Your Opinion: Spending under Clinton and Obama

Dear Editor:

Was Bill Clinton someone who ignored the "poor and down trodden" when he was president? Was he vilified for his lack of concern for them? It seems to me that his budgets should be something that we could agree to use as a "baseline" in the post-war, post-recession period (according to the administration Obama's trillions of bailout money ended the recession in 2009).

When Clinton was responsible for spending (FY1994-2001) the national debt increased by $1.2 trillion. During the four years Obama has been responsible for the budget (FY2010-2013) the national debt has increased by $4.8 trillion.

During the final two years of the Clinton presidency his budgets only sucked up 18.2 percent of our GDP. Many of you are old enough to remember how the Democrats raved about the budget surplus during a couple of years when Clinton was president. Even after the sequestration "cuts," according to his 2014 proposed budget, Obama never wants to spend less than 21.2 percent of our GDP, and that doesn't occur until 2018. During the Clinton presidency we got by with the federal government sucking only 15.2 percent out of our GDP for non-defense spending. The best Obama can do is to suck 18.4 percent out of our economy, for non-defense spending.

Does it really cost that much to buy Democratic votes? If not, what are we getting for all the extra spending? Clinton spent $8,600 per capita, in 2013 dollars), Obama proposes spending over $13,200 per capita in 2018. Some future generation is going to have to pay for all this additional spending/debt.

Greece, or even Detroit, are examples of governments that refused to live within their means. There will be no one around to bail out the U.S. when other nations realize that all the trillions of worthless paper dollars being printed by the federal reserve have nothing to back them up.

Eleven million illegal aliens can find enough work to support themselves with no welfare. Other than vote buying, why is it that nearly half our citizens need some type of welfare? It is well past time for us to elect a government that will start telling people that they are responsible for their actions and that government will no longer force others to reward them for negative behavior.

We, as individuals or local government, could then be "our brother's keeper," as we see fit.

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