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Delusional Thinking in Domestic Affairs

America in 2016 is, in many ways, a nation that has failed to address key issues due to the delusional thinking on the part of government. Yesterday, the New York Analysis of Policy and Government reviewed international affairs. Today’s column examines domestic matters.

The core domestic issues affecting the United States include:

  •  a crippling national debt made worse each year by annual deficits,
  • The dramatic growth of the Executive branch and federal bureaucracy at the expense of Congressional authority,
  • the lack of adequate numbers of middle income jobs, and
  • a failed educational system.

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A quick glance at those selections may raise eyebrows, because nowhere in them can be found the headline-grabbing topics that so frequently top the evening news.  The reality is, however, that without resolving these fundamental challenges, the financial and intellectual resources to resolve the myriad problems that do gain more frequent attention will be unavailable.

The stunning national debt of the United States, estimated at the time this article was prepared is closing in at $19,400,000,000,000. This prevents many subsidiary problems from being easily or rapidly resolved.  America’s infrastructure certainly needs repair, but state and local resources are already stretched thin (in many ways, thanks to mandates from the federal bureaucracy) and Washington is already mired in a financial hole of its own making.

The story of the national debt is a telling sign of the delusional thinking of the past eight years. There are frequently good reasons, for families or governments, to accumulate debt. Buying a house and securing a college degree are two good examples.  But the near doubling of the national debt over the past eight years was the result of spending that was the equivalent of blowing the mortgage money at the race track.

Vast sums were spent, (including an over $800 billion “stimulus” program, and hikes in assistance programs) with almost no results.  Consider: As the national debt doubled, America’s infrastructure needs remain unaddressed, the military has been cut to dangerously low levels, taxes remain high, poverty has not been reduced, and Social Security is still heading towards bankruptcy. Other examples could certainly be added.

Despite gimmicks such as the Sequester,  the problem is not getting better.  The Sequester, which reduced some federal spending, itself was an example of delusional thinking.  It didn’t adequately discriminate between spending on frills and spending on vital necessities.

Indeed, the prospects for the future are grim.  Delusional thinking has played a key role.  Spending on welfare-type programs such as the 41% increase in the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, rather than emphasizing job creation, created a fiscal dead end.  The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) emplaced significant disincentives to hire full time workers, while accumulating significant new amounts of expense. Middle class jobs, already under stress from a number of factors, received yet another body blow.

Speaking of traditional middle class jobs, the challenges of controversial environmental regulations (promulgated in some cases unconstitutionally by President Obama’s executive action rather than by legislation) which devastate many well-paying jobs, trade deals (particularly that signed by President Clinton in 2000) that allowed manufacturing jobs to migrate overseas, and America’s extremely high corporate tax rate have all worked together to devastate opportunities in the workplace.

Much of the harm, through excess spending and disincentives to create businesses and hire workers, comes from a disregard for the legislative process, which would have illuminated the potential harm from bureaucratic actions.

The delusion behind all these factors is that the rules of the marketplace can be ignored, and that Washington can simply print money to cover the losses. Poverty can only be resolved by providing opportunity, not handouts. The War on Poverty, commenced in the 1960s, has stretched for half a century, consumed $22 trillion, and failed to make any dent in the poverty rate. The Heritage Foundation  notes that “Adjusted for inflation, that’s three times the cost of all military wars since the American Revolution.”

These delusional actions on the part of the federal government have not provoked the level of outrage that would be expected. And that is why the failure of America’s educational process is so important.

For far too long, when discussing government and economics, the previously standard, fact based curricula of our schools, from elementary to graduate levels, has been replaced by an ideologically-driven agenda which ignores common-sense reviews of economics and how the U.S. Constitution works. Absent this knowledge, the delusional policies that currently dominate do not raise the vitally needed objections that could motivate a return to realism.

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AMERICAN DISINTEGRATION, PART 4: THE U.S. MILITARY

Since 2009, American spending on defense has been reduced as a percent of GDP,  from 4.6 in 2009 to 3.8 in 2013. Russia spends 17.5 percent of GDP on defense, a figure that will increase to 21% by 2017.  China has increased its military budget at a pace faster than either the U.S. or the U.S.S.R. did at the height of the Cold War.

In addition to threats from other nations, the rising danger from terrorism requires a robust defense.  ISIS, for example, is well funded and some believe it is pursuing the acquisition of a nuclear weapons capability.

Despite the $700 billion spent on the President’s “Stimulus” package, a glaring defense vulnerability in the U.S. homeland—the need to protect the national electrical grid from an electro-magnetic pulse attack which would cripple the U.S. for decades—remains un-addressed and unfunded.

Sharp reductions in the defense budget are the most significant of the efforts to engage in questionable, short-term goals at the expense of the nation’s future. In an effort to fund massive increases in social spending, the military has suffered budget cuts at a time when the world has grown increasingly dangerous.

It is important to put this into context. By 2008, the U.S. military had already been sharply reduced.  From its high point in the last decade of the 20th century, the Navy had slipped from 600 ships to 284. The Air Force from 37 fighter commands to 20, and the Army from 17 divisions to 10.  Much of the remaining equipment was aged and worn from overuse in various wars.  The U.S. nuclear arsenal was rapidly becoming obsolete. America was dependent on Russia for certain rocket engines, and on China for certain other key ingredients in our weapons.

Significant new threats, such as cyber warfare, have emerged even as Washington has reduced defense spending.

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China has attained a level of military sophistication that equals and in some areas surpasses America’s.

Most worrisome, China and Russia have established a de-facto alliance aimed at the United States. Both nations, along with Iran, have established ties with Latin American and Caribbean states. Both assist client states, including Iran and North Korea, that individually and collectively present a significant danger to the U.S. and its allies.

Even in the face of these threats, the President continues to advocate unilateral reductions in the American nuclear arsenal and continues to oppose a viable anti-ballistic missile system to defend the homeland from a nuclear attack.

The disintegration of American military supremacy returns the planet to a state of affairs that existed before the Second World War, with probable consequences that are deeply disturbing. Russia now occupies the role of Nazi Germany, casting an envious eye on the territory of other nations.  Vladimir Putin has even adopted some of the language of the Third Reich, including using an excuse of protecting Russian ethnic groups outside of his nation’s borders as an excuse to threaten his neighbors.  China serves as the 21st Century version of imperial Japan, seeking to establish hegemony in Asia and beyond.

Those favoring cuts to defense note that the U.S. spends more than its adversaries. That must be tempered by the large hidden spending in nations without a free press, and in the fact that a significant portion of the U.S. defense budget goes to expenses other countries don’t include in their military spending figures.  It also fails to include the sobering realization that from Moscow to Beijing, Tehran to Pyongyang, and in terrorist camps throughout the world, it is the United States that is the main target.