The Benefits Of Austerity

January 20. 2016

Barack Obama

This is a continuation of the January 19, 2015 article "New Financial Crisis Hits America Confirming Previous Site Claims." In 2008 America was hit by a severe financial crisis that created widespread unemployment, foreclosures and business closures (How George Bush Destroyed The U.S. Economy). Trillions of dollars have been lost due to the crisis, which began under former U.S. president, George W. Bush and his extremely poor and negligent fiscal polices the Judiciary Report saw coming and warned against (Ben Bernake Didn't See The Financial Crisis Coming). Bush's successor, U.S. president, Barack Obama, won the 2008 election and assumed office in the first quarter of 2009.  

Obama undertook a fiscally risky and dangerous course of action regarding the badly battered U.S. economy. Obama took the Hollywood approach of spend your way out of debt, which does not work. Obama has spent more money that any other president in U.S. history to disastrous results. America's debt levels are now enormously high and completely unsustainable. The 2008 financial crisis has now rebooted itself in what many financial analysts are now saying is worst that its predecessor. Years ago, the Judiciary Report predicted this would happen.

From the inception of Obama's presidency, the Judiciary Report advocated austerity, a small tax increase on the rich and increased production in the manufacturing sector of America's companies. This was not done and now the rotten fruit of the government's poor choices are cropping up and it is not pretty.

Austerity is not a bad word. It simply means making budget cuts in reining in unruly spending. Many nations have done this when financial troubles hit and it works. The Obama Administration could have cut billions of dollars from government budgets, hundreds of millions of dollars in padded government expense accounts, bad multi-billion dollar deals rewarding his campaign donors and wasteful government spying that has cost the American taxpayer hundreds of billions of dollars. The wars in the Middle East from Bush to Obama's tenure, which are making America and the west less safe, has cost the U.S. taxpayer approximately $2 trillion dollars. In total, a good $4 trillion dollars have been wasted and America is again mired in a financial crisis causing suffering in the nation. Imagine the good $4 trillion could have done in building up America. The nation would have been stronger and more prosperous than ever.

Austerity is not an unfamiliar concept in America. Former U.S. president, Bill Clinton, made proper budget cuts during his tenure in the 1990s and America greatly prospered for it. Clinton left America with healthy financial surpluses. However, Bush squandered it all, nearly $1 trillion dollars on wars and other wild spending he misrepresented to the American public and the world.

However, in Washington, a number of government officials employed the attitude of everyman for himself. Government officials refused to take financial cuts to their lavish expense accounts being underwritten by the American taxpayer. The Obama Administration, much like its predecessor Bush, took care of campaign donors with big  financial deals paid for by the American taxpayers. These deals produced nothing of financial significance for the American taxpayer, only serving to aid in the depletion of the U.S. treasury. Obama expanded the Bush Administration's illegal national surveillance programs spying on the American people, wasting a few hundred billion dollars of the taxpayers money.

America is now at an unfamiliar place for the nation, having slipped from its prominent spot in the world, as other nations such as China and Britain, who both have significant wealth, advance on the international stage. The U.S. government needs to embrace austerity and justice or America is going to sink. This financial corruption and waste is toxic. The next administration needs to realize the crisis facing the nation and take steps to remedy it or the federal government is going to collapse and cause terrible ripple effects that negatively impact each U.S. state.  

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