Please, Shut It Down

Here's a writer who says the obvious - that nothing is changing in Washington.  Again they're going to have to either raise the debt ceiling or they say they'll have to default on the debt.  Nope.  Another option is to shut down the parts of the government that we don't need.

 

Here are some of Mr. Vance's suggestions:

There is only one solution to the dilemma faced by the federal government over its inability to borrow more money. Shut it down!

 

According to economist Robert Higgs, true U.S. defense spending is over $1 trillion dollars a year. The United States spends more on defense than the rest of the world combined. We subsidize the defense of Europe, Japan, and South Korea. We have over 1,000 foreign military bases and station troops in over 150 countries. Much of what passes for defense spending has no recognizable connection to U.S. security. Since maintaining a strong national defense has nothing to do with maintaining a strong offense in every corner of the globe, the U.S. empire should be shut down.

 

When the government failed on 9/11 to protect the country, Congress responded by creating a new federal department of Homeland Security. But since we already have a Department of Defense, and the Department of Homeland Security through its TSA goons has become a menace to society, the airlines, like any other business, should provide their own screening and security and the Department of Homeland Security should be shut down.

 

The war on drugs drains $40 billion a year from the U.S. treasury. It has destroyed financial privacy, eroded civil liberties, swelled prison populations, made law-abiding Americans into criminals, failed to reduce drug use, and ruined more lives than drugs themselves. The war on drugs should be shut down.

 

The federal government provides some form of assistance to over 150 countries. Foreign aid loots the American taxpayers and lines the pockets of corrupt foreign regimes. Billions and billions of dollars have been dolled out since World War II. And with poverty, unemployment, and crumbling infrastructure here in the United States, it doesn’t even make any sense for the U.S. government to send taxpayer money overseas. Spending on foreign aid should be shut down.

 

The U.S. pays 22 percent of the regular operating budget of the United Nations and 27 percent of the peacekeeping budget. Why? And then there is the money that U.S. taxpayers are forced to give the World Bank and the IMF. Spending on these globalist organizations should be shut down.

 

The federal government owns over 650 million acres of land in the United States. The government owns land in all fifty states, with ownership exceeding 50 percent in some states. All federal land should be sold or turned over to the states and the Department of the Interior should be shut down.

 

The federal government created the Department of Education in 1979 even though every state already had its own Department of Education. And even aside from that bloated bureaucracy, there is government spending on education via the National School Lunch Act, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act; Pell Grants, research grants to colleges, and federal student loans. And since the Constitution is silent on the federal government’s authority to spend one dime on education, spending on education should be shut down.

 

Click here to read more:  Shut It Down

 

 

 

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He's right.  In homes across America, there have had to be cuts.  No one can afford to keep spending more than they bring in.  Eventually, there is no more credit.  And that's what the U.S. is facing, whether we like to hear that or not.

 

At home if we need to make cuts, we find ways.  I've seen what friends, relatives and neighbors have done.

 

Americans have cancelled cable TV.  Some have gone back to the cheaper dial-up connections and some now use the library for internet use.  Some have gone back to having only one vehicle and have had to adjust schedules to make sure mom and dad both can get to work using that one car.

 

Ask restaurant owners.  Many Americans have stopped eating out and others have cut back a lot.  Starbucks all over the country have closed down because Americans realized they couldn't afford those designer cups of coffee any more.

 

Don't let the politicians fool you into thinking that budgeting in the government is any different than doing so in business or at home.  The only difference is the amount of money, not the way things are done.

 

There are some politicians and some economists who are being honest about how bad is our economic situation.  Others skip through DC singing, "La, la, la....everything is wonderful...." as if saying that makes it so.  It doesn't and it's time for Americans to wake up and realize that we cannot continue down the road the president and Congress have chosen for us.

 

Some of us are awake and have been.  Some of us have been preparing for the worst.  Some of us realize that if the economy tanks like some predict, those who have not prepared are going to be mighty angry at those who have.  Redistribution of wealth?  They'll want their piece of the foods some have stored away and of the gardens some have planted.

 

I truly believe that will happen.  I saw how people can get when we were without power for over a week a few years ago when the hurricane came through the Cincinnati area.  That one guy who had a generator was first praised, then envied.  And if we had gone without power a few more days, I'm certain that some of my neighbors would have stormed his house and insisted that he "share his wealth."  They threatened to do so.

 

Imagine that attitude magnified a hundredfold or a thousandfold.  That's what I expect from Americans who cannot think for themselves, cannot do for themselves, who rely on the government for everything.

 

So rather than coming to that point, rather than having a total collapse of our government, we need to insist that they start cutting and cutting big and now.

 

Unfortunately, some people still have their heads in the sand and don't have a clue how bad things are today and how bad they could get.

 

As Vance concludes in his article above:

 

The best thing that could ever happen to the people of the United States would be that the majority of the functions of the federal government were shut down, and shut down permanently. For as Jefferson said: "The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first."