Thoughts of Obama From Bama

Week 130: “Living On Borrowed Time”

Lookin' back at my hard luck days
I really do have to laugh
Workin' in a dive for twenty-six dollars
Spendin' it all on draft
We were hungry hard luck heroes
Tryin' just to stay alive
So we'd go down to the corner grocery
This is how we'd survive.

Who's gonna steal the peanut butter
I'll get a can of sardines
Runnin' up and down the aisles of the Mini-Mart
Stickin' food in our jeans
We never took more than we could eat
There was plenty left on the racks
We all swore if we ever got rich
We would pay the Mini-Mart back
Yes Sir, yes Sir
We would pay the Mini-Mart back.
“Peanut Butter Conspiracy”, Jimmy Buffett

Uncle Sammy is leveraged out the proverbial ying yang. Our Federal Government is literally in debt up to its irresponsible criminal eyeballs.

Deficit spending, borrowing from Peter to pay Paul; generational theft; living far beyond our means; biting off far more than we can chew has sure enough been SOP for our great nation almost since day one. Truth be told with the exception of our first two Chief Executives, Washington and Adams, who also had the benefit of fiscally responsible Congressional Delegations, most every other Administration and Congress has had no problem at all with conducting the Country’s business with borrowed or newly printed greenbacks.

President Andrew Jackson and the GOP majority Congress back in the 1990’s after decades of excessive Democrat spenders of other people’s money being two additional notable exceptions. The latter famously known for dragging “Saturday Night Bill” Clinton kicking and screaming to end Welfare as we knew it and to budget surpluses not seen in these parts for decades.

Our current Administration, the Socialist Obama regime, has borrowed, printed and spent more money than any government in the history of the civilized world. This gang of financial wizards have increased spending by almost 30%, achieved never seen before trillion dollar plus annual deficits, and added over four trillion dollars to our accumulated national debt in a record shattering two and half years.

To give this fiscal catastrophe some historical perspective federal spending has averaged about 20 percent of gross domestic product since WWII. Mr. Obama and his fellow Democrat Comrades have raised that to 24 or 25 percent.

Our national debt as a percentage of gross domestic product has increased from a manageable 40 percent in 2008 to 62 percent this year and an estimated 72 percent in 2012. It's headed to 90 percent a point when governments face fiscal collapse.

Many of our greatest statesmen, thinkers, political philosophers and thought leaders have eloquently remarked about the evils of big government, irresponsible spending, and the unsustainable accumulation of debt. The prophetic accuracy and relevance to current challenges of many of their observations is truly remarkable.

Consider the following:

Thomas Jefferson
• It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
• I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the
government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
• My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
• The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those
who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
Bob Hope
• A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it.
Ben Franklin
• Rather go to bed without dinner than to rise in debt.
• If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some.
Mark Twain
• People are much more willing to lend you books than bookcases.
• A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.
Will Rogers
• You could transfer Congress over to run Standard Oil or General Motors, and they would have both things bankrupt in two years.
• You can't break a man that don't borrow; he may not have anything, but Boy! he can look the World in the face and say, "I don't owe you Birds a nickel." You will say, (if everyone stops borrowing) what will all the Bankers do? I don't care what they do. Let 'em go to work, if there is any job any of them could earn a living at. Banking and After-Dinner Speaking are two of the most Non-essential industries we have in this country. I am ready to reform if they are.
• Borrowing money on what's called 'easy terms,' is a one-way ticket to the Poor House. If you think it ain't a Sucker Game, why is your Banker the richest man in your Town? Why is your Bank the biggest and finest building in your Town? Instead of passing Bills to make borrowing easy, if Congress had passed a Bill that no Person could borrow a cent of Money from any other person, they would have gone down in History as committing the greatest bit of Legislation in the World.
• Why don't somebody print the truth about our present economic situation? We spent six years of wild buying on credit -- everything under the sun, whether we needed it or not -- and now we are having to pay for 'em, and we are howling like a pet coon.
• This would be a great world to dance in if we didn't have to pay the fiddler
• Politics are receiving a lot of attention because we have nothing else to interest us. No nation in the history of the world was ever sitting as pretty. If we want anything, all we have to do is go and buy it on credit. So that leaves us without any economic problem whatever, except perhaps some day to have to pay for them. But we are certainly not thinking about that this early.
• If you got a dollar, soak it away, put it in a savings bank, bury it, do anything but spend it. Spending when we didn't have it put us where we are today. Saving when we've got it will get us back to where we was before we went cuckoo.
• There is two things that can disrupt business in this country. One is war and the other is a meeting of the Federal Reserve
Winston Churchill
• We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle

We don’t know if Mr. Buffett actually ever paid the Minnie Mart back or not. We do know Uncle Sammy won’t even put a dent in our massive national debt with Comrade Obama in the White House.

November 2012 can’t get here soon enough.

I am, “American by Birth and Southern by the Grace of God”

Ron W. Garikes