Open Mouth, Prepare Foot...
Straight from the horses mouth:
President Bush pledged Wednesday to work with Congress to reduce the United States' huge budget deficit to assure markets that his administration supports a strong dollar.
"The policy of my government is a strong-dollar policy," Bush said during an Oval Office meeting with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
"We're going to take this issue on seriously with the Congress," the president said.
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Let us forget for the moment that we have no idea what a "Strong Dollar Policy" is or what "serious" means with respect to actions to be taken by the President or the Congress and try to figure out what this statement, one that will have to pass for definitive in this administration, means. We don't know WHAT the policy is because, unlike most policies in the real world, it's not formal or written down because like MOST of this administration's policies, it's really more of a concept as opposed to a policy. And, we don't know what serious means since the only really "serious" actions taken by this President towards Congress are when he first tells them what he wants, because after that, he's off to the Ranch.
However, economists will tell you what a "Strong Dollar Policy" means; it means fiscal responsibility at home.
Dare I say...fiscal conservatism?
In order for the dollar to regain its strength in the world, the world must regain its confidence in the solvency and productivity of America. In order for that to happen, we must pay down our domestic debt, work to reduce our trade deficit (signalling an increase in productivity), and pay for the things our government does without borrowing more money.
There are two ways to achieve this, bring more money into the government coffers or spend less. The only other way is to introduce creative accounting that moves piles of debt around so that it doesn't show up on the books. Sort of like Enron and others. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that this administration would take accounting tips from its buddies, but hey, I would hope we wouldn't be THAT stupid....hmmmm. (HINT: I suggest you look at the proposal to shift the tranisition costs off the GAO books for Social Security reform)
So, in order to bring in more money we can HOPE that the economy suddenly skyrockets a la the 90's or we can raise taxes. HOPE is NOT a planning tool. The 90's boom followed a rise in taxes and a budget surplus, so methinks there is a bit of a chicken/egg problem here AND some of it was artificial due to the aforementioned creative accounting. And, since the economy seems to be happy chugging along at the 2 to 4 GNP rate, I see no reason to think a "boom" of the size needed to fill the coffers to the level necessary is just around the corner.
That leaves us with raising taxes. Yeah, right, whatever. Forget that your state and local taxes have more than covered your "savings" from the federal government tax cut and realize that this would go against every ideological bone in W's body. Notice that it has nothing to do with his brain.
The other avenue would be to cut spending. Of course this would mean less federal investment, less federal income to states, less social stability and higher state and local taxes to cover the unfunded mandates placed upon states by the Federal Government. Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Life goes on and we have a war to fight and infrastructure to protect. From just where would cuts come that would be large enough to even put a dent in current deficits, much less the overall deficit?
It certainly will be interesting to see how W will play his loyalty for his ideology against his STATED loyalty to his policy. Orwell could never have imagined the double-speak we will soon be getting from this administration on this subject.
Good leadership and management is about the ability to effectively and efficiently apply limited resources to competing demands within the constraints imposed by the current environment. How well one does this and achieves the goals set forth by the leadership is the measure by which we should judge one's leadership and management capabilities.
We now have his stated goal on record. We know the current constraints. We know the current competing demands. Now we must observe how well our leader effectively and efficiently applies our resources.
Please pay attention so that you can judge our leader's abilities on something other than religious pandering.
Straight from the horses mouth:
President Bush pledged Wednesday to work with Congress to reduce the United States' huge budget deficit to assure markets that his administration supports a strong dollar.
"The policy of my government is a strong-dollar policy," Bush said during an Oval Office meeting with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
"We're going to take this issue on seriously with the Congress," the president said.
-----
Let us forget for the moment that we have no idea what a "Strong Dollar Policy" is or what "serious" means with respect to actions to be taken by the President or the Congress and try to figure out what this statement, one that will have to pass for definitive in this administration, means. We don't know WHAT the policy is because, unlike most policies in the real world, it's not formal or written down because like MOST of this administration's policies, it's really more of a concept as opposed to a policy. And, we don't know what serious means since the only really "serious" actions taken by this President towards Congress are when he first tells them what he wants, because after that, he's off to the Ranch.
However, economists will tell you what a "Strong Dollar Policy" means; it means fiscal responsibility at home.
Dare I say...fiscal conservatism?
In order for the dollar to regain its strength in the world, the world must regain its confidence in the solvency and productivity of America. In order for that to happen, we must pay down our domestic debt, work to reduce our trade deficit (signalling an increase in productivity), and pay for the things our government does without borrowing more money.
There are two ways to achieve this, bring more money into the government coffers or spend less. The only other way is to introduce creative accounting that moves piles of debt around so that it doesn't show up on the books. Sort of like Enron and others. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that this administration would take accounting tips from its buddies, but hey, I would hope we wouldn't be THAT stupid....hmmmm. (HINT: I suggest you look at the proposal to shift the tranisition costs off the GAO books for Social Security reform)
So, in order to bring in more money we can HOPE that the economy suddenly skyrockets a la the 90's or we can raise taxes. HOPE is NOT a planning tool. The 90's boom followed a rise in taxes and a budget surplus, so methinks there is a bit of a chicken/egg problem here AND some of it was artificial due to the aforementioned creative accounting. And, since the economy seems to be happy chugging along at the 2 to 4 GNP rate, I see no reason to think a "boom" of the size needed to fill the coffers to the level necessary is just around the corner.
That leaves us with raising taxes. Yeah, right, whatever. Forget that your state and local taxes have more than covered your "savings" from the federal government tax cut and realize that this would go against every ideological bone in W's body. Notice that it has nothing to do with his brain.
The other avenue would be to cut spending. Of course this would mean less federal investment, less federal income to states, less social stability and higher state and local taxes to cover the unfunded mandates placed upon states by the Federal Government. Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Life goes on and we have a war to fight and infrastructure to protect. From just where would cuts come that would be large enough to even put a dent in current deficits, much less the overall deficit?
It certainly will be interesting to see how W will play his loyalty for his ideology against his STATED loyalty to his policy. Orwell could never have imagined the double-speak we will soon be getting from this administration on this subject.
Good leadership and management is about the ability to effectively and efficiently apply limited resources to competing demands within the constraints imposed by the current environment. How well one does this and achieves the goals set forth by the leadership is the measure by which we should judge one's leadership and management capabilities.
We now have his stated goal on record. We know the current constraints. We know the current competing demands. Now we must observe how well our leader effectively and efficiently applies our resources.
Please pay attention so that you can judge our leader's abilities on something other than religious pandering.
posted by Mike at 1:14 PM
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