There is, right now, a great deal of concern over the health of the American economy. Rightfully so. Fuel prices are high and food prices seem to be locked in a race with them to see who can go the highest. The housing market, which for years was the real fuel of the American economy, has cooled off to Antartic temperatures. King Dollar has lost his crown to the upstart Euro, weakening the American consumer and economy with it.
Washington gives us mandates for ehtanol, rebate checks which are still some time off and won't be used to stimulate the economy. The Democrats call for higher taxes and more spending on social programs that never produce good results(you'd think someone in Washington would learn), not that the GOP is inspiring much confidence with the people. Right now the people want action, something from Washington to make them feel secure, that someone is taking care of them. The GOP talks about free trade, which usually isn't all that popular with the American people, and fighting earmarks, which has never gathered much interest from the American people.
What Washington does not want to admit is that they got the economy into this mess in the first place. Their thinking is that if their first wave of meddling didn't work then surely their second wave will make everything all right. Bailing out lenders who never should have lended the money in the first place, mandating ethanol, and driving up the price of corn, wheat and all other kinds of foodstuffs with it, not to mention that the price of gasoline hasn't come down any.
So what should Washington do? The only action they should take is to undo all the stupid actions they have been taking for years. No more money for Ethanol, which only encourages farmers to grow corn for ethanol, and other farmers to stop growing wheat in favor of corn, which drives prices for food ever higher. In fact, it's time to stop subsidizing farmers at all. The image of the struggling farmer, on the verge of losing his farm, just doesn't mesh with reality. Farmers are enjoying their highest incomes in decades, but a handful of Senators from agricultural states make sure that their farmers continue to live off taxpayer money. We pay them to grow certain types of crops, we pay them not to grow any crops at all. Is it any wonder that our food bills are going up?
Lenders who make bad loans, who don't check up on the credit history of their applicants don't deserve to be bailed out. Too many people wanted everything, houses that they never should have been able to afford and thought that they would never have to pay. When the lenders came looking for their money they learned there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. So we bailed out the lenders because they couldn't collect from people who shouldn't have gotten a loan in the first place. They both deserved to lose their shirts.
The healthiest economies in the world are the ones that have the least amount of government interference. It's a lesson that's not going to be learned anytime soon in America. Democrats act as if the economy needs to be controlled out of Washington because the American people don't know how to make their own decisisons. Not that the GOP learns any better, they are still addicted to earmarks and want to bail out businesses that are on the verge of going under. Whatever happened to the free market? Sometimes businesses deserve to go out of business. Businesses don't need subsidized anymore than farmers do. What people need to learn is that Uncle Sam shouldn't be in the business of running the economy. Maybe people need to go through some economic tough times to learn to live within their means, and to understand that the government isn't their to help everyone out.
It's not going to happen, but it would be nice if our lawmakers, and some of our citizens learned economic responsibility.
