Posted On: Saturday - January 18th 2025 8:10AM MST
In Topics: Humor Economics Liberty/Libertarianism US Feral Government Socialism/Communism
I saw this ZeroHedge headline yesterday:
I know I have had a bad feeling about this "Quoth the Raven" guy from before, as he must have written something stupid. In this case, I see someone with the Libertarian point of view who has no idea of how much of a Welfare State the US is. One
Back in December, Peak Stupidity posted Will the DOGE save our economy? (short answer: NO) with a graph that explains* why budget cutting cannot replace austerity in a Welfare State. It IS austerity.
I remember the stories about cries from the people in Greece and such countries with half-assed semi-Latin-American economies. Their Welfare State is huge, so when any significant amount of the budget is cut, there is, by definition, austerity, with lower welfare payments and other grift being doled out, meaning lots of people feeling that financial pain. "No more austerity! Just save the economy!" "Whut?"
We're in the same boat as the Greeks... manned by the same Ben Hurs at the oars ... no, not like that. You can cut around the edges, DOGE guys. Take out OSHA for instance, and the country will become more prosperous just due to the freedom from onerous creativity-killing regulation alone, even if all the employees were still paid and given money to shoot pool all day. If you did quit paying them, that's still small-time cutting, though. If you're trying to make a serious dent in that $2,000,000,000,000 yearly deficit**, you've got to cut out some of the meat. That means Social Security - that 3rd rail, so don't use anything made of metal - and Medicaid.*** You do that, and you'll hear the cries about Austerity!! for the first time in this country.
It would be the first time you heard that here, because America has been borrowing and spending for the last 90+ years (starting with Roosevelt devaluing the dollar), and with nary a peep about it over in the 21st Century, almost a quarter of it having gone by. Our Feral Gov't considers decreases in the rates of increase of government programs to be "cuts". Real cuts in the discretionary budget - now only a small proportion of the spending - will put gov't employees out of work, a good thing in the long run, but with pain to be felt. The massive cuts needed to put a visible dent in a deficit, well, nobody wants to get into those.
Real budget cutting IS austerity, when you've gone full retard Socialist. Next time, if there is a next time, you don't get yourself into this position. Nevermore!, quoth the raven.
* The graph in that post was meant to display something else, the big increase in interest payment amount as part of the Federal expenditures. However, it also shows us where the rest of the big bulk of the money has been going.
** Cutting the deficit, unless it's to ZERO, means that debt is still going up! However, seriously cutting it would have a major psychological effect, as in, "we are approaching the abyss more slowly now".
*** Yes, the Offense budget is a big part too, so that's the place to start.
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