Job Creation…the Role of Government?

To The Editor:
The evolving election cycle always centers on cutting the budget, cutting waste, fraud and abuse, creating jobs, creating better education models and schools and so on.
No matter which party is elected the spending always increases, taxes increase, education is always under funded, new schools are needed, we never see many specifics on the elimination of waste, fraud and abuse. Unfortunately the media was always the primary oversight of governments, since the media lost objectivity and became partisan, the taxpayers have taken it on the chin.
The Bush Administration engaged in two unfunded wars, created an enforcement beauracy with the TSA and Homeland Security agencies. Bush enacted the Medicare prescription plan also unfunded. The prescription plan should have been budgeted. Homeland Security should have been a division of the FBI, not political patronage. Our porous borders, north and south have demonstrated, in spite of, valiant personal efforts by Border Patrol officers, that 12-20 million illegal residents enter, and tons of narcotics are seized. This illustrates why political patronage will never measure up to qualified professionals.
The Democratic Senate and Congress at the end of the 1990’s mandated that the Community Redevelopment Act approve more mortgages that became Fannie and Freddie obligations, sadly $1.4 trillion in bad mortgages. As a result of the home purchases new home construction boomed. The sub-prime mortgages, toxic assets, became the scourge of Wall Street, even though they were purchased from the government-backed Fannie and Freddie. Mortgages were approved without credit approval, no job history and no down payment. It was under the direction of Sen. Chris Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank that Fannie and Freddie would assume 98 percent of all mortgages in the USA.
Bush enacted the TARP to prevent financial collapse…the rationale: the investment banks were too big to fail. After TARP, some of the banks, after receiving TARP funds, purchased failing banks, making them much bigger. The Bank of America assumed $1 trillion of toxic assets from Countrywide that gave Dodd a personal mortgage with a VIP rate.
President Obama has overspent the country’s revenue every year by $1.3 trillion. The recent budget battle led to an approval to borrow another $2.5 trillion. Did you ever consider why France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Britain are in financial crises? Greece has been provided billions in Euro aid because they are spending is 145 percent of GDP. Spending cuts were measured to the loans from the Euro community, but the promised cuts never materialized, and just a few months later, Greece requires billions more. What makes our politicians so oblivious to Economics 101?
After Congress approved the president’s Healthcare Reform Act, and within three weeks, Geithner, Volcker, Greenspan and Bernanke our economic gurus jointly stated that Congressional overspending must be curtailed or the economic consequences could be severe. Several months later when the budget debate threatened to “shut down the government,” they agreed to increase the debt ceiling and overspend this year’s budget by $1.3 trillion. As we approach $15 trillions of debt, the government wants to spend an additional half trillion for job creation without cutting anywhere in the multi-trillion dollar budget.
On Oct. 9, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said that “our government must control spending.” My question to the chairman, “Why do you continue to lend, sell bonds, print trillions to finance the bad behavior?”
AL CROSSEN
North Wildwood