Thursday, July 16, 2009

Biden: Spend to Avoid Bankruptcy



I can just imagine the flak I'm going to get for this post, but.......come on, how could I resist?

Yes, Biden did say that if we don't spend on health care we will go broke......I guess ignoring the fact that it is medicare and medicaid that are already broke and such large liabilities that they basically make the U.S. insolvent on paper. Never mind the fact that we can't go bankrupt since we have the ability to print money endlessly (ignoring the consequences of that for now).

We have a $10 trillion on-the-book deficit slated to rise to around $20 trillion in a decade and this excludes the costs of medicare, medicaid and social security (okay, not totally, but the vast majority of the present value of the future liability is excluded from this figure). Does it make sense to spend even more money? Isn't that what got us into the financial crisis in the first place?

This type of fiscal irresponsibility is what sinks nations.

P.S. THIS IS NOT A STORY FROM THE ONION OR A HUMOR BREAK

Scott Dauenhauer CFP, MSFP, AIF
www.meridianwealth.com