The U.S. prints its own money, to our detriment

Robert Gardner, Henderson

Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2011 | 2:02 a.m.

On Sunday I watched former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan on “Meet the Press” say that Standard & Poor’s shouldn’t have downgraded our credit rating.

He explained, as numerous people have lately, that the United States can pay its bills because the government can print its own money. And these people are supposed to be the smartest people in the room!

The problem we are in is because of that very fact. We printed the $160 billion former President George W. Bush used to prop up the housing market. We printed the money for Medicare Part D. We printed President Barack Obama’s stimulus money, we printed QE1 and QE2 money (quantitative easing).

We print the money to pay unemployment compensation for up to 99 weeks. We printed the money we used to bail out General Motors and Chrysler, and after they “paid” the money back (they didn’t; it was all smoke and mirrors) we didn’t use it to reduce our debt, we spent it!

One last thing: Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who also was on “Meet the Press” Sunday, said the same thing we hear from Washington every time there is a crisis in spending. He said there is waste in government that we can eliminate.

The problem is that it never gets eliminated. It is immoral to know you are wasting hard-earned taxpayer money and doing nothing about it.