Be afraid for this country’s economic future

President Obama claims that there is already progress being made in matter of the economy. He has said, “We are moving in the right direction.” This leads me to wonder if he is misreading his teleprompter again.

Obama says that people, specifically teachers, have jobs still because of this stimulus package. This is ridiculous, and it is very short-sighted of the president to make such statements. A lot must happen before anybody—and this includes the president—can say things are looking up. Things are not looking up; people are still losing their jobs and their homes, and these are only a few of the problems our country is currently facing.

Things will be quite the mess for a while. President Obama is bringing forth expensive proposals, which could change this country for the worse. Increasing taxes on the wealthy to help get us out of this economic recession is ridiculous and disheartening. In presenting such ideas, Obama condemns success and admits that it is OK to fail because the government will bail you out with someone else’s money if you do fail. Individual responsibility has completely gone out the window in this country. No one has to care about their actions because they can just let the government take care of things.

The AIG bonuses are another problem. Do I think that these people should have gotten any bonuses when they were a part of a failing company? No. But do I believe this economic downturn is entirely their fault? Of course not. One of the main problems here is that our government is stupid. Yes, elected officials are stupid. If a bill worth nearly $1 trillion passes, and not one congressman or senator has read it, then Americans deserve everything that’s coming to them.

No one knew what was in the stimulus bill. It was an 1,100 page disaster, and now it’s slowly starting to unfold. As the dust clears after the passage of the bill, people are starting to realize they didn’t quite get what they bargained for. There are many stipulations in the bill that will change the way this country is run. Was that the point? Well, this very well may be the case, but no one will ever really know.

There is a lot going on with the stimulus package, and a lot is left to be seen. Things are going to be hard for people in this country who made mistakes, as well as those who were successful because they were smart with their money. But what else can you expect when our elected officials didn’t read the bill to find a way to get the kinks out? But this isn’t even the biggest part of our problem.

Obama said, as reported in the Nevada Appeal, that he “inherited a deficit of over $1 trillion from his predecessor.” What he neglects to mention is that his predecessor was in office for eight years. Obama looked at eight years of spending and then basically told the people of this country that he can match that, and he has in less than 100 days. This is like a teenager at the mall with a credit card, on an unimaginably larger scale.

There is much to fear in the upcoming stimulus package, but what we need to truly fear is the debt that is yet to be seen. There are estimates that Obama’s spending will put us in a deficit of $9.3 trillion over the next decade. We should all open our eyes to this and be very afraid.