaps advocating the wholesale privatization of many of the institutions currently run by the state?


(Back to the more immediate issue: ) in pointing to the fact emergencies have been used in the past to justify predetermined changes you have highlighted a key question: where is all this supposed to take the economy of the US? There must be an end plan.

Taken on face value there's a new economics in the air: you no longer need a productive economy — you can now run a country on debt, state employment, and handouts. Businesses are closing, taxes declining, spending on the national budget increasing?.. The new economics has your answer.

Surely there must be more than a few in Congress who can see where all this will inevitably lead? Or are they perhaps truly bought & paid for, as some suggest?



[edit on 14/6/10 by pause4thought]

reply to post by pause4thought




Not sure if he does, but i do.

Consider the post office. I only use it for envelope mail. any real shipping is done Fed Ex/UPS. Most business contract a negotiated rate based on projected yield (like a hotel does).

The Post Office represents, in my opinion, a state run redundancy that keeps itself alive by delivering common parcel.

Schools are another thing. I have to spend quite a bit of time re-educating my child on what they learn in school, as the messages they often recieve are unAmerican (reference JPZ's post above for an exmaple, i believe). Get rid of property taxes. Small business gets a small amount of input into the product that local schools produce, yet they carry the largest tax burden in the community. There is something wrong with that picture, and it is unAmerican as well. The whole issue of the fact that public schools are now an institution is something that we could go on for days about.

Why is there welfare? If the government wants to give away money, it should be in exchange for work (at the very least). The people down at the DMV already are snotty to me....it might as well be someone who is uneducated and untrained. Lower cost, same result.

The whole system is messed up. I mean, you can stand back and look at it, and just drive yourself nuts finding the flaws and the non American policies and programs. It is no wonder our nation is in the condition it is. We never truly wean our populace.