1. Immediate deficit reduction will wipe out any hope of economic recovery: is her first point and she might be more accurate had she used the word “immediate” twice, the second time being just before “recovery.”
“When the government cuts spending,” she says, “it lays off workers and cancels orders for all sorts of goods and services that would generate income for companies in the private sector. Those companies, in turn, lay off workers, and the negative effects ripple through the economy.”
This is the standard pablum of speakers who argue against reducing military spending, but I have argued that the purpose of the military is to defend against foreign enemies, not to provide civilian jobs. Likewise, the function of our government is to govern, not to provide direct employment of the civilian labor force. In the first level of employment that Ms. Kramer applauds, where does the government get the money with which it pays the salaries of those workers? Right, it gets it from that second level of workers who are employed by businesses other than the government. Sooner or later, the private sector must be weaned off of the government teat, and the longer it takes for that to happen the harder that process becomes.
2. Taxes are at their lowest point in more than half a century, preventing investment in and the maintenance of America’s most basic resources: and on this one I agree entirely. Politicians on both sides have been pandering to the self indulgence of a lazy and greedy American public with endless and self destructive tax cuts and this fiscal irresponsibility has led to a position which becomes ever more painful in recovery. And still this campaign is one of even more tax cuts and a circular firing squad of blame for “overspending.”
3. Neither the status quo nor a voucher system will protect Medicare (or any other kind of health care) in the long run: which is another issue that actually is being discussed.
She’s probably right on the point she makes, but then she says that, “Medicare could be significantly protected by cutting out waste. Our health system is riddled with unnecessary tests and procedures…” and goes on to blame complexity and overuse for the cost of health care, which is utter nonsense. The cost of health care is due entirely to the for-profit model of health care delivery and the government’s unwillingness to regulate that industry to even the most miniscule degree. The monetary abuses within the health care delivery industry simply stagger the imagination, and the government is fully complicit in all of them.
4. The U.S. military is outrageously expensive and yet poorly tailored to the actual threats to U.S. national security: and the only argument I have with that is that there actually are no threats to U.S. national security.
5. The U.S. education system is what made this country prosperous in the twentieth century -- but no longer: a point which is sheer idiocy.
What made this country prosperous in the twentieth century was first and foremost that we were the last man standing after World War Two, and second that we developed a robust and effect labor movement which protected the well being of the American worker. Certainly the GI Bill and our education system made a difference and I would not argue that our education system has not deteriorated, but to think that we will regain prosperity by sending everyone to college is absurd.
Obama’s premise that “the jobs of the future require a college education” envisions a future in which everyone is sitting at a computer processing data and manipulating financial resources and where all the goods and services somehow magically happen without human intervention. Garbage picks itself up, foodstuffs pick themselves at farms and transport themselves to… Delusion.
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