The Definition of Insanity

Someone needs to remind President Obama that “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” On *Saturday he admitted in a C Span interview, “We are out of money now.”

That’s precisely what the Tea Party People have been grousing about for months.

Unfortunately, Obama went on to explain that the $1,700,000,000,000 in debt and the deficit of $11,000,000,000,000 was NOT due to his actions – the fault lies with previous administration(s), particularly in the area of health care. (Thus reminding some viewers of a three-year-old with icing on his cheeks earnestly telling his mother that he was NOT the one who ate the icing off the cake before it was served.)

He further enlightened the interviewer by stating that the short term problem of spending money on the financial and automobile industries coupled with a recession would soon be dwarfed by the long term problem of increased health care costs if we do nothing about health care now in spite of the mounting deficit.

In essence, he said we should continue spending even if we are out of money. It sounds exactly like the theory of someone who regularly maxed out his credit cards and borrowed on his home equity to pay them.

Frankly, the theory seldom, if ever, works well in the real world. Eventually one runs out of the possibility of credit on all levels. And it has never worked on a national level, as numerous failed regimes attest.

Footnote: Over the weekend I heard a radio commentator say that our deficit now exceeds the value of all the gold that has ever been mined in the history of the world. I have no way of checking the truth of his statement, so I offer it with that caveat.

*Always, always, always pay attention to the news on Friday evening and Saturday morning. That’s when politicians dump whatever bad news they can no longer conceal. Their modus operandi is to slip the information out when people are least likely to pay attention to the news and by Monday, they hope that new “news” will overshadow the bad “news” they just released. This “Friday Night (or Saturday) Dump” is especially effective on holiday weekends. Consider this Rule Three for the Mass Media.