The Blind Leading the Blind

Parade asks Can These Men Fix the Deficit?

Short answer: No.

The plan of these men is to cut spending. "Everything has to be on the table," Alan Simpson says. "We’re looking at how we can reduce discretionary spending," Erskine Bowles says, "... and mandatory spending."

What's wrong with that? Well, it doesn't work. That's what. We've been cutting spending since LBJ. And we had a total of five years with a balanced budget.

I'm not saying we need to spend more. Not at all. But I'm also not saying we need to spend less. Because the problem is not the spending we do. The problem is the stuff we use for money. We use credit for money. That's why we have so much debt.

Debt is not created by excessive spending. Debt is created by the use of credit. We're not a poor country. We're a rich country that uses credit for money. It makes us look poor, and it is making us poor. But this problem cannot be solved with spending cuts.