It is this reporter’s opinion that we are in the midst of an economic downturn due to the slow-ending war in Iraq, rising inflation, and a failed foreign policy.
Meanwhile, we are obsessed with nonsense issues such as race, feminism, religion, and age. We are not asking the presidential candidates the right questions.
Our task for this year is to make sure that each presidential candidate is informed of the government’s plans for a North American Union (NAU), as well as secret immigration decisions that were made at Waco, Texas, which could account for the president’s questionable decisions on immigration and border problems.
If this democratic coup d’état takes place, it will be set in motion by the Council on Foreign Relations an elite political and business think tank, and a handful of Washington leftists led by Harvard trained Robert Alan Pastor.
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan suggests the current financial crisis rocking the markets and global economy could turn out to be the worst since World War II.
Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers tells us the present adverse impacts will be felt for the rest of this decade and beyond. Both of these financial experts demand stronger responses be made by our government.
The current recession is unlike any other in the past century. The American dollar used to be the de facto reserve currency of the world and the preferred global medium of exchange.
That has changed. Nations, companies, and individual investors are abandoning the dollar for the euro and other currencies.
We have lost the manufacturing base that enabled us to produce our way out of past recessions. We have gone from being the breadbasket of the world to being a net importer of food.
The predicted “cakewalk” in Iraq and Afghanistan has evolved into ever-expanding conflicts with constantly shifting objectives.
The original objectives of eliminating Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein have developed into a grandiose plan to transform the Middle East — to force democracy on Islamic countries at the point of a gun.
The Bush administration, with a bipartisan cooperation in Congress, has boosted spending from an already obscene $1.86 trillion annually to over $2 trillion in a single year, 2001 to 2002, and a predicted $3 trillion for 2008.
Alright, we ask, What can be done? Summers and Greenspan tell us to reject the poison that is killing us — more spending, looser credit, more debt, and more tax cuts without corresponding cuts in government spending.
Cutting taxes while increasing spending is suicidal. It means either going further into debt (printing mountains of money), inflation, or a combination of both.
The debate continues over the pullout of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan but it should be only the beginning of a long overdue removal of U.S. troops from dozens of countries all over the world.
In addition to 160,000 troops deployed in Iraq and another 26,000 in Afghanistan, we have more than 100,000 American troops stationed throughout the world including Germany, 59,000; Italy 10,000; England 10,000; Japan, 33,000; and South Korea, 27,000.
On top of this, we have an empire of more than 700 foreign bases in 130 countries. We have been closing military bases inside the United States in addition to bringing America’s troops home.
We are neglecting our porous borders. Now is the time to act. Here are the steps to take:
•Secure our borders and ports.
•Provide proper medical and rehabilitative care to our wounded veterans.
•Provide better pay, housing, education, and benefits to our military personnel and their families.
•Replenish and upgrade our material stockpiles and modernize our forces.
•Rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, our roads, highways, levees, bridges, airports, water and sewer systems, harbors, dams, canals, and locks.
These are immediate demands that need to be addressed. Foreign aid is not only unpopular and unconstitutional, but notoriously wasteful. It has been described as a program that takes from the poor in the rich countries and gives to the rich in the poor countries.
According to writer William F. Jasper, former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker has sounded the alarm about a coming fiscal tsunami posed by three main entitlement programs, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
These three entitlement programs account for 40 percent of the federal budget. And within the decade that bill is expected to rise to 51 percent as the baby boomers graduate into these programs.
The federal government has been spending your Social Security taxes taken from your paychecks and then replacing those dollars with federal bonds referred to as “trust funds.” Nonsense. There are no real funds there — only IOUs for future taxpayers.
Walker claims our government has made promises it cannot keep without huge tax increases. He says the federal government has been lying, cheating, stealing, and covering up on a scale rarely seen in history.
Coincidentally, Walker resigned his post March 13. Upon resigning, he appointed Gene Dodaro as acting comptroller general of the U.S. until the president can nominate and Senate confirm a successor from a list of candidates proposed by Congress.
Experts in finance say it’s time to act that the drastic moves required will offer temporary pain and chaos from the cuts but nothing compared to the pain and chaos if we fail to take the necessary measures.
Jasper also says the day of reckoning is approaching and the great danger is that too many Americans will fail to take corrective action needed because we have been lulled into inaction, either by the “prophets of boom,” who assert no corrective action is necessary, or the “prophets of doom” who claim no corrective action will help.
The experts we have quoted know better that the current crisis rocking the markets and global economy could in fact be the worst since World War II. It is time to listen to the experts.
This is one reporter’s opinion. We welcome yours.
Listen to George Putnam at www.CRNTALK.com.
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