Unless you are the government of the United States.

In that case, the good times never end. Those in control of the country’s purse strings have — for the past several decades — opted to spend much, much more than is actually in the nation’s coffers. But not to worry. Being as it is the government we’re talking about, they can a) increase taxes; b) borrow more; and/or c) print money. What could go wrong?

Now, there looms the specter of exceeding the “debt ceiling”; the amount of money authorized by congress for the government to borrow in order that we may continue to spend that which we do not have. Unlike those of us dealing with MasterCard or Visa, the government routinely increases the amount of money the nation can borrow. This would be as if you could call up your credit card company and inform them they are increasing your debt limit to an amount you specify. Try doing that tomorrow and see how long it takes them to stop laughing.

But if our betters in congress choose to increase the debt limit each time the country bumps up against that pesky boundary, why have the limit at all? If government “stimulus” is good for the economy, let’s just do away with the debt limit entirely and spend, spend, spend!

Think of it: we could borrow trillions…quadrillions…(whatever comes after quadrillions). If unbridled spending is actually beneficial for the nation and its citizens, let’s borrow every dollar, peso, yen, ruble, mark, and pound in existence! No more limits! We could give each citizen 100 trillion dollars and end poverty completely.

Of course, this scheme is quite insane. Not even the United States can escape the consequences of unfettered borrowing. Sooner or later, the money must be repaid. And congress, as well as this clueless administration, knows it.

So if there is to be a debt limit — and in a sane world, this cannot be avoided — it must truly be a limit. A boundary beyond which we cannot pass.

As is typical of the Washington crowd, financial Armageddon is predicted if the debt limit is not increased. Contrary to their claims, the United States will not default on its obligations if reality triumphs. We will pay those obligations due, and be forced to reduce or eliminate those optional expenses we cannot afford. This is secret code for cutting expenditures. Which is the whole point of the exercise.

If the debt limit is to mean anything at all, it must be respected. As with your household, when you run out of money and the credit cards are maxed, you stop spending. The alternative will increase the nation’s slide to complete economic collapse, and the end of the United States as we know it.

Mr. Genechowski unfortunately conflates the rights of buyer and seller. Sellers, by law, are prohibited from discriminating. Buyers are not.

A Radio station cannot refuse an advertising schedule for reasons of race, ethnicity, sex, age, and all the rest covered under federal law. But under the FCC’s reasoning, an advertiser would be required to buy ad time on ALL stations in a market if the advertiser’s desire is to exclude certain ethnic groups. So let’s think about this for a moment. If you are a seller of western-style clothing and your research indicates listeners to country music stations are most likely to purchase your pointy-toed boots, you can no longer buy time on just the two country stations in town. No, now you must also buy the Hispanic and urban stations, even though no one in their audiences has ever stepped into your store, or is likely to regardless of how much you spend on the minority stations. And if you’re the country stations, you’ll be required to refuse the schedule if you learn the western store is not buying the other stations.

The bottom line is that the FCC is dictating a requirement that is unenforceable. Radio stations cannot dictate to advertisers where to spend their money (they’ve been trying to do that for 70 years without result). Under our society, a buyer has the freedom to invest his money wherever he wants. Placing the burden on stations to police an advertiser’s buying decisions is not only a P.C. bridge too far, it is jeopardizing the license of the station via the actions of a third party that is beyond the licensee’s control.

Instead of the stated goal of eliminating discrimination, the FCC has established a new frontier for “Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell.” Stations will include the mandated disclaimer, and won’t probe an advertiser’s intent. Client’s won’t tell the station about their other media buys.

And, if the commission persists in its folly, advertisers will exercise their ultimate option when it comes to purchasing Radio time: “Don’t Buy.” At a time when Radio is struggling to recover from government’s profligate spending and a depressed economy, the FCC’s timing is impeccable. And senseless.

Oh, sorry! You can’t go to your favorite Mexican eatery. The federal government has a regulation that requires you to evenly distribute your restaurant choices among all available ethnicities. Since you’ve already been to a Mexican restaurant, you must select from Greek, Italian, Chinese, or one of the other styles available.

If you’re licensed by the Federal Communications Commission, this scenario is not quite the joke it appears to be. New guidelines from the FCC require stations to include a disclaimer on proposals to advertisers reminding them that discrimination in the purchase of airtime is illegal. This tactic is designed to prevent agencies from enforcing advertiser dictates for certain formats. No more should advertisers be able to say “No Hispanic” or “No Urban”. If you want to advertise, you have to advertise to everybody.

Of course, this flies in the face of the concept of targeted marketing and practices that have worked well for hundreds of thousands of advertisers for over 50 years. Managing several country music stations over my career, I was frequently faced with “No Country” dictates. While I thought the advertisers were short-sighted in taking that choice, we didn’t try to force the advertiser to buy our station. Of course, we weren’t the federal government. But even if we were, that approach would have been wrong. And it is wrong today.

In a free society, an advertiser — or a dining patron — should be free to choose where he spends his money. Forcing an advertiser to buy all the stations in a market without regard to format or target audience is typical bureaucratic thinking. It is not part of the fabric of American life, and hopefully common sense will prevail.

