8/15/11

Dear Dan Benishek

My congressman explains why he voted for the Budget Control Act.

Dr. Dan writes, "I chose a different path based on what I thought would best promote jobs in Northern Michigan. My vote reflected a strong concern of what a possible government default could do to Northern Michigan’s already fragile job market."

He adds, "Although the bill does not contain the level of spending reductions I would have liked to see, it does make a significant down payment on America’s growing federal deficit. The bill reduces the deficit by $917 billion over the next decade and establishes a mechanism to reduce another $1.2 trillion in savings before the end of the year."

My response: How does going further into debt help anybody in northern Michigan create jobs? The people that we, the people, have to give this money to are the people we owe money to (e.g. the Chinese, the Fed). The proposed savings are barely drops in a huge federal bucket. Nothing is quote, unquote, cut. Increases are barely reduced. Default was not an option. (Dr. Dan if you believe that, you've been smoking medical marijuana.)

Bottom line: Obama got what he wanted; business as usual in Washington, D.C.

____________________

Charles Butler: "Multiple wars, illegal immigration costs, foreign aid and pork-barrel projects are just the beginning of looking for ways to curb excessive spending."




2 comments:

Mike G said...

I view this vote as a pragmatic approach to moving toward a longer term goal. Boycotting any legislation other than that which achieves your ultimate goal is ensuring a complete lack of progress.
It would be tantamount to a football team simply throwing bombs from their own twenty yard line until they happened to get lucky enough to score a touchdown. That approach simply guarantees you will lose the game. Sometimes you need to run the ball and make a short pass to move toward your ultimate objective.
That is not to suggest pursing the long term objective of reduced deficits and scaling back government should be lost or ever ignored. The goal should not and cannot be lost track of but being paralyzed with dogma is not a productive approach to legislation.

TCC said...

Thanks for comment, Mike G, but this vote doesn't move us anywhere down the field.