Stimulating the Economy

Our friend Jim Scarantino at the Rio Grande Foundation has found one part of the country that is being helped by the radical expansion of government: Washington DC.

The city shines more now than it did two decades ago. It is young, hip and sexy. But it is still a parasitical city, feeding off the energy, hard work, and patriotism elsewhere in the country. Every dollar that ends up here came from someone's pocket elsewhere, mostly against their will through coerced tax payments and other less visible transfers of wealth. This city does not serve us any longer. The rest of the nation exists to serve its voracious appetite for our life energy. Its belly is never filled.

This city is now in the import-export business. It has burned through our domestic capital. Now it imports foreign capital to fund its self-serving expansion of power. It collects the principal from those loans, and the vigorish, the interest payments, from Americans elsewhere, then exports their monetized life energy to foreign banks and capitals. Its major product is now debt and red ink.

As this city rises, somewhere else in America falls a little bit. Someone has to surrender a dream somewhere else to feed the dreams that power this imperial capital.