I won’t join the sea of negativity about how it won’t work because I don’t have a crystal ball and can’t predict whether or not it will work. I also won’t get into specifics about it because there’s so much conflicting information about it right now and I’m not sure the people who passed it even know what’s in it because it’s so large and cumbersome.

I will say that I don’t think it’s right for our government to take on staggering amounts of debt without letting the people vote on it and without letting the people help decide how and where that money will be spent. If every American has to help pay back that debt (and we do) then every American should have a say in how much debt is taken on and how it is spent.

I’m an elected official with a small rural municipality (a tiny little worker bee in the American political system). If our municipality wants to increase the money we spend by more than 2 percent in any given year we have to, by law, put that to a vote and let the people who will have to foot the bill say yeah or nay to it.

Why is it different for the National Government? Why are they allowed to take on a staggering amount of debt without the American people being able to vote on whether or not they want to take on the job of paying it off?

It’s like being forced to pay for a mortgage for a house you’ve never owned or lived in or having to pay for a car that will never be yours to drive or to even look at.

Will every American see some benefit from the stimulus package? Will any benefit they see be worth the cost? That definitely remains to be seen.

To me, if it stimulates the economy to the point of Americans being able to pay off the debt without undue hardship and allows us to not leave our children with a budget deficit to pay, then yes, it’s worth taking on this debt and working hard to pay it off. Spending like that can’t go on unchecked though or our children’s children will never see a balanced or surplus budget.

President Obama seems to be aware of this and has addressed the subject. He spoke to the American Governors earlier this month and said “We cannot and will not sustain deficits like these without end … We cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences. I refuse to leave our children with a debt they cannot repay.”

He went on to say he would reinstate the “pay as you go rule” that created a $236 billion surplus in 2000. “You don’t spend what you don’t have,” he said. “This is the rule that families across the country follow every day.”

That’s the spending rule I now follow. I sure hope President Obama keeps his word and makes the government abide by it as well, starting now.

Followup

When we updated the site, we weren’t able to bring all of the old comments into the new system, but this one was good so I wanted to make sure it came along – this one is from Buddy:

Hello

I want to say a bit about this spending plan that Obama put together. I am angry about it. He pushed it and pushed it saying that it was dire that it be passed immediately. The Congressman who voted upon the bill didn’t even get a chance to read it before they were made to vote on it. And then after it was passed, and after all the hoopla about how it had to be signed now, he waited for a few days so he could fly to Denver Colorado and sign it on top of some Green energy building,with a great big huge ceremony.I don’t like any part of the stimulus bill and I don’t agree with his policies on having it signed.

One of the reasons that we as a people don’t get to vote on these big projects is because we have elected officials that vote for us. This is why it is so critical that we all get out the vote and put people into those seats that we can trust. We are living in a republic not a democracy. In a republic elected official are supposed to “do the will of the people who put them there” but it isn’t a requirement. They can vote anyway that they see fit. If this were a democracy then I believe that we all would have the ability to vote on these matters. But it isn’t,this is why I say it again it is so important that we put people into those positions that we can trust. I hope that I helped you to understand this a bit.

Cheers