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Jewish World Review Dec. 23, 2010/ 16 Teves, 5771 Getting America Back On Track By Arnold Ahlert
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
No doubt, at this particular time of year, many Americans are taking stock in both their personal lives and the country itself. In both cases, most of the focus will be on how we can improve both ourselves and the nation at large. Personal improvement is just that, personal, and will take many forms, all of which are beyond anyone else's control, save the individual involved. The country, however is another story. There are three major issues which must be addressed if America is to flourish once again. To wit:
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The housing market must be allowed to find a bottom. Every stimulus package our clueless leaders in Washington, D.C. have engaged in centers around the idea that the American public must be encouraged to spend more money. Perhaps nothing gives more credence to the charge that our ruling class is out of touch with the concerns of ordinary Americans than the fact that people who are either underwater on, or have no idea of the true value of, the single largest investment they've made, are in any mood to spend money.
In a sane society, market forces would be allowed to work: those who are no longer making mortgage payments would be foreclosed on; those who are underwater, but can afford to honor their mortgage agreements would continue doing so; and government would get out of the way and let nature take its course, however painful that would be for some Americans.
Unfortunately, we don't live in a sane society. We live in one where "victims" abound, victims who feel entitled to live in houses they no longer pay for, or walk away from their freely-contracted obligations because it didn't work out as envisioned. We have a government giving people $8000 in tax credits to buy houses in order to artificially shore up the market, and judges delaying foreclosures because banks have done a lousy job processing paperwork. We have a new FinReg bill which completely avoided reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to the point where a return to sensible mortgage down payment requirements was defeated, and banks are still on the hook to make questionable mortgage loans to minority applicants lest, they incur the wrath of government.
All of this nonsense does nothing more than postpone the inevitable: we will get to a market bottom someday. But progressives and their statist schemes--all of which are based on the premise that reality must be postponed as long as possible in order to avoid "pain"-- will drag this fiasco out much longer than necessary, much like pulling a band-aid off a scab bit by bit instead of all at once. Bottom line: this recession is one of the longest and most enduring ones we've ever had, and most of it is due to the collapse of housing prices. Pretending they haven't collapsed as much as they have, or attempting to artificially prop them up, is as economically illiterate as it gets.
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The borders must be sealed and illegal aliens must be sent to the back of the immigration line. Every broken promise contained in the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act has brought us to exactly where we are now: having as many as ten times the number of illegals granted amnesty back then (2.7 million) now demanding they be granted the right to live here. In what universe do law-breakers get to demand anything? The one inhabited by people for whom a massive and uncontrolled influx of low-skill, under-educated third-worlders constitutes a path permanent power. The ones for whom the basic foundation of our republic--the rule of law, not the rule of men--can be tossed aside as easily and completely as it is done in any banana republic or totalitarian hellhole.
Only abject liars would deliberately attempt to obscure the difference between legal and illegal immigration, even as they tar those who make the distinction as racist and xenophobic. Only utter fools would allow our borders to remain wide open in an age of international terror. Only thugs masquerading as champions of justice would sue a state like Arizona for trying to protect itself, even as they studiously avoid taking on the hundreds of sanctuary cities in indisputable violation of federal immigration law. Only those completely contemptuous of America's history of legal immigration would make a mockery of those trying to enter this country the right way.
Spare me the sob stories, the stats, or anything else the open border advocates use to justify allowing millions of people here illegally to stay. Been there, done that in '86, and the magnitude of that lie has been revealed to anyone paying attention:
Amnesty begets more illegal immigration--period.
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Government spending must be substantially reduced. Note to Republicans: you're in the catbird seat, whether you realize it or not. Why? You control the House of Representatives from which all spending bills originate--meaning you can hack away at the bloated budget and allow Democrats in the Senate and the White House to undermine your attempts. In other words, win or lose, you can stand on pure fiscally responsible principle, while tax-and-spend Dems shoot themselves in their collective feet, just in time for the 2012 election.
Aside from that consideration, there one other compelling reason to stand on principle. If you don't, you're toast. The best thing you've got going is that the tax deal you were just suckered into--and you were played for suckers--happened before the newbies in the party were seated. Only the establishment fools in the Republican Party would pat themselves on the back for exchanging the status quo on taxes--for only two years, no less, making them a guaranteed issue for the 2012 election--for another thirteen months of unemployment payments, bringing the total to a mind-boggling two years and eleven months of getting paid for doing nothing. Does it even occur to you what allowing millions of Americans to say on the dole for almost three years does to the character of the nation?
And spare us all the bromide of "reducing spending to 2008 levels." That level of spending was an obscenity, but apparently you believe Americans shell-shocked by profligacy of the 111th Congress and the Obama White House will think such a reduction is meaningful. It's not, and plenty of us know it.
We also know we've got somewhere else to go if you insist on screwing up. That the Tea Party candidates for election hitched themselves to the Republican wagon in 2010 was a gift, not a permanent condition. Steamroll them at your peril, and trust me when I tell you that America is a razor's edge away from establishing a viable third political party if the current two continue to insist on committing fiscal suicide. Millions of Americans will not go quietly toward impending Greece-hood.
And for heaven's sake, tell the truth: tell Americans that major reforms of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are inevitable, not probable. Tell them entire money-wasting Departments of the federal bureaucracy need to be jettisoned. No doubt you'll be up against decades of inbred entitlement mentality demanding that "every other government program but mine" be reformed. But leadership is all about making tough, often unpleasant decisions that help the nation, not some noisy individual constituency--or worse, a political party.
If you need inspiration, examine the latest census data. Americans are literally voting with their feet: virtually every state that lost population is a tax-and-spend liberal stronghold, while every state that gained people is a low- or no-tax one in which incentive is encouraged, not browbeaten into the anti-business, redistributionist ground.
Americans are desperate to feel optimistic about their nation, for the simplest of reasons: historically speaking, it is our natural state of being. For far too long, Washington, D.C. has done everything they can to undermine that optimism. On November 2nd, Americans made it crystal clear that they're sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. Hopefully they'll make it even clearer two years from now. America didn't become the greatest nation on earth by whining about its future, playing one group of citizens off another, or believing "hope and change" were only possible if some benevolent bureaucrat bestowed them upon us. That is not who we are, despite what progressives and their media apparatchiks would have us believe.
Genuine hope and change is part of our DNA, and always has been--and it's long past time government aided and abetted that DNA instead of thwarting it at every turn. Those who refuse to understand that are free to do as they please.
We just need to get as many of them out of positions of power as is humanly possible.
To all my readers: thanks for the support this past year. I really appreciate it.
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