PAGE A14, KEIZERTIMES, SEPTEMBER 17, 2021
An insatiable urge to splurge
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And then it rained
After months of nary a drop of pre-
cipitation, Keizer will finally see rain
this weekend. According to forecasters,
it could be significant rain.
The first reaction is thank, goodness...
at last. The second, and more important
reaction is more tangible.
After weeks and weeks without rain,
every road we travel on will become
slick as rain mixes with the build up
of oil and other fluids since last spring.
Every driver needs to be cognizant of
driving condiitons. It is easy to forget
what streets are like after a good rain.
The simple act of braking could end up
with your car in the backside of the veh-
cile in front of yours.
Be safe and be cautious while driv-
ing on city streets and on freeways.
Give plenty of space between you and
the other vehicles. Slick conditions can
challenge the best drivers.
It is not only our roads we need
our attention. Street drains and home
gutters can fall to victim to overflows
brought on by heavy rain. Autumn
leaves have begun their change of color
and have started falling from trees.
Though most leaves will end up in our
yards many will find their way where
they can cause flow backups on our
homes and in our streets.
The best defense is a good offense.
Editorial
Cleaning gutters is not a happ chore,
but it needs to be done to protect the
investment of our houses.
We will want to cheer when the rain
starts falling, yet our state will still be
very dry after months of drought con-
ditions. Resevoirs are a fraction of their
historical volumes. Cities that rely on
those resevoirs for their water may be
able to breathe again.
In Keizer we need the rain for our
lawns and shrubbery, with the vast aqui-
fer underneath use, our taps will not go
dry.
We all look forward to the rain. At the
same time we must remain alert to how
it affects our roads and drains.
—LAZ
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By DEBRA J. SAUNDERS
Last month, trustees for Social
Security and Medicare let forth the grim
news. Medicare Part A will be insolvent
by 2026, and Social Security will follow
in 2034. In years past, Washington would
have considered the report a call to arms
for fiscal responsibility.
Apparently unperturbed by news that
could spell 9% cuts in Medicare Part A
in five years, President Joe Biden still is
pushing a $3.5 trillion spending frame-
work to fund his cradle-to-grave wish list
of federal spending.
Biden also has proposed a $2 trillion
American Jobs Plan for what he calls
infrastructure—the Senate passed a $1
trillion version of the measure—and a $1.9
trillion American Rescue Plan, which was
enacted in March.
Under the “Build Back Better” banner,
Biden is pushing paid family and medical
leave, a bigger child tax credit, subsidized
child care, more subsidized health care,
universal pre-K and tuition-free commu-
nity college.
The national debt is $28.7 trillion,
thanks in part to $5 trillion spent over the
last 18 months in response to the corona-
virus, Sen. Joe Manchin, D- W.Va., warned
in an opinion piece in The Wall Street
Journal in which he called for a pause in
big spending.
Republicans used to champion
balanced federal budgets—even if
Republican presidents such as George
W. Bush spent more than the government
took in.
President Donald Trump campaigned
for office bashing then-President Barack
Obama’s doubling of the $10 trillion
national debt to just under $20 trillion.
That didn’t stop Trump from pushing
tax cuts that helped increase the national
debt by close to $7 trillion.
In 2019, Trump’s then-Chief of Staff
Mick Mulvaney confessed the federal
government would spend at least $1 tril-
lion more than it took in for every year
Trump held the White House.
Speaking at a Peter G. Peterson
Foundation event, Mulvaney, who entered
public life as a fiscal hawk, offered, “We
are not going to cut our way to balance.”
And: “There is no center of gravity for
reduced spending in this town.”
Clearly Mulvaney did not buy into the
administration’s claim that Trump’s Tax
Cuts and Jobs Act would pay for itself.
And it didn’t.
There is a residual effect. Republicans
who voted for Trump’s big spending look
a little squirrely when they complain
about Democrats overspending.
Please note the Trump spending I cite
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predated COVID-19, a natural disaster
that left Washington with no choice but
to throw money at the pandemic to mobi-
lize the health industry to care for the
sick and prevent the spread of the virus,
as well as prevent the sort of panic that
could shred the U.S. economy.
Biden threw money at the virus, too.
And now he’s throwing your money at
everything else.
In 2019, the debt owed by every man,
woman and child in the United States
was some $49,000. Today, according to
the Peterson folks, it’s $86,035 per person.
Two years ago, every American carried
the debt for a luxury car, without the car.
Now you owe the equivalent of two lux-
ury cars you don’t own.
Asked during an August press brief-
ing if Biden was concerned about the
growing national debt, press secretary
Jen Psaki responded that the debt was “a
concern when he came in, and he was left
with quite a debt and deficit by his pre-
decessor. But the President has proposed
a plan and package that would be fully
paid for by asking corporations and the
wealthiest Americans to pay a little bit
more to make our country more compet-
itive, and he feels quite comfortable with
the fiscal responsibility of that.”
Beware: the likelihood that Democrats
will pay the full freight of their package
with higher taxes is small indeed.
Legions of lobbyists are working to
chip away or eliminate Biden’s plans to
increase the inheritance tax, raise cor-
porate income taxes, eliminate popular
loopholes and establish a global mini-
mum corporate income tax.
Court challenges and corporate law-
yers are likely to chip away at what’s left.
That doesn’t mean voters should give
up or rely on special interests to curb the
Beltway’s urge to splurge—not when each
party can blame the other camp.
Asked when Congress will raise the
debt ceiling by mid-October, House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi responded that
the House will do what needs to be done
“because it’s the responsible thing to do.”
What exactly? “We’re paying the Trump
credit card,” she said.
As long as both parties think they
can keep spending money on credit and
blame it all on the other side, red ink will
flow.
(Creators Syndicate)
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