From FDR to LBJ to Oh, Bummer

About 100 years ago, the Chicago Cubs had a double play combination--Tinkers to Evers to Chance. Very famous to baseball fans. In the last 100 years, the United States has elected a double play combination of presidents--FDR to LBJ to Barack Obama--that will mean the end of the game for this country.

The United States government has put our people into a debt of 11 trillion dollars (of course, ultimate blame belongs to voters who put such irresponsible curs in office in the first place). 11 trillion is a mind-boggling figure which none of us can truly comprehend. Let me see if I can put it into perspective for you. Count to 1,000. Go ahead, I'll wait....................................Finished? Now, do it 1,000 times. You'll have counted to 1 million. Count to 1 million 1,000 times. You'll have reached a billion. Count to 1 billion 1,000 times. Now you have 1 trillion. Do that 11 times....and I'm sorry, I'm not going to wait for you. It only took the U.S. government about 50 years to reach that figure; it would probably take you longer.

But, again, that number is really too large for us to grasp, even the way I've broken it down. The $11 trillion debt will never be paid off. It will exist until China (who holds most of it) realizes they will never be reimbursed. Then they'll dump all our bonds onto the world market, hoping to get something for all they hold. At that time, the United States will descend into hyperinflation, which will destroy the dollar and everything you own. Let's hope we who are reading (and writing) this die before that happens (though I confess I'd like to be around and tell every liberal "I told you so").

Where did this massive debt come from? It wasn't military spending, which is today about one-fifth of the federal budget and will probably become smaller under Mr. Obama. No, the debt comes from social welfare programs, mostly started under the New Deal (Franklin Roosevelt) and the Great Society (Lyndon Johnson). And now Mr. Obama, with his medical care proposals and stimulus plans (and who knows what else), will usher in a new wave of massive government spending which will only exacerbate the black hole of economic decadence this country is mired in. To be fair, the Republicans haven't helped a whole lot, but the huge increases of government commitments came under Democratic administrations. It feels good to live in such luxury; feels good until the bill comes due. The day of reckoning will come and it will not be pretty.

Mr. Obama thinks he can provide medical care for all Americans without increasing the debt. Only a fool believes that. Well, he could do it, by extreme rationing of services (dare I say it?--death panels...arrrrggh, I couldn't help it...). But Lyndon Johnson said that Medicare would be cheap, too. Go see how "cheap" Medicare became after Johnson (look it up yourself, I'm not going to do all your work for you.) Nothing the government does is "cheap."

We have given a teenager a credit card. He maxed it out. We gave him another one and told him to pay off the first one (as if that makes any sense). And, lo and behold, instead of doing that, he maxed out the second one, too. Surprise, surprise. Any competent (read: not liberal) historian could have told you that was going to happen.

But we have no one to blame for ourselves. Because it was the American people who elected Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson...and Barack Obama.