DOGE supporters, those who want the
government to have rational spending and avoid
bankruptcy, must be determined but remember
recent history is against them.
The story of the American leviathan tells us that
the odds are stacked against those who want less
government in the age of the runaway
welfare/warfare state. The nation is fighting a
losing battle to avoid the fate of the Hapsburgh
Empire.
The effort to control government spending, to
bring some sort of sanity to how government
spends and taxes, has been tried several times
before over generations from Golden Fleece
awards of the Senator William Proxmire in the
1970s to the cost cutting promises of the
Eisenhower, Reagan and Clinton administration
officials. All conceded that there was
considerable government waste. Yet every time
the would-be reform failed, owing to pretended
government economizers and their media allies.
They sabotaged genuine efforts to reign in
government waste though end of the world
media campaigns. Mainstream media launches
these bogus campaigns whenever there is any
suggestion of a reduction in government
spending.
So almost all these reform efforts, despite clear
election electoral majorities, heretofore have
fallen by the wayside as pols, as they so often
do, promised something on the hustings. Then
they forgot or feigned amnesia once elected.
They suddenly discovered there was no
government department to cut or eliminate. One
recalls the broken promises of President Reagan
to eliminate the Energy and Education
departments.
Why is this?
The average career pol is looking out for herself
or himself. Rewarding the donors who put him
in and will keep him in office is his top priority.
The average voter, educated at egregious state
schools, is often a historical illiterate, weaned
on something such as the historical trash the
1619 Project. Its author, not a historian, even
admitted much of it was questionable. The
average student has no sense that there was ever
a time in our history when the nation’s
prevailing philosophy was limited, de-
centralized, government, from Thomas Jefferson
to Calvin Coolidge to Coke Stevenson. The
voter doesn’t demand economy. He tends to
elect and re-elect the same gang of Tweeds and
their scions.
The average career pol, both Republican and
Democrat, is a sleazy careerist. This person
follows few principles other than self-
advancement. He is always looking to the next
election. He or she is the kind of person who, if
visiting your house, upon departure you must
immediately check to see if you still have your
wallet and silver spoons. So, what steps will
leave the average overburdened taxpayer
hopeful that we are beginning on the road to
fiscal sanity?
Before one can solve a problem, one must
understand the extent of the problem. One of the
essential problems of government overspending
is the government defines what the debt is—not
independent auditors. And it is why the
government, with the help of much of big
media, says the total debt of the country is some
$37 trillion. It is clearly much more. Some say,
when off budget debts are included, it is much
more.
Why the disparity?
The government is using a cash basis
accounting system. It counts today’s debts but
doesn’t count long term red ink.
“This method is extremely limited because it
only reflects the current year’s cash flow
without accounting for the long-term financial
obligations that Congress’s decisions create. In
reality, many pieces of legislation impact the
nation’s debt in massive amounts, and this
should be factored into any legislative
discussion,” says Sheila Weinberg, a CPA and
the founder and CEO of the group Truth in
Accounting. Her analysis says the national debt
is actually $189 trillion.
We must have a better system of keeping score.
I believe it must be one in which groups outside
of the government keep score.
“I completely agree that a better system of
scorekeeping is essential for ensuring
transparency and accuracy in the budgeting
process,” Weinberg continues. “Having an
independent panel of monitors—possibly
including some of the best CPAs—would
provide a level of accountability that is often
missing. Their role would be to verify the
numbers put forward by the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) and ensure
that they reflect reality, rather than relying
solely on the estimates from within the system,”
according to Weinberg.
She adds that this panel “could offer an
objective check on the integrity of government
spending projections, providing Congress and
the public with more confidence in the numbers.
Independent oversight would also help prevent
any political influence from skewing the data,
leading to more accurate and reliable fiscal
planning. I’ve considered creating such a team
myself but have never been able to find the
resources to get it off the ground. I’d be
delighted to be part of such an effort if the
opportunity arose. Creating a dedicated,
independent team to monitor and verify budget
numbers would improve accountability and help
ensure that we’re making informed decisions
based on realistic financial data.”
1 Why can’t we rely on some agency such as the
U.S. Office of Management and Budget?
We cannot for the same reason why one’s
prejudices are probed before one serves on a
jury. The answer is provided by James Madison
in Number 10 of the Federalist Papers.
“No man is allowed to be a judge in his own
cause; because his interest would certainly bias
his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his
integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a
body of men are unfit to be both judges and
parties at the same time,” he wrote.
Governments, both left and right, from the
Hapsburgh Empire to the Weimar Republic have
proven James Madison’s wisdom.
So governments can’t be trusted to give us the
right numbers on their ridiculous, often obscene,
overspending. A few examples: Go back and
look at the startup costs of Medicare in the
1960s and the George W. Bush drug prescription
plan at the turn of the century. Both programs
were sold to the American people based on a
certain price tag and both far exceeded their
initial estimates. Whenever the government is
spending the money, they always far exceed any
projected budget. This is not an argument pro or
con on Medicare, the Bush Drug Prescription
Plan—or the predicted costs of the disastrous
Iraqi war in 2003—or Obama Care. I merely
note that, with these programs and with so many
others, the taxpayer time and again, under
Republican as well as Democratic
administrations, is tricked into supporting
policies with phony numbers.
Besides requiring the government to be
accountable, to be required to have honest
numbers through independent third parties, are
there other steps to ensure that our government
doesn’t continue down the road to bankruptcy.
Yes, there are. More anon.
