August 27th, 2010, Fairfax, VA— Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President Bill Wilson today issued a statement responding to the downward revision of 2nd Quarter GDP growth to 1.6 percent, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s statement calling for more Fed purchases of treasuries:
“The government has pumped more than $2 trillion in monetary and fiscal ‘stimulus’ into the economy, granted perpetual unemployment extensions and handed out bailouts to bankrupt state governments and public sector unions. And yet, unemployment remains persistently high at 9.5 percent, and the recovery is slowing down to a snail’s pace at 1.6 percent in the second quarter.
“It is time for the government to admit that the ‘stimulus’ has failed, and to finally change course. All the bailouts, easy money, low interest rates, and spending have done is to increase the debt to over $13.3 trillion, and left the economy lost at sea. Now, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke proposes purchasing ever more treasuries with printed money to pump hundreds of billions of more dollars into the economy.
“It won’t work. We’re still slowly sinking because the economy was never allowed to find its natural bottom, and it will continue along in a zombie-like state until government finally gets out of the way. Trying to prop up a sinking system will only continue to prevent that bottom from being hit. It’s a deflationary trap. We are postponing a robust recovery indefinitely because the government refuses to allow a bottom to occur.
“Simply printing more money to expand the national debt will not get us out of this web. It amounts to nothing more than a useless paper trade. Why are we spending trillions of dollars for more useless paper? If the American people want paper, they’ll go to Office Max. What they want are jobs, and the economy cannot produce jobs when the nation’s biggest investment is in paper debt.
“Now is the time to bring an end to the useless paper trade once and for all, to pay down and retire the national debt, and to reduce government’s footprint in the economy. The Fed’s easy money policies, and Congress’ big spending policies are only drowning the nation in debt. The sovereign debt crisis is already here, and if it is not addressed, the only outcome will be default, decline, and collapse. We cannot print enough money to create real jobs.”
Attachments:
“Economy Caught in a Web,” By ALG President Bill Wilson, August 27th, 2010.
Interview Availability: Please contact Rebekah Rast at (703) 383-0880 or at rrast@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.
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