Catastrophe Read Online Free Page B

Catastrophe
Book: Catastrophe Read Online Free
Author: Dick Morris
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and Congress to pass their grand long-term spending plans while the light was green that they didn’t even take care to spend it in 2009 to combat the recession we’re facing today. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), only 23 percent of the money from the stimulus package will be spent in the fiscal year that ends on October 1, 2009. 31
    For example, of the $28 billion to be spent on road construction projects, only $9.6 billion will be spent by 2020. 32 And of the $16.8 billion for renewable energy, only $2.5 billion will be spent in 2009. 33 Precisely what good spending so many years from now will do for today’s economy is a mystery.
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    TAKING HIS TIME: WHEN OBAMA’S STIMULUS WILL BE SPENT
     
    Fiscal Year  Amount Spent
          2009       $185 billion
          2010       $399 billion
          2011       $134 billion
          2012       $36 billion
          2013       $28 billion
          2014       $22 billion
          2015 *       $5 billion
     
    Source: Congressional Budget Office.
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    But in Washington no one asks such questions. It’s much easier just to vote yes.
    IS OBAMA’S PROGRAM SOCIALISM?
    In our era of breathless, hyperventilated politics, we often attach easy labels to our politicians without worrying too much about whether they’re truly justified. In the 1950s, anyone who leaned the slightest bit to the left was pilloried as a Communist; any liberal legislation, including civil rights and Medicare, was condemned as “creeping socialism.”
    So it’s wise to ask: Is it unjust to call Barack Obama a “socialist”?
    No. He’s earned it.
    Historically, the adjective “socialist” has referred to people who believe that the government should own the means of production. As we’ll see later, Obama may indeed be deliberately angling to take over the financial sector, giving him an unparalleled opportunity to spread his influence throughoutthe economy. But he has yet to give any evidence of wanting to take all of private industry and put it under public ownership.
    In modern geopolitics, however, the term “socialist” refers broadly to the Social Democratic ideology followed by the left-leaning political parties of Western Europe, who want to expand the role of government in their countries. They want to establish a broader cradle-to-grave social welfare system and to widen the influence of public institutions.
    The best shorthand to determine where a nation is on the capitalist/socialist scale is to measure how much of its economy is in the public sector—in other words, what percentage of its GDP comes from government spending. By this measure, the United States has ranked well to the right of almost every other major industrialized country in the world, with the sometime exception of Japan.
    The following list compares prominent nations in the proportion of their GDPs that go to government:
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    TOTAL GOVERNMENT SPENDING AS A PERCENTAGE OF GDP
     
    Sweden      57.0%
    France       54.0%
    Italy        48.6%
    Netherlands   47.1%
    Germany     47.5%
    United Kingdom 43.7%
    Canada     40.1%
    Japan      37.5%
    United States  36.4%
     
    Source: Forbes.
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    These data, of course, predate the Obama administration. To measure the impact his program on our standing in the socialist landscape, let’s do some simple math:
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    HOW OBAMA IS MAKING THE UNITED STATES A SOCIALIST DEMOCRACY
    Now compare this table with the preceding one. Whereas U.S. government spending once accounted for 36.4 percent of our economy, it is now rising to 49 percent—sending us soaring past Britain and Germany and nestling in right under France—the very model of a modern socialist democracy!
    So when it comes to Barack Obama’s spending programs, “socialist” is no political slur. It’s a simple description.
    THE STIMULUS PACKAGE THAT DOESN’T STIMULATE
    With so much of the

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