Earth to Price
By: BJ Lawson
Our three children are not economists, but they understand that going shopping with $14 means that they can’t afford something that costs $16. There’s simply not enough money.
David Price, however, has built a legislative career embracing the “gimme now” philosophy: if you can’t afford it, simply borrow and print the dollars necessary to make up the difference.
Two months ago, Rep. Price voted in favor of House Concurrent Resolution 312, which is a planning document that sets priorities for discretionary spending and annual budgeting over the next five years. This budgetary plan projects federal income of $14 trillion, yet plans to spend $16 trillion.
And that missing $2 trillion? More debt.
It’s been said that failing to plan is planning to fail. Our legislators are not failing to plan, however, they’re just flat-out planning to fail. In fact, they’re so committed to failing, that they even celebrate the fact that they’re completely divorced from reality. Here’s Rep. Price’s statement on this particular vote:
This budget is a clear reflection of our priorities to build a stronger economy, keep our communities safe, and to do both in a fiscally responsible way, Price said. After President Bush and the Republican Congress turned projected surpluses into record deficits, this Congress is committed to reversing the damage.
Let’s see if I understand: throw some divisive partisan rhetoric out there, and claim that our massive fiscal irresponsibility is actually “responsible”. If we claim that we’re “reversing the damage”, perhaps we’ll escape blame for the inevitable damage that results when we can’t find foreigners willing to buy this next $2 trillion in debt.
The good news for our country, and our future, is that the people are beginning to discover the truth. It’s not a partisan issue — with gas prices and grocery bills heading up, people are beginning to understand that there are real consequences with the federal government borrowing and printing all this money. Yes, that’s right — when the government creates new money to pay for spending we can’t afford, the dollars you earn and save are less valuable due to the inflation our government itself creates.
It’s time to reject the “gimme now” school of economics. Our children deserve better, and David Price needs to understand that his well-meaning but misguided attempts to “help” are only making things worse for working Americans.
We simply can’t afford The Price.
May 11th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Great entry, BJ! Seems like common sense that anyone should grasp. But unfortunately, so many still don’t. Keep up the great work. Oh, and I love the appropriate play on words you used for the conclusion.
May 11th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Since I don’t work for the campaign or anything… I won’t hold back and will say that it looks like Price is simply a liar.
(or just very confused)
May 11th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
I have no idea how Rep. Price could consider the creation of $2 trillion more in debt to be “fiscally responsible.” Regardless of the fact that the Bush Administration’s fiscal policies have been terrible, or if you think that the resolution represents “progress,” there’s just no way you could label that as “fiscally responsible.”
However, it makes me happy that he would say this. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. In other words, I’m sure there are more gems like that quote where this came from.
May 12th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
This is incomprehensible. Price needs to go.
As a registered unaffiliated voter who generally votes democratic, the republicans scare the hell out of me. I get the message from Ron Paul and BJ Lawson, but the fact that they choose to associate with the republicans disturbs me. On Iraq, the budget, the constitution, and many more issues, I don’t see where BJ has much in common with Rep Myrick, Sen Dole, or the rest of the NC republican congressional delegation that he was proud to visit and post pictures of. Even Walter Jones got the wool pulled over his eyes by the neocons and voted for the Iraq resolution, and never mind the national embarrassment of “Freedom Fries”. Can I really trust this republican (BJ) to get us out of Iraq, keep us out of Iran, undo the Medicare Part D republican give-away, and stand up to the neocons that have taken over his party? Or will I just see more photo-ops with Myrick, etc who are every bit as damaging to our country as Price?
May 12th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Matt, I am like you in that I’m also an unaffiliated voter and have voted mostly as a Democrat. However, I believe the Democratic party has changed dramatically. It is no longer the party that puts the interests of its constituents, American citizens, first. I feel like the Democrats have left me. This said, I believe Bush should be treated as a traitor, and corrupt neocons in the Republican party are responsible for its demise. So where does all this leave me? I now must vote for the person and the platform, and NOT the party. This is where BJ comes in. While I don’t necessarily agree with every aspect of BJ’s platform, overall, he presents rational, thoughtful and pragmatic approaches to deal with many problems. Certainly, he brings to the table far greater knowledge and understanding of economics than the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Most importantly, it’s clear he loves this country and values our Constitution which protects the rights of all, and I believe he would do everything possible to prevent our country from being torn apart by the forces presently at work. I expect BJ will be to the Republicans what the blue dog Democrats try to be in the Democratic party - fiscally conservative and far less willing to go along with the party line and leadership. We desperately need to be rid of David (showing-up-for-the-paycheck) Price, his mindless, irrational and fiscally-devastating policies. BJ is just the person to take on this challenge.
May 12th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
BJ, if you get to debate Price, you can hoist him by his own petard with his voting record on the economy (and myriad other issues, but this blog entry has a narrower focus than that). He has voted for thousands of pages of legislation every session, and I doubt he’s read more than a few dozen pages of it himself. How is that responsible?
