Topic #1: The Federal Budget Deficit
Please Consider the following Potential Leading Questions
#1: Can the current federal budget deficit be reduced adequately by only enacting cuts in federal expenditures? If so, what areas should be cut?
#2: Can the current federal budget deficit be reduced adequately solely by enacting tax reform? If so, what aspects of current tax law should be reformed?
#3: Is a combination of cuts in federal expenditures and tax reform needed to address our current budget deficit problem? If so, in our current political climate what combination is both feasible and good public policy?
#4: What approach to cutting our current federal deficit, if any, will not adversely impede the pressing current need to create jobs for the unemployed?
#5: What are the differences between short-term and long-term solutions to our federal budget deficit problem?
Launch Date for the conversation: February 1, 2012
Harold, I find myself deeply disappointed that all of six of the commentators in this conversation appear to base their political views on what I feel is a fundamentally flawed assumption; namely, that the answer to social injustice (inter alia) is to increase the role of the federal government as the primary provider of solutions. This strikes me as particularly odd when discussing our national fiscal insolvency, given the fact that the federal government is the principal creator of the mess in which we wallow. Is there not a single Christian academic or political commentator to be found that would agree with the sentiment from President Reagan's first Inaugural Address that, "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem"? In my experience, the vast majority of Americans (Christian or otherwise) whom I know, talk to, hear on TV, read, and even read about agree in almost every case when it comes to the "ends": justice for the downtrodden, assistance for the needy, equal opportunity for all to pursue their dreams, and so on. The disagreements, however, come not only in what should be the "means" of achieving those ends, but also in who should be the persons and organizations entrusted to employ those means and to define the metrics, take the measurements, and conduct the assessment as to "how we're doing" (and, more ominously, "who is contributing what to the effort and who isn't"); I submit this is where any political conversation must focus to be fully inclusive of all fellow followers of Christ across this nation. I would emplore you to consider adding commentators to this worthy forum from the conservative, small-government, strict constructionist, free-market regions of the American political landscape — those more aligned with the likes of Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, and Ludwig von Mises, than with Hillary Clinton, President Obama, and John Maynard Keynes.
Harold, I find myself deeply disappointed that all of six of the commentators in this conversation appear to base their political views on what I feel is a fundamentally flawed assumption; namely, that the answer to social injustice (inter alia) is to increase the role of the federal government as the primary provider of solutions. This strikes me as particularly odd when discussing our national fiscal insolvency, given the fact that the federal government is the principal creator of the mess in which we wallow. Is there not a single Christian academic or political commentator to be found that would agree with the sentiment from President Reagan's first Inaugural Address that, "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem"? In my experience, the vast majority of Americans (Christian or otherwise) whom I know, talk to, hear on TV, read, and even read about agree in almost every case when it comes to the "ends": justice for the downtrodden, assistance for the needy, equal opportunity for all to pursue their dreams, and so on. The disagreements, however, come not only in what should be the "means" of achieving those ends, but also in who should be the persons and organizations entrusted to employ those means and to define the metrics, take the measurements, and conduct the assessment as to "how we're doing" (and, more ominously, "who is contributing what to the effort and who isn't"); I submit this is where any political conversation must focus to be fully inclusive of all fellow followers of Christ across this nation. I would emplore you to consider adding commentators to this worthy forum from the conservative, small-government, strict constructionist, free-market regions of the American political landscape — those more aligned with the likes of Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, and Ludwig von Mises, than with Hillary Clinton, President Obama, and John Maynard Keynes.
Harold, I find myself deeply disappointed that all of six of the commentators in this conversation appear to base their political views on what I feel is a fundamentally flawed assumption; namely, that the answer to social injustice (inter alia) is to increase the role of the federal government as the primary provider of solutions. This strikes me as particularly odd when discussing our national fiscal insolvency, given the fact that the federal government is the principal creator of the mess in which we wallow. Is there not a single Christian academic or political commentator to be found that would agree with the sentiment from President Reagan's first Inaugural Address that, "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem"? In my experience, the vast majority of Americans (Christian or otherwise) whom I know, talk to, hear on TV, read, and even read about agree in almost every case when it comes to the "ends": justice for the downtrodden, assistance for the needy, equal opportunity for all to pursue their dreams, and so on. The disagreements, however, come not only in what should be the "means" of achieving those ends, but also in who should be the persons and organizations entrusted to employ those means and to define the metrics, take the measurements, and conduct the assessment as to "how we're doing" (and, more ominously, "who is contributing what to the effort and who isn't"); I submit this is where any political conversation must focus to be fully inclusive of all fellow followers of Christ across this nation. I would emplore you to consider adding commentators to this worthy forum from the conservative, small-government, strict constructionist, free-market regions of the American political landscape — those more aligned with the likes of Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, and Ludwig von Mises, than with Hillary Clinton, President Obama, and John Maynard Keynes.