Bust
By Mitch Berg
Via email – the speech Barack Obama should give, but probably never will:
My fellow Americans:
I speak today to my people – the Baby Boomers – because we have a lot to answer for.
The WWII generation is rightly known as The Greatest Generation. Young people put off college, marriage and families to spend years tramping around the world and dying in far-off Hell-holes. Their efforts brought down two empires and brought freedom to future generations worldwide. Then they came home and built the greatest wealth-generating economy the world has ever seen.
We, their children, squandered it all. We were so full of ourselves, so sure of the nobility of our goals, so confident that our wisdom exceeded the ages, that we tore down everything they had built through hard work and sacrifice and replaced it with entitlements.
Now those same entitlements threaten to bankrupt our country. We need to grow up. Right now.
I’m asking Congress to cut government spending for everything that isn’t specifically listed in the Constitution as being the job of the federal government. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, transfer payments and subsidies of every kind – all gone. Naturally, since the federal government no longer spends that money, taxes should go down. What government no longer does, people will have to learn to do for themselves, just as our parents did.
This will be hard. It’s hard to give up the gravy train. There will be sob stories everywhere. But if we don’t suck it up now, there will be even more sob stories later. The Greatest Generation looked world-wide disaster in the face and charged in to fix it. Can we do less?
Goodnight, and may God bless us all.
To be fair, he’s really the third president who should have given this one…
September 9th, 2009 at 9:24 am
This is me in the Amen Corner, saying, “Amen! Amen! Amen!”
September 9th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Are we “the Greatest Degeneration?” Maybe not. People are pretty much people, regardless of the time they live in. Those who lived through the 1930s and 40s, and came back from the war to build a new world and birth a new generation in the 50s and 60s, all overcame hardship and adversity and realized prosperity and we are justifiably grateful.
But they also didn’t have a lot of choice.
Today we celebrate and honor their mindset to do what had to be done, but in doing so perhaps we sell short our own capacity to do the same. Given the opportunity, I think that past generation — faced with economic collapse and a global thirst for totalitarianism — would have just as soon let that cup pass them by. That option, of course, was not granted them and they knew it. Perhaps the greatest difference between their generation and ours is that today we think such a choice exists.
They grew up with cash on the barrelhead and had witnessed what financial speculation and excess led to. The only thing they deferred was gratification as they scrounged to support their families or slogged toward Germany. Yet the generation that couldn’t say “No” to its fate gave birth to the generation that apparently can’t say “No” to anything.
You can’t blame our forbears for having suffered much and desiring that their children not know the fear, hunger and torment that they endured. Out of that love, perhaps, it was natural to have a vision of raising up a generation that would know no limits…and one, unfortunately, that also knows no “No.” Our generation defers no gratification, only the payments, and won’t the next generation be thankful?
To be honest, the Greatest Generation also voted repeatedly for the New Deal, the ancestor of today’s stimulus package — yet they were likely the first ones to come up with the analogy of trying to increase the amount of water in a swimming pool by hauling buckets from the deep end and pouring them into the shallow end. They were human, capable of taking what looks like an easy way out but also quite capable, when pressed, to digging deep within themselves to persevere through hardship and work for something better and bigger than themselves.
We, too, are human and even with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement we are capable of the same inner reserves and faith. Like our parents and grandparents, we may not willingly seek out adversity, but we shouldn’t run from it either. We can meet it, defeat it, and give the next generations stories to tell rather than debts to pay.
September 9th, 2009 at 10:01 am
Always remember- the so-called “Greatest Generation” is the one that raised the baby-boomers (oh, and sold out eastern Europe and much of Asia to the Stalinists).
September 9th, 2009 at 10:09 am
Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, transfer payments and subsidies of every kind – all gone.
First, baby boomers didn’t start entering the body politic until the 1980s so lets lay the blame for this where it belongs on the Greatest Generation who brought us not only the above mentioned sins but also gave us Employer paid health insurance (if its really such a good idea shouldn’t the employer also be required to buy our car insurance, our house insurance, our life insurance,etc all with the same “one size fits all” disposition), unionized government workers, and a higher education system infested with marxists (who do you think indoctrinated the baby boomers).
Second, you can’t oppose “death panels” (i.e. government run Case Management) and not see where this will lead — 40 million people who suddenly need to be back in the workforce or quietly led to the nearest ice floe.
Bush wanting to restructure SS so that in 2 or 3 generations we could do witout was a good idea, what you’re suggesting is just perfidy.
September 9th, 2009 at 10:13 am
BP,
Actually, the people who were 18-30 years old in 1945 didn’t do a lot of policy-setting; they just did the fighting and the building.
As to raising the baby boomers? Night puts it well – and echoes what Steven Ambrose said at the end of Citizen Soldiers; they didn’t want their kids to go through what they had; they largely succeeded, for better or worse. Mostly better.
September 9th, 2009 at 11:17 am
This would be the speech given if instead of Obama, we’d elected Walter Williams to the Presidency. I don’t expect to hear it out of any mainstream politician of either party. You’d be kicking manure on the graves of too many of their buddies who set up the whole feedlot we now call DC.
