The Anaheim Convention Center - Anaheim, California

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Takes the stage to an thunderous applause


THANK YOU!!!

Isn't it great to be back in Anaheim!!!

Twenty months ago, I came before you to talk about how a Yankee Presidency would function. We talked about what tremendous impact a revived Vice Presidency would have on the functionality of Congress. We talked about the cabinet and we talked about how a dynamic cabinet responding to the Game Moderator could shape the game. We have seen this formula applied successfully since then, but especially have we ever seen them applied by President Fhtagn. Applause

I talked also of the need for more engagement at the regional level and how to make IRC (this was before Discord) more productive and beneficial to the game. We have seen both successes and disappointments on both of these fronts. But we have seen the passage of a post reset healthcare bill, largely constructed with collaborative meetings and we have seen a range of difficult decisions made by several Presidents through the use of a National Security Council. All of these are matters I have discussed in this campaign again or will soon discuss in some detail.

But tonight I want to talk about another issue, one that I will hope to make a center piece of this campaign. Before the word meme was a thing, there was a phrase that would have certainly qualified as such, "The Rent is Too Damn High!" made famous by a candidate in a parallel universe for Governor. Tonight I want to talk about the deficit and I want to say clearly, that "The Deficit is Too Damn High!", and I don't mean that it has taken advantage of legalized weed either.

Crowd laughs

There are some people who will try and claim that this issue has been ignored, that it has not been a top priority and they will imply without overtly stating as much that I am at the center of this. However, I will come to tell you that such implications and accusations are blatantly false. From the reset on-wards, we knew that we had to do health care first. We had a big committee in mid to late 2016, and I campaigned on getting health care done when I last ran for President. Unfortunately, two months and a dysfunctional congress does not a health care bill make, but after a year of hard labor and direct contributions by Senators Scott and PiT and yes my Vice Presidential candidate, then President DFW (even if I do get grumpy that he wasn't more engaged at times), to the likes of Vice President Goldwater and even a few others who aided the effort or contributed components at times like Kingpoleon and Potus, it got done.

It is no accident that before the ink was even dry on this, I was pushing forward with the Budget Process and Control Act. It had become clear that both the administration and congress were incapable of summing the will power to get this done and thus it was time to gather together the same group that got health care through, set up a process with strict deadlines hammer it out and get it done in two months.

The thing that has to be noted is that the committee has not failed, and it is only for the committee that we will soon have a budget finally. If we had not established the committee, if we had done nothing last August, we would be sitting here still pining for a budget without the slightest bit of progress. Oliver Stone once said that from the minute the Watergate burglars  were arrested, a process had been started and that eventually it would work its way through regardless of what anyone else did or said eventually reaching the President. Here we are in the same basic position, despite the slow progress, lack of interest by all but a precious few diligent individuals and deadlines getting blown way past, it is finally reaching its conclusion.

Thanks to the BPC, we know where we are and we have a pretty good idea how we got here. Even though we kind of have a GM mechanic that is going to make policy making very difficult, since unemployment is altered by none economic factors and thus deficits are skewed larger without any ability to fix them beyond making everyone active. We thus have a pretty good idea of what needs to happen to get this under control.

Aside from that, we have the same basic $600 billion dollar deficit inherited from the reset, with an added expense from healthcare that is mitigated somewhat by savings likewise in healthcare, but ballooned by 1) The unemployment rate, 2) a multitude of unfunded and underfunded programs and 3) lack of economic growth.

I would note we did not have a tax cut here like in RL, but we have a similar deficit because of these above listed factors.

To address some of this problem, we in the House decided to not add further to the problem by requiring all bills to be funded and the Senate has no subsequently followed so. So we have at least stopped taking on water in terms of not adding more long term deficit spending. But perhaps in the most ridiculous example of political spin, we have had people claim that Pay-go is being used as an excuse to avoid addressing the deficit. And we have seen attempts to weaken it, as well. Underlying this is a belief increasingly on the left, reinforced by the right's lack of concern for the deficit in recent decades that a long term deficit is fine and just needs to be redirected to benefit the poor instead of the rich.

