Ellen Brown writes: As our 45th President prepares to enter the Oval Office, bank lending
has seized up, some of the nation’s largest banks are on life support,
and the big three automakers are bankrupt. Housing continues to crash,
and so does the economy.
Little wonder that Obama
is being compared to Franklin D. Roosevelt, who entered the White House
in similar financial straits in 1932. Even before taking office, Obama
has started his version of the “fireside chats” (updated from radio to
online video) given by Roosevelt nearly weekly to reassure the public.
He said on November 22 that he plans to create 2.5 million new jobs by
2011 and kick-start the economy by building roads and bridges,
modernizing schools, and creating technology and infrastructure for
renewable energy. These are excellent ideas, but what will they be
funded with—more government debt?
Obama has
pledged to honor the commitments of the outgoing administration to
rescue financial markets, on the theory that if we don’t, our credit
system could freeze up completely. But as noted by Barry Ritholtz in a
December 2 article, the bailout
has already cost more than the New Deal, the Marshall Plan, the
Louisiana Purchase, the moonshot, the savings and loan bailout, the
Korean War, the Iraq war, the Vietnam war, and NASA’s lifetime budget combined.(1) Increasing the debt burden could break the back of the taxpayers and plunge the nation itself into bankruptcy.
How
can the new President resolve these enormous funding challenges? Thomas
Jefferson realized two centuries ago that there is a way to finance
government without taxes or
debt. Unfortunately, he came to that realization only after he had left
the White House, and he was unable to put it into action. With any
luck, Obama will discover this funding solution early in his upcoming
term, before the country is declared bankrupt and abandoned by its
creditors. (12/10/08)
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