Reason.tv: Stop Spending Our Future!

April 8, 2009

Our economy is in crisis, and the government says that bold action is required.

So we're diving in head first to get things back on track.

But what are we diving into exactly?

Take a closer, detailed look at the massive, unprecedented federal intervention into our economy. The numbers behind the government's spending are simply huge, easily outstripping the New Deal, World War II, and more in inflation-adjusted dollars.

Ask yourself: Reckless spending is what got us into this mess. Is more spending really the answer?

For more information, visit stopspendingourfuture.org.

Approximately 2.40 minutes. Narrated by Nick Gillespie; sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, the Heritage Foundation, and Reason.tv.

Comments

tnomeralc|4.8.09 @ 3:03PM|#

Here where I live, things like spending do happen and I cannot comprehend with reason anymore. Those people in the seats seem to have thick faces to do it in front of the people.

|4.8.09 @ 3:38PM|#

Well done nick!!

squarooticus|4.8.09 @ 3:39PM|#

I no longer buy the meme that we're primarily impoverishing future generations by spending too much money now. The fact is that the market discounts the future: therefore, once enough of our creditors realize that their loans can be repaid only with inflated money, there will be a quick and severe correction in the exchange rate of the dollar.

The only reason this has not yet happened is that the dollar is currently used as the unofficial currency of the world, which means that there is still a large demand for dollars in order to settle trade. This will not be the case for long, as China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and others are pushing for a reserve currency that is not directly linked to the fiscal irresponsibility of the world's greatest debtor nation.

This is not just the next generation's problem, because it is very clear to anyone who looks at the numbers that tax increases in the future cannot possibly pay for present spending: this is also our problem today, as people who save their wealth in assets directly linked to the value of the dollar---bonds, corporations that sell primarily to Americans, dollars themselves---are going to have the purchasing power of those savings wiped out in short order whenever the correction comes.

Orange Line Special|4.8.09 @ 4:07PM|#

Helpful hint: being semi-transparent ain't working. Either completely cover things up, or just be completely transparent.

On an interesting sidenote, that page outranks Wikipedia for organization's name; perhaps the fact that they're one of the few sites that gets real links from WP helped.

Ed|4.8.09 @ 4:28PM|#

Are those figures from the past in adjusted dollars?

Alan Vanneman|4.8.09 @ 4:56PM|#

Reckless spending did not get us into this mess. Reckless business practices, based on the obviously fallacious assumption that housing prices would double every seven years, got us into this mess.

|4.8.09 @ 4:59PM|#

Are those figures from the past in adjusted dollars?

Yep.

Quote from the entry:

The numbers behind the government's spending are simply huge, easily outstripping the New Deal, World War II, and more in inflation-adjusted dollars.

engineer|4.8.09 @ 5:24PM|#

Alan Vanneman,
So artificially low interest rates and deficit spending, which historically have been linked to every major recession and depression, had nothing to do with it? Really?

JP|4.8.09 @ 5:45PM|#

The numbers are so big that they bring on despair.

Orange Line Special|4.8.09 @ 6:41PM|#

AFP is also "facilitating" something else: pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/75986

|4.8.09 @ 6:50PM|#

Alan,
Would not a housing bubble create more 'reckless spending'? People spent more than they had because they thought they'd just make out in the end when their house appreciated enough to bail them out.

Six o' one, half dozen of the other.

Paul|4.9.09 @ 12:36AM|#

Reckless spending did not get us into this mess. Reckless business practices, based on the obviously fallacious assumption that housing prices would double every seven years, got us into this mess.

Yes it did.

There were a ton of people who were willing to enter into reckless loans and the market rushed to meet that demand. The demand was partially created by private individuals desperate to get into the quaint tudor with hardwoods in the neighborhood that they couldn't afford, the rest of it was created by a Federal Government hell-bent to make sure everyone with two dollars in their pocket had a mortgage because hey, home ownership "builds the American Dream".

As the business interest saw this, they rushed to fill that need and leveraged themselves to the hilt-- spending money on loans that the borrowers could never afford.

It was spending in every sense of the word. You just have willfully decided that investing isn't spending. Investing becomes spending when the gamble doesn't pay off. That includes the investments private individuals made on their home loans. In the end, reckless borrowing and reckless spending are really the same thing. At the end of the day, you have debt that outweighs your ability to repay it.

See where I'm going with this?

|4.9.09 @ 1:20AM|#

As for our creditors. Of our debt, China owns 6%, Japan owns 5%, Social Security owns over 27%. When the time comes for China and Japan to sell our T-bills threatening our financial stability, we will print more money and buy the debt.

I will have been devalued yet again. I am always devalued by my sweet, protective government. Each time they cause inflation - the fruits of my labor are devalued. I am then devalued. How about you guys?

I have quit working. I will not pay te high taxes on earned income any more. Thanks to folks like me, the Government in its infinite wisdom will raise the Capital Gains tax to kill my joy once again.