The problem with this is that our long term deficit has been subsidized by one of the fastest growing and increasingly largest economies who have maintained huge trade surpluses and thus to spend those billions of dollars, they spend a large proportion on purchasing our bonds and treasury bills. This allows us greater deficit carrying capacity without ridiculous interest rates and inflation, a situation further redoubled by the fact that outsourcing and automation (while eliminating a crap ton of jobs) has also kept inflation low.

However, it is going to be rather hard for this relationship to continue seeing as we are now basically in a proxy and some cases, direct shooting war with this country. There is thus no way we can continue with a deficit this large without a massive economic decline caused a by sudden shift in purchasing of treasury bills by the People's Republic of China.

For the sake of our country, for the sake of our children and for the sake of our national security we must remember what Edmund Burke stated when he admonished us to not raise up large debts in the name of the taxpayers, "[T]he public, whether represented by a monarch or by a senate, can pledge nothing but the public estate; and it can have no public estate except in what it derives from a just and proportioned imposition upon the citizens at large."

We must firmly and unequivocally state THE ERA OF BIG DEFICITS IS OVER!!!  Major Applause!

We must make every necessary program for the protection of our seniors, poor, veterans etc sustainable long term. We must not create any new programs that are unfunded. We must reform existing programs, consolidate such programs as health care did and remove inefficiency wherever possible. We must thoroughly examine our defensive capabilities and rather than throw money at the Pentagon in the name of a stronger military, we need to measure capabilities versus cost, seek the strongest capabilities for the lowest cost, and weed out corruption through extensive bidding and oversight. The government must also leverage any and all manner of negotiating power to achieve lower costs, as we have been pushing forward with in health care, and we need to expand that policy of negotiated pricing and competitive biding to whole of government procurement, including most especially in the realm of the military. My approach to defense spending is that we must invoke what Thomas Paine said, "wherefore security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form appears most likely to ensure to us with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others."  The same formulation applies to expense in terms of freedom sacrificed in the name of defense and security too.

We must also recognize that debt is a tax as much as a direct tax is because as Burke said, all debt is a claim against the taxpayers and it will be extracted from the tax payers either through direct taxes, higher inflation or higher interest rates. Therefore, we must pass no deficit funded tax cuts either, because we must recognize that in doing so we are robbing Peter Tax Payer to pay Paul Tax Payer. And inflation always hurts the poor the most. My philosophical approach to taxing is that we need to tax in the least amount possible, and in the most efficient way possible, that still matches roughly our spending.

We have become complacent, we have become stupid when it comes to the deficit because we have not had to face the consequences of the deficit for forty years. We must recognize therefore that debt is a tax in and of itself and increasing the deficit is just as bad as increasing taxes. Once we take that mindset, and once we train ourselves to free ourselves of the complacency and stupidity stemming from real life political culture, we can finally govern as responsible caretakers who achieve true security, be it for our rights, our seniors from poverty, and the sick from lack of care. To do otherwise, would be to let a hostile foreign power have the final say as to whether or not you get your social security check, whether or not you can afford to go the doctor and whether or not we even have a military.

Whether it be a progressive embracing it in the name of leveling or a conservative in name of business growth or a strong defense, we must not accept and never condone the continuance of fiscal insanity and irresponsibility that will soon lead our country to ruin if it is not addressed cost us any and all of the desirable objects that so justified deficit spending.

As your President, I can only promise to veto unfunded bills and I can only offer and propose legislation to correct our problems be it in consolidating agencies, eliminating bureaucracy, and securing the long term sustainability of entitlements. Only with an equally engaged and committed partner in Congress will we be able to succeed as a country in getting this under control.

I promised that I would seek a health care plan that would preserve market choice, give regions a strong say in their health care and consolidate government agencies, while not leaving anyone to die in the street from lack of care. We proved that responsible government didn't have to be a left versus right thing and went to great lengths to meet all responsibilities here listed. We need to take the same level of responsibility to our deficit and therefore I not only ask for your vote, but I ask for your engaged support and help, because only with the superior voices of the people demanding action, will we finally achieve A More Welcoming and Engaged Atlasia!!!

Thanks and Dave Bless!

The Speaker leaves with a standing ovation