Time to Step Back, Revaluate the ‘Progressing’

To The Editor:
A letter titled “With Interest Rates Low, Now Is the Time to Invest” ran in the Aug. 21 edition. I found it to be quite humorous. Much was covered. Just not much about interest rates or investing. It bounced around like a “super ball” but it seems the primary intent of the piece was, as usual, to “slam Republicans/Conservatives.”
It began with how negative Cong. Frank LoBiondo and Michael Tourette are, then branded all conservatives as being the same. From there, a mention of the 10 percent Congress being against everything and how in order to grow as a nation “we must adapt, write new laws and progress.”
Then it mentions the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, food stamps, Head Start, Haliburton, health care, women’s rights, immigration, gun laws and “progress” again. It goes on about our debt, our roads, a quick tutorial on nuclear power and for Al Crossen to read a certain book.
I want to address several areas the writer touched upon. First, conservatives are for stuff like smaller government, lower taxes, keeping more of the money we earn, responsibility, self-reliance and adhering to the Constitution. Second, the 10 percent Congress which “is also against everything” is comprised of about 45 percent Democrats. Third, as to where the Republicans were when “we wasted about $2.5 trillion on the Iraq war,” they were right beside the Democrats who voted to invade. Fourth, the debt, which actually is now approaching $17 trillion, has, in less than five years under Obama, added almost $7 trillion to that total.
Investing is usually a wise choice. Putting a portion of one’s earnings aside for retirement or improving skills for greater employment opportunity are usually good investments. But there are other considerations that need to be evaluated before making those choices.
Perhaps if the “investments” our government made in the past along with future “investments” were a bit smarter, we could do what the writer suggests. However, when we invest/spend $16 trillion over 50 years, for example, to lift people out of poverty, that money can’t be invested elsewhere. This is one of the most heralded “progressive” programs of all time. Sixteen trillion later, and the level of poverty today is exactly where it was 50 years ago; an absolute failure.
When our government needs to print and borrow billions of dollars every year to fund current spending, maybe we need to trade the “adapting, the writing of new laws and the progress” for some “common sense.”
Medicare, going bankrupt. Social Security, going bankrupt, several cities, with more on the way, are bankrupt, public pensions, some are bankrupt. We have dismal gross domestic product growth; dismal job growth with almost 90 percent of it being part-time hires, health insurance costs going through the roof, energy costs going through the roof and the suggestion here is “that we ‘invest’ more?”
This administration wants to spend more on health care, more on educational giveaways, more on “entitlements” than any other administration in our history. If all this “new investing” occurs, we may not have enough money for White House tours. To me it seems like a very good time to step back and reevaluate all the “progressing” we have done thus far and try a different approach, a “conservative” approach.
Perhaps if a more “conservative” approach had been taken instead of the “progressive” approach that has this country in the terrible shape it is in today, we would have more of our own money to spend, I mean invest. Unfortunately, we have “progressed” ourselves to near oblivion.
WAYNE PASSE
North Cape May