Congress giving away billions in national lands!
Toads falling in plague swaths
from the lightning-streaked sky!
Mayan temples cracking open to disgorge
clouds of ancient killer bees!
ANDY DICK TO STAR IN YET ANOTHER
'INSPECTOR GADGET' SEQUEL!
These and other made-up, apocalyptic headlines accompanied this article in the Guardian. The column highlights a plan by the often-worthy-of-derision Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to "give away Americans' birthright" in the form of federal land.
"Republicans have overwritten the value of federal lands, easing the path to disposing of federal property even if doing so loses money for the government and provides no demonstrable compensation to American citizens." Funny how some of the worst spendthrifts in the American government are suddenly rediscovering the concept of fiscal responsibility.
At the risk of getting too "inside-baseball" with you folks, we're skeptical of the author's claims. Like a lot of things -- trying to heat your home with your oven, for example -- federal-government action is about the least efficient way to do anything, and the devil's in the details of any deal. Our cronyist system is a lot like turning a blender on its side and using it as a room fan — the concept kinda, sorta works, but it could be a whole lot better.
With the Orange-Haired Troll Doll grumping his way through the Oval Office books, rifling through Obama's receipts, and repeatedly asking his receptionist to bring him files from Accounting, budgetary issues will be front and center this year. These things always make the mainstream media shift uncomfortably in their seats (although they're good at ignoring the increasing length of their own noses).
Folks, the US Government is $20 trillion in debt, a total that rises to more than $100 trillion when we include "off-budget" and unfunded liabilities. Either the US government makes a sincere attempt to pay it off, or we'll all be shoveling hundred-dollar bills in strippers' G-strings and worrying that it's not enough to keep her close to our table.
Adding $10 trillion of debt every eight years is not just unsustainable, it's crazy. I don't mean Loose-Cannon-Detective-whose-Partner-has-Three-Weeks-to-Retirement Crazy and I don't mean Dresses-as-a-Circus-Clown-and-Hangs-Around-the-Neighborhood-at-Night Crazy; I mean full blown I-was-Abducted-by-Aliens-once-and-They-Made-Me-their-King Crazy. Simply put, we've got to pay the piper and stop vilifying anyone who proposes realistic ways to reverse this destructive trend.
If the government can never make do with less, if selling off barren BLM land in Nevada is off limits, then what? Critics of "fiscal conservatism" should tell us exactly what their plan is. Do we cut the blue wire or the red wire on this ticking financial time bomb? But they won't — they're just gonna yell at us in the Lieutenant's office after the building explodes. "McReagan! You and Detective Keynes are OFF THE CASE!"
We can't keep racking up debt forever, and the government can't keep playing Santa Claus. No matter who's to blame, somebody somewhere has got to break it to the nation that there is no Santa, no Easter Bunny, and no Tooth Fairy. Although if 2016 taught us anything, we know that evil clowns DO exist.
WRY GUYS TEE — Poor Uncle Sam
Poor Uncle Sam, a funny libertarian t shirt for fiscally conservative people who appreciate the freedom movement.