Talk About a Faith Budget

via Andrew Sullivan is an interesting take on the lack of fiscal responsibility from today's so-called Republican leadership. This comes from an interview with former Senator, Connie Mack, who is President Bush's "go to" guy on tax reform. This is the money quote:

Q:Well, the U.S. government has to get money from somewhere. As a two-term former Republican senator from Florida, where do you suggest we get money from?

A:What money?

Q:The money to run this country.

A:We'll borrow it.

Q:I never understand where all this money comes from.

When the president says we need another $200 billion for Katrina repairs, does he just go and borrow it from the Saudis?

A:In a sense, we do. Maybe the Chinese.

Q:Is that fair to our children? If we keep borrowing at this level, won't the Arabs or the Chinese eventually own this country?

A:I am not worried about that. We are a huge country producing enormous assets day in and day out. We have great strength, and we have always adjusted to difficulties that faced us, and we will continue to do so.

Mack seems to be saying just to have faith that everything will work out. That works in my line of work as a pastor, but when you are a politician, faith won't do.

Mack seems to think that America will always be the most powerful country and will always have a strong economy. But the future isn't promised to us. This might bother some on the far right, but we will not always be a superpower. Things change. A century ago, the British Empire was strong and one of the world's superpowers at that time. The wave of anti-colonialism and the rise of new nations from former colonies, brought an end to Britian role as a superpower. Britian is still a power in the world, of course, but it is not the power it was back in 1905.

Or take Spain. Back in the 1500s, it was the leading power of the day-until the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.

Countries ascend and descend all the time. The United States is sadly not immune to this. I don't ever forsee us not being an important power, but we may not be a superpower. All one has to do is look to China and maybe India as the next superpowers.

This also means, we may not have as commanding an economy. It will always be huge, but let's face it: China is bigger and it's economy is growing. Other countries like South Korea are forging ahead on technologies like stem cell research that we are not moving ahead on.

This is a long way of saying that we can't rely on our position in the world as some kind of IOU. But sadly, we can't expect that the Republicans anymore will be the ones who really worry about the future. My party is acting like a spoiled teenager with a credit card, spending left and right and expecting "daddy" to pay for it. This party has become so allergic to the word "tax" that they can't think of placing a tax. Taxes are only to be cut and if government has to pay something, just charge it on the credit card.

One hopes the Democrats would be more fiscally conservative, but since the Clintonistas are no longer in power, I have very little hope that the Dems now controlled by the Dean/MoveOn faction will be interested in placing America on a sound fiscal path.

We really need another Ross Perot. And soon.