September 9th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Kel, good point….why doesn’t my employer pay for my car insurance? And if car insurance was like health insurance, they would cover oil changes and other non-repairs (like eye insurance buys me free glasses and contacts). And every time I thought maybe something was wrong with my car, even if there isn’t, I could go in and get a free review (like those who go to the doctor evertime they get a runny nose).
September 9th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Teh headline was misleading. I thought it was going to be about Amy Klobuchar.
September 9th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
(like eye insurance buys me free glasses and contacts)
Not free Chuck not free! a std pair of non-designer wire rim glasses cost
September 9th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
(like eye insurance buys me free glasses and contacts)
Not free Chuck not free! a std pair of non-designer wire rim glasses cost under $40 to grind, assemble and deliver to you, but your insurance company will likely pay $100 – $300 to the vendor. Ins co knows you aren’t likely to get more than a couple pair every other year or so – think of it as a loss leader that keeps you filling out the questionnaires with “Yes I’m very happy with the insurance I have”.
When you show up with congestive heart failure or MS or colon cancer and you’ve gone a couple rounds with the Case Management Team you won’t be writing glowing reviews for your ins policy/company
September 9th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Actually, the people who were 18-30 years old in 1945 didn’t do a lot of policy-setting; they just did the fighting and the building.
Fair enough, Mitch, but if they want to claim credit for everything good that came from (belatedly) fighting in WWII, they might as well take responsibility for all the hideously crappy decisions that were made in its aftermath.
they didn’t want their kids to go through what they had; they largely succeeded, for better or worse. Mostly better.
I agree that the hippie SLA Weather-people get a wholly disproportionate share of attention, and that Reagan would certainly not have been elected if they constituted most of the ’60s generation.
September 9th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Speaking of speeches, here’s the one I want to hear — again. From the same person. Want to place odds on it being sent down the memory hole?
“Mr. President, I rise today to talk about America’s debt problem.
The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.
Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion. That is “trillion” with a “T.” That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President’s budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion.
Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter. Here is why: This year, the Federal Government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we’ll spend on Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans benefits combined. It is more money in one year than we are likely to spend to rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America.
And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on.
Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America’s priorities. Instead, interest payments are a significant tax on all Americans–a debt tax that Washington doesn’t want to talk about. If Washington were serious about honest tax relief in this country, we would see an effort to reduce our national debt by returning to responsible fiscal policies.
But we are not doing that. Despite repeated efforts by Senators CONRAD and FEINGOLD, the Senate continues to reject a return to the commonsense Pay-go rules that used to apply. Previously, Pay-go rules applied both to increases in mandatory spending and to tax cuts. The Senate had to abide by the commonsense budgeting principle of balancing expenses and revenues. Unfortunately, the principle was abandoned, and now the demands of budget discipline apply only to spending.
As a result, tax breaks have not been paid for by reductions in Federal spending, and thus the only way to pay for them has been to increase our deficit to historically high levels and borrow more and more money. Now we have to pay for those tax breaks plus the cost of borrowing for them. Instead of reducing the deficit, as some people claimed, the fiscal policies of this administration and its allies in Congress will add more than $600 million in debt for each of the next 5 years. That is why I will once again cosponsor the Pay-go amendment and continue to hope that my colleagues will return to a smart rule that has worked in the past and can work again.
Our debt also matters internationally. My friend, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, likes to remind us that it took 42 Presidents 224 years to run up only $1 trillion of foreign-held debt. This administration did more than that in just 5 years. Now, there is nothing wrong with borrowing from foreign countries. But we must remember that the more we depend on foreign nations to lend us money, the more our economic security is tied to the whims of foreign leaders whose interests might not be aligned with ours.
Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that “the buck stops here.” Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.
I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.”
September 9th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Ok, I’d even take this speech, although the speaker is a known crank who’ll shoot his foot at any opportunity.
“This is a two-way street. The tsunami of debt created by the policies of this administration has to go somewhere. China is one of the major purchasers of that debt. Japan, Great Britain, and others have major holdings, too. In the short term, that has soaked up a lot of our bonds, and helped to keep interest rates down. That is a good thing.
However, that has kept the Chinese currency artificially low, and ours artificially high. So they can sell their products at a discount, and our exports are more expensive. That is a bad thing.
Our trade deficit was a record $726 billion last year; $202 billion of that was our trade deficit with China alone.
But as the rest of the world copes with the waves of U.S. debt, we are now all in the same leaky boat. There is just so much of our debt other nations want to hold. The more of it they accumulate, the closer we are to the day when they will not want any more.
When that happens, slowly or rapidly, our interest rates will go up, the value of their U.S. bonds will drop, and we will all have big problems. We need both more awareness, and more understanding, of this fundamental threat to our economic well being and the global economy.
But the roots of that threat lie in the disastrous policies of this administration.
Because this massive accumulation of debt was predicted, because it was foreseeable, because it was unnecessary, because it was the result of willful and reckless disregard for the warnings that were given and for the fundamentals of economic management, I am voting against the debt limit increase.”
September 9th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Debt limits. They were for them before they were against them.