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Stephen Moore, senior economics writer for The Wall Street Journal editorial page, recently wrote a profound article entitled "It's Time to Legislate a Spending Cap - Only legally binding limits can brings deficits under control." His August 6, 2009 article discusses, perhaps, the one, single core problem with the fiscal management of U.S. government operations: the inability of Congress to set a real spending cap.

His article begins:

"Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Sunday that 'We have to bring these deficits down very dramatically.' This is the understatement of the new century: Many private economists now predict that deficit spending will surpass $2 trillion this year, with $10 trillion more borrowing over the next decade.

How will the Obama administration cope with this budget recklessness? Mr. Geithner and Larry Summers, Mr. Obama's director of the National Economic Council, hinted last weekend that taxes on everyone may have to go up.

These taxes could take the form of a broad-based energy tax (from a cap-and-trade system on carbon emissions), a payroll tax hike (as in the health-care reform plan), and a European-style national sales tax (a.k.a., a value-added tax, or VAT).

The potential burden would be staggering. It would take almost $16,000 more from every household in America to balance the budget just this year...."

It is well worth your while to read the remainder of this article at:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203946904574300513655895856.html

Unfortunately, Congress just doesn't get it - as evidenced by a recent article in the Wall Street Journal by Lori Montgomery, a Washington Post Staff Writer, who reported on April 3, 2009:

"Congressional Democrats overwhelmingly embraced President Obama's ambitious and expensive agenda for the nation yesterday, endorsing a $3.5 trillion spending plan that sets the stage for the president to pursue his most far-reaching priorities."

These Congressional Democrats should be reminded that the engineers and builders of the Titanic also, quite sincerely, believed it could never sink.

But it did....with no life boats for most of the people.

- Ed Smith, Publisher
The EHS Letter Manual