Teabaggers and right wing-nuts are arguing that the government is already too far into debt to [insert your favorite government program here]. They are sooooo concerned that their children and grandchildren will have dismal lives as they are taxed into lousy lifestyles in a future lousy economy.
It occurred to me that they are ignoring the obvious "elephant in the room" as I describe below.
WE over-spent and recklessly gambled our future wealth in the last 30 years as the repubs dismantled the safeguards that were instituted in the wake of the Depression (i.e. the Glass-Steagall Act etc.) WE have already indebted our children and grand-children by gambling our national wealth away to the casinos of wall street.
I watched in the 1980's and 1990's as school funding was dismantled, denying kids the ability to play in bands, sports, or participate in debates, etc. because the school can't even afford to buy text books. It's a disgrace to make our kids do fund-raisers for these extra-curricular activities.
Our bridges and roads, built after the depression have been left to deteriorate, and in tragic cases, collapse and kill people. The postal service has been gutted. Our service men and women are not properly equipped for non-war, much less war, conditions.
Yes, in the past, there were hammers and toilet seats sold to the government for exorbant prices. The underlying problem was that private enterprise took advantage of lax government oversite and bilked the taxpayer.
Right-wing-nuts point to these conditions as the reason to further dismantle government programs because the "government can't be trusted". The real story is that Reagan's claim that "government is the problem" was a fufilling prophecy. What really needed to happen was to regulate private enterprise and to make government accountable via audits and oversight.
The privatization of military (think Blackwater) proved that removing government as the customer, as well as the oversight, costs much more than funding the oversight of the government-run programs.
Gambler's Anonymous was created because addicted gamblers ruin not only their lives, but their family's lives and finances. Right-wing-nuts are in denial that THEY are part of the problem. They want to pass the blame to someone they can demonize. But they should look in the mirror and realize they participated in the orgy, and now they and their families must pay it back.
The administration needs to clearly point this out. The nation is effectively using our national debt to pay back all of the gambling losses that have already happened. That is why we are in debt. Furthermore, the administration must vigorously regulate the private sector, as well as itself.
If governments and private entities are held accountable, a vibrant economy results and it can pay back its debts and become solvent with a rainy day fund for the unforseen.
If citizens can bounce back from adversity (such as gambling losses), so can the government. The best thing we can do for the country is to regulate ourselves (private and government). This will create a stable economy which will foster a happy and stable society.
I believe that even if it takes some more government debt to pay for national health care reform, we will be better off than if we don't. We are already way in debt because of the last 30 years of debauchery. A little more is not going to put us over some sort of tragic threshold.
If we have healthy citizens and renewed government oversight over private and government transactsion, we will end up with a vibrant growing economy that can repay the debt a lot quicker than leaving the status quo.