Rice County Republicans

For several years we have been watching sites like iousathemovie with alarm, as they project more than $56 TRILLION unfunded Federal obligations over the next 60 years or so. These obligations will be paid by taxpayers who currently can only send a couple of trillion dollars a year to the Federal government, leaving nothing to put against these unfunded obligations.

Now we read an interesting headline in the NYTimes (login may be required).

Social Security to See Payout Exceed Pay-In This Year [2010]

In this article we read that Social Security, one of the so called third rails in our growing set of entitlement programs, will pay out more than it takes in this year. As Madoff can tell you, it is at this point that your typical Ponzi scheme starts to collapse. The article calls this a tipping point because, like a canoe that tips too much, it becomes unrecoverable pretty quickly once it starts to go underwater.

Of course, rather than trying to deal with this problem, we have just added a new entitlement program in the form of the recent health care bill. Although it is fashionable to claim this bill will create death panels, rationing and other scary things, these are often just part of the political rhetoric used to drive voters to the polls.  The real issue, though, is the unrelenting nature of entitlement programs like this that, like the anaconda, suffocate society by accreting new entitlements to the existing core program one special interest at a time as each special interest group lobbies the press and Congress for their particular issue.  Massive bills like the health care bill set the table for more and more special interests to sit at, and the one special interest that picks up the bill is left sitting in the corner crying “who’s paying for this largess?”

Let’s Get Excited for a Republican Sweep in November!

Gubernatorial Candidate Representative  Tom Emmer coming to Faribault

Momentum is steadily building for Representative Tom Emmer as he travels the state reaching out to voters.  Local activists Otto Luknic and Sue Nelson are hosting a fundraiser to help spur him along.  Senator Mike Parry will also be a featured guest.

Come join us as we get a chance to rub elbows with the next Governor of our great State!

Date: Tuesday, April 6th, 2010
Time: 5:30-7:30 p.m.
Where: Elks Lodge
131 Lyndale Ave North
Faribault, MN 55021
Google Maps
Cash bar and hors d’ oeuvers – ticket price $30

RSVP to Ben Harper at  651-783-5657 or ben@emmerforgovenor.com

PIIGS referes to Portugal, Italy (Ireland), Greece and Spain. These members of the European Union are examples we are becoming familiar with through recent events in the Eurozone.

The key fact about the Eurozone is that it represents a MONETARY – not a fiscal, ie government budget – union, whose policy is set by the European Central Bank or ECB. The main job of the ECB is to set interest rates for the entire Eurozone.

Ever since its inception, Eurozone members have been aware of a potential conflict between the fact that monetary policy is set by the ECB for the entire Euro-area, while government spending, ie fiscal, policy is managed by each country.

Ref: Economy Watch.

Think of California, their profligate spending which appears to have been set in concrete during the boom times (though the development of entitlement programs, which is a form of social concrete). Now, they are sinking under a sea of debt and promisory notes that we may find ourselves making good, in a situation similar to that of the PIIGS in Europe.

Our thanks to Stephen K for pointing this article out to us.