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What was the vision of our early presidents?
Topic Started: Feb 21 2012, 09:35 AM (1,183 Views)
Chris
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President's Day at least remember what earlier one accomplished.

What was the vision of our early presidents?
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On Presidents’ Day this year, let’s remember the remarkable commitment of our early presidents to building the financial integrity of the United States. George Washington set the tone. He knew that liberty, sound money, and balanced budgets were the keys to prosperity and national greatness.

In his “Farewell Address,” Washington urged Americans to avoid “the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertion in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear.” In other words, let’s pay off all our debts from the Revolutionary War, and do it in our generation and not impose them on our children.

The next presidents agreed with Washington’s high caliber of statesmanship. Jefferson and Madison kept taxes low and still managed to whittle down the national debt. By the time of President Andrew Jackson, the U.S. paid off the whole debt, and began briefly running surpluses. As Jackson made clear, the new political issue was what to do with all the cash left over at the end of the year (Congress decided to give it back to the states, with the larger states getting the most). ...
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Thumper
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Times have changed don't cha know.
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Chris
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And so have presidents. Here's a comparison, WWGWD?
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...1. Barack Obama proposes a budget that runs a $1.3 trillion deficit for 2012, increasing the national debt by more than $5 trillion in four years.

WWGWD?

“No pecuniary consideration is more urgent, than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt: on none can delay be more injurious, or an economy of time more valuable,” the first president told the third Congress. He encouraged Congress to pay down the principal and not merely the interest, noting that doing so would avoid unbearable tax burdens. No issue arises more often in Washington’s messages to Congress than redeeming the debt.

2. Barack Obama debases the currency. Rounds of quantitative easing—effectively defaulting on our creditors—fund spending sprees by creating hundreds of billions in new money that devalues the old money.

WWGWD?

Washington explained to Congress in 1795 that the nation’s interests called for “the honorable extinction of our Public Debt.” Why that word “honorable”? Fresh from the Continentals fiasco, the general who had led an army of soldiers paid in horribly depreciated currency knew better than most the disaster of fiat money. As he explained to a Rhode Island official in 1787, “Paper money has had the effect in your State that it ever will have, to ruin commerce—oppress the honest, and open a door to every species of fraud and injustice.”

3. Barack Obama launched a war in Libya without even consulting Congress. He signed into law a health care bill that forces Americans to buy insurance policies from private companies. He appointed Richard Cordray head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and named three members of the National Labor Relations Board, without Senate confirmation when the Congress was in session.

WWGWD?

Washington prophetically warned his countrymen against constitutional “change by usurpation, for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.” So reverential was the delegate to the Constitutional Convention toward the document crafted there that in his brief second inaugural address he noted that “if it shall be found during my administration of the Government I have in any instance violated willingly, or knowingly, the injunction thereof, I may (besides incurring Constitutional punishment) be subject to the upbraidings of all who are now witnesses of the present solemn Ceremony.”

4. Barack Obama forces religious institutions to violate the tenets of their faiths by paying for abortifacients, contraceptives, and sterilizations.

WWGWD?

The episcopalian vestryman told Baltimore Swedenborgians that “every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart. In this enlightened Age and in this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man’s religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws.” He told Catholics in 1790 that “all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the Community are equally entitled to the protection of civil Government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations in examples of justice and liberality.” He told Jews in Newport, Rhode Island that the federal government “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”

5. Barack Obama has used the military in Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and beyond—with calls for the administration to intervene in Syria and attack Iran. As U.S. commitments have expanded, the administration proposes a smaller defense budget.

WWGWD?

“Our detached and distant situation invites us to pursue a different course” than bellicose Europe’s, Washington noted in his “disinterested warnings of a parting friend.” He asked, “Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?” The warrior warned against adventurism abroad as he advocated strength at home. He told Congress in 1793, “If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War.”...
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Thumper
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Of course Presidents change. Thank God. otherwise we would still have slavery, militiamen and no Interstate Highway System. As much as some would like, we aren't going back to the good ole days.
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Banandangees
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Thumper
Feb 21 2012, 09:43 AM
Times have changed don't cha know.
Times change but the good financial principles that Washington spoke of don't; thus, $15 trillion in debt and growing. What more proof do you need?
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Mountainrivers
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"Barack Obama debases the currency. Rounds of quantitative easing—effectively defaulting on our creditors—fund spending sprees by creating hundreds of billions in new money that devalues the old money."

You do understand that Obama didn't do that. The Federal Reserve did.

"Barack Obama launched a war in Libya"

He didn't launch the war. It wasn't even a war. The US simply participated in it. Blame the French and the English.

"Barack Obama forces religious institutions to violate the tenets of their faiths by paying for abortifacients, contraceptives, and sterilizations."

Did not. He backed away from that.

"Barack Obama has used the military in Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and beyond—with calls for the administration to intervene in Syria and attack Iran. As U.S. commitments have expanded, the administration proposes a smaller defense budget."

Whose calling for action in Syria and Iran. It's not Obama. Every president in recent history has used our military in various countries around the world. Obama is no different.
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Thumper
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Ban, this country is exactly where it has chosen to go. Blame yourself as I blame myself. We are the Government. Can't blame Obama. H was elected by "us". Don't like Obama, vote him out, but you aren't going to do it with the current disgusting Republican lineup. Count on four more for Obama. I personally will vote for him because of one single issue. Health Care.
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Banandangees
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I agree Thump. It's all of us, both parties, everyone. I'm am not blaming Obama. He's just one spoke. Everyone who has spent beyond there means is partly responsible. It's the mentality. I suppose it's the same mentality that put Greece in the position they are in... and Italy... and the EU in general.

I think Washington's message is that everyone, including governments, have to pay attention to responsible financial principles on an ongoing basis. Can that be done? Apparently Canada thinks they have come around to doing it. Not without gripes mind you.
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tomdrobin
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Limited government and laizes faire economics worked pretty well in the time period leading up to the industrial revolution. When you had primarily small business with the owner often working alongside his employees. The industrial revolution changed all that, suddenly people became just tools to use to make money, and their were terrible excesses. And, those who became extremely wealthy used that wealth to consolidate more wealth and power for themselves. The gilded age and the age of the robber barons was an era of great economic expansion for the country. But, the excesses of that era led to the progressive era where the prosperity was shared more equitably.

Some would have us return to the freewheeling gilded age. I think it would be a mistake.
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Chris
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Banandangees
Feb 21 2012, 08:58 PM
Thumper
Feb 21 2012, 09:43 AM
Times have changed don't cha know.
Times change but the good financial principles that Washington spoke of don't; thus, $15 trillion in debt and growing. What more proof do you need?
Exactly. Things change, truth doesn't.
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