New stimulus will add to debt
In Obama’s upcoming address to a joint session of Congress, expect more of the same. Odds are we’ll hear how another round of government stimulus spending aimed at creating green jobs and upgrading our national infrastructure will jumpstart our economy.
This is classic Keynesian economics. If the economy is slumping, the government can pump up demand by deficit spending. Government expenditures become Americans’ income, and economic growth is sure to follow.
The fallacy with this thinking is that income will be spent as soon as it is earned. In reality, people spend based on their expectations of the future. And right now, the majority of Americans do not expect the economy to improve in the next 18 months. GDP growth is anemic, the dollar has lost value through inflation, and the U.S. government’s credit rating recently was downgraded.
Americans realize that even if there is another round of stimulus via borrowing or printing money, it is not sustainable. Dollars earned will be saved for the rainy days that are expected ahead. Additional stimulus will not result in economic growth, but will add to the mountain of debt we’ve already accumulated.
Let’s hope Mr. Obama takes a different approach.
ROB REAGAN, Ooltewah
* * * * *
Get your answers from the Bible
The recent earthquake along the Eastern seaboard causes me to think of the words of Jesus to his followers concerning end times: “For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.”
Having given birth to nine children, I know about birth pangs. When they start, they get worse and worse until finally a baby is born. The Bible speaks of the happenings in the end of the age as birth pangs.
What is going to happen to this world? How incredibly satisfying to read the Bible and get God’s word on all of my questions. How wonderful to be able to answer my children’s questions. How I long to tell others about the Lord Jesus Christ, the son of God, who came to Earth and showed us God’s love as he hung between heaven and Earth on a cross paying the penalty for every sin ever committed. No one but God could do this.
How terrible to some day stand before God’s judgment throne and say we did not care to know what he wanted to tell us.
RACHEL DECOSIMO, Signal Mountain