DownsizeDC.org’s Read The Bills Act would go a long way towards fixing this problem and bring accountability back to Congress. When you have a few minutes, please read up on it. I think you’ll find it particularly cogent to what is plaguing Congress today.
May 13th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Matt,
the reason why Ron Paul, B.J., myself, and others are in the Republican Party is because the Republican Party is most recently (though it has been a while) the Party that stood for the values of limited government and fiscal and foreign policy prudence. Calvin Coolidge took one of the most “hands off” approaches at the federal level of any President (although it was not completely hands off, as there was still central planning involved and the Federal Reserve was quite activist in its policies), and he was very wary of global entanglement post-WWI. He was also a champion of federalism. Robert Taft, Mr. Republican, was consistently a critic of interventionist foreign policy (he even objected to the creation of NATO) and government largesse. Barry Goldwalter, of course, was the man who started a limited government renaissance movement (that was unfortunately co-opted by neoconservatives). Bob Dole during the 1970s blasted the Democratic Party as the “War Party.” Even as late as the 1990s, Republicans were having budget battles with the Clinton Administration and criticized its interventionist policies in Somalia and the Balkans. (Read John McCain’s comments in the early 1990s on Somalia; they sound quite similar to Ron Paul’s on US Foreign Policy today.)
In contrast, the Democratic Party was at one time a small government, federalist party. This was certainly true of Jefferson, Madison, and to some extent, Jackson. Grover Cleveland, the leader of the “Bourbon Democrats” in the late 1800s, is known as perhaps the most libertarian President in US history and was a vocal proponent of sound money and lasseiz faire economics. However, starting with William Jennings Bryan and Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic Party took a turn for the worst with advocation of increased central planning, aggressive foreign policy, and willingness to violate civil liberties (Wilson’s record on this was terrible). Along with their socialist economic policies and massive spending programs, Truman’s incursion into Korea, the Kennedy/Johnson disaster in Vietnam, and Clinton’s excapades in Somalia, Iraq, the Balkans, and ineffective meddling in the Middle East provide little reason to suspect that the Democratic Party is the Party for us.
The fact is that at this point in time, the only chance for candidate to be elected is if they run as Republicans or Democrats. This means that we have to choose the Party that, at least most recently, is both the Party that share(d) our principles or the Party in which people are more conducive to our message. The GOP is the former, and I find that Republicans who already (at least rhetorically) haters of big government involvement in the economy are more easily convinced of the dangers of government intrusion in other areas than Democrats are convinced of the fallacy of central planning. The task before is to 1) Get elected, and 2) change the Republican Party for the better.
May 14th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
BJ,
It’s very clear that you’re not running for a business-as-usual job in Washington, so I have to say watch your back. There are a lot of people in the Republican Party who are completely interchangeable with Price, and they’d rather leave a democrat in that seat than have a Republican who means what he says.
Dr. Paul’s been embarrassing them for years, but when he was the only one, they could get away with ignoring him. With you in the congress, and Dr. Sabrin in the Senate, a lot of unconscionable legislation is going to get stopped at the door.
-jcr
May 16th, 2008 at 12:52 am
Matt — Don’t be alarmed by my association with the Republican party. Paige said it best — you’ve got to be in a party to get on the ballot, and it just so happens I’ve been a registered Republican all my life.
Unfortunately, in my opinion, both parties are suspect — especially at the national level. The systems and processes driving Washington today are so antithetical to the tenets of our Constitutional republic that we might as well call our parties the Dance Party and the Dinner Party.
Pretending that today’s political parties are valuable contributors to the national dialog and positive social change is quite a stretch.
Magnus — Thanks for mentioning DownsizeDC, and RTBA. I’m a huge fan of RTBA, RTLA, OSTA, and EPA:
http://www.lawsonforcongress.com/issues/economy
May 17th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Hi BJ,
I am proud to have donated to your campaign, will donate again and thank you for spreading the message about the Constitution. On your May 16th e-mail you said “Even $10 supplies about 13 Constitutions to folks who desperately need to learn how our federal government should operate”. Unfortunately, I believe the Constitution is not written in plain easy to understand English so I was concerned that the folks who receive the Constitution won’t understand the language of the Constitution.
Please let me know your thoughts about this.
Thank you,
Edward
May 17th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Edward — Great point, and question. I specifically chose a version of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution that include a fantastic preface by Roger Pilon:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/articles/preface_pocket-constitution.html
Simply reading that preface leaves most voters well-equipped to begin exploring our founding documents again, often for the first time. In my experience, the combination of this preface and the Constitution is sufficient to clearly illustrate the difference between where we are, and where we should be.
For additional context, the recently released “Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution” by Gutzman is fantastic:
http://www.amazon.com/Politically-Incorrect-Guide-Constitution-Guides/dp/1596985054
BJ
May 17th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Along those lines, I bought a really great book, called “The Federalist Papers: In Modern Language.” As the name implies, the author (Mary Webster) transcribed the flowery, 18th century language, and made it much more understandable for modern readers. I have to me honest and say that I read and understood things in the Federalist Papers that I never had before.
Also interesting is that the author cross-referenced various sections in the Papers with paragraphs in the Constitution.