In “Useful Idiots”, Michael Ozga makes a disingenuous argument, misuses the term, and misses the point.
Perhaps Mr. Ozga could tell us, first, what political agenda is not “tax & spend”? Taxing and spending is what governments do. Ozga acknowledges that’s what 46 presidents have done (although it was actually 118 congresses, to date, that did it).
Ozga says we are “insolvent as a country”. That would be news to those who lend the country money at the lowest interest rate anywhere on earth. He says our deficit spending is unsustainable, but his supposedly scary numbers are irrelevant.
If, as Ozga says, only 14 of 46 presidents have paid down the debt, then, contra Ozga, “this country was founded and built” on deficit spending.
Ozga says Democrats are “intent on destroying this country”. He insults half the country, and offers not one word of evidence. Democrats live here, too, Mr. Ozga. What you call “destroying” they call “building”.
Yes, building. Perhaps Ozga remembers when children were born deformed because of unregulated Thalidomide. Perhaps he remembers rivers that burned, before the EPA. Perhaps he knows how lead was removed from gasoline, and the air, and from children’s brains. Surely he remembers a time before the Internet, and GPS.
All of that costs money. And makes Americans richer, healthier, and safer.
Finally, Ozga’s argument is dishonest. It’s not the deficit that concerns him. If it were, he would mention increasing taxes. Reversing the Bush and Trump tax cuts would erase the deficit. Ozga is actually opposed to spending., but only a little. For all his repetition and bombast, of $1.7 trillion in the most recent bill, he cites less than 5% that he would cut.
The biggest cut Ozga recommends, $45 billion, makes him Putin’s “useful idiot”, as Lenin defined the term. By not defending Ukraine, Putin gets Ukraine by force. If Ozga believe in freedom and democracy, why is he finding ways, as Sowell put it, to excuse Russian aggression?
James K. Lowden