What can help growth in the longer term?....
Longer term boosts to economic growth can radically change for the better CBO budget projections and actual numbers. One example: hydraulic "fracking" of shale oil can help transform US energy production and thus reduce imports of oil from the unfriendly countries. In 2000 shale gas was one percent of US energy supplies; now it is already 25 percent. Liquefied Natural Gas ports are being reconfigured for export (instead of importing foreign LNG). Economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth sees enviro-myths as an obstacle to shale gas production. We will need fossil fuels for decades, as electric cars continue to deliver less performance for higher cost.
A quick scan of federal FY2012 budgets for departments shows $424B for these 10 cabinet departments: Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health & Human Services, Housing & Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, EPA (savor this example of an EPA arbitrary ruling that will cost New York big bucks; savor also this latest example of global warming). Does anyone think a 25 percent cut is unachievable? It would save $100B annually, or $1 trillion over a decade. Yes, all the programs have attractive names and appeal to many people, but do they deliver as advertised?
Efforts to improve fiscal standing by cutting at the Department of Defense risks America's position overseas, Niall Ferguson warns us; he adds that it is always more expensive to fail to prepare for security threats and to lose wars. That said, in any $553B budget better management can realize substantial savings. Eliminating duplicate jurisdiction in Homeland Security's $43B budget should yield still more savings.
Successful Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell explains how GOP governors are showing the way to fiscal recovery: reducing spending without raising taxes--especially, cutting soaring pension costs. Even a prominent Democrat, NY Governor Andrew Cuomo, closed a $10 billion budget hole without tax increases; included is a landmark property-tax cap. Market-friendly energy policy is driving the rise of the Gulf Coast, which may supplant the East and West coasts as prime economic driver of the US economy. John Steele Gordon, ace business historian, explains how bad state governance killed the California Golden State Goose.
Now, one thing to avoid at all costs....
Guess what the UN has just come up with, at this time of global economic crisis. It issues a report calling for spending $76 TRILLION over 40 years to go Green, focusing on global governance, global wealth redistribution, Green energy, etc. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus--in the UN's global theater of the absurd, he represents the developed countries--mainly Uncle Sam. Of the $1.9 TR annual bill Uncle Sucker, who pays 22 percent of UN costs, would thus pay $418B, totaling over 40 years $16.72 TR. This would essentially wipe out the entire savings gained from cutting the ten department budgets noted above.
UN drones were saying just two years ago that the cost of these changes would be $600B annually, so their target number has more than tripled in two years. Care to guess what it will be two years from now?
Fortunately, no one in the developed world will ante up for this insanity. And that will make Congress keep any imprudent administration from unilaterally committing economic suicide.
Bottom Line. This administration will take none of the above advice. It awaits a sounder successor administration--one hopes in 2013 and not come 2017, when it may truly be too late to reverse course.
Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Economy, Conservative Politics
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