So enjoy your choice of restaurant — for the moment. We haven’t as yet progressed to the point where government is telling you where you can eat. But looking at this FCC mandate, one wonders if your favorite tacos might soon be on someones regulatory list.

Now, we see a number of prominent Democrat politicians opting to retire or resign from the House and Senate in a trend that is threatening to become an exodus. The apparent reasoning is the electorate tide has turned and many of these long-serving incumbents cannot be re-elected. Anger over out of control spending, loss of jobs, and a depressed economy are all good reasons for this trend.

But could it be there is something more?

In my experience, most politicians are not afraid of fighting for re-election. No matter the poll numbers, seasoned candidates — especially incumbents — are more than willing to battle to keep the position and perks of public office. Also, a number of Republican members of Congress have also decided to “pull the pin” and retire…even though the 2010 elections are trending strongly in the Republicans’ favor (at least, this month).

So why would so many of the “senior” political class choose now to abandon their careers?

One possible answer: the fragile economy is about to suffer a major body blow — such as bankruptcy — and none of these pols want to be in office when the earthquake hits.

We’ve heard warnings from Radio pundits such as Glenn Beck and Neal Boortz that the country cannot sustain our insane spending and borrowing. What if the top-level Congressional insiders have been briefed on a coming financial meltdown and want to be as far away as possible from ground zero when the disaster hits? If you were in office, would you want to face the voter’s wrath if our currency becomes worthless?

I hope and pray this nightmare scenario does not come to pass. But a financial Armageddon is certainly one possible additional reason why so many politicians have decided to head for the lifeboats.

What do they know they’re not telling us?

As a Radio group manager, I always evaluated people on their actions. The actions of President Obama were initially puzzling to me, since any intelligent person should realize that the only way out of a financial shortfall is to cut expenses. Yet the president chose to greatly increase them. Why would he do this? I wondered, for Obama is clearly a smart man. There had to be a reason why he chose to get behind the controls of a jet fighter in a nose dive and advance the throttles to full military power.

The president either believes he is doing the right thing by bankrupting the country, or he has a larger vision of a socialist nation and is willing to make any sacrifice to achieve that vision — even sacrificing the second term of his administration. I think in Obama’s case it is the latter.

The president won’t be satisfied with even a giant step toward socialism; he wants to arrive there in one massive leap. Even if it costs him a second term, Barack Obama will depart Washington having achieved his goal, regardless of the cost to the nation and its citizens.

Time will tell if my assessment of Obama’s “kamikaze” presidency is correct. If I’m right and even if he is only partially successful, the damage to the United States may be irreparable.

The free market has done a pretty good job for the last 89 years in helping Radio serve the public. If a broadcaster airs a program that people don’t listen to, that program soon goes away. Without listeners, there are no advertisers. Without advertisers, there is no revenue. Without revenue, there is no station. One would think that anyone with a brain would be able to grasp this concept.

Apparently, this reality escapes quite a number of our senators and representatives. But then, a lack of intelligence has never been a bar to public service.

So if we’re going to be “fair”, let’s do it right. Let’s have legislation requiring equal time for all formats on all stations. For every hour of rock, lets have an hour of polkas. For every hour of jazz, an hour of rap.

It’s only fair.

Okay, it’s not fair. Because despite the tyranny of lawmakers, listeners will vote with their Radio dials. Or vote with the “off” switch. But perhaps legislators have an answer for that, as well: forced listening.

Are we turning into a dictatorship? My fear is the answer could be “yes”. And certainly, re-enactment of the “Fairness” Doctrine is a first giant step in that direction.

While I make every effort to stay away from diving into the sewer we call “politics”, this series of events makes me think the U.S. has gone nuts.

But let’s shrug that off for the moment. I mean, how much damage could one dishonest man do to the tax system that touches the lives of every man, woman, and child in the country? Instead, I want to focus on another aspect of insanity: the media.

Today, I saw a newsletter from Ari Galper in which he takes the media to task for bombarding us with a steady stream of negative news. As I pointed out in a recent post, this depressing barrage of discouraging stories only serves to further erode our confidence in the system that has brought us the highest standard of living in the history of man.

The first step Ari recommends in fending off this continuous attack of negativity is to shut out as much of the “news” as you can! I wholeheartedly second this motion, but in so doing it made me think about the form of slow suicide the major news media are in the process of inflicting on themselves.

Think about it. The newspapers and TV (and to a lesser extent Radio) focus on the bad economy, job losses, businesses moving offshore, the threat of inflation, and today, the murder-suicide of a family of eight in California. News, yes…but what is the result? Does such reporting motivate you about the inherent strength of our economy, or does it prompt you to hold back, to save money for even rougher times that may be ahead? And when you don’t take the family out to eat, or out to a movie, are more jobs lost or gained? Are advertisers more likely or less likely to advertise in those same newspapers or on those shrill TV networks?

In their eagerness to report on how dismal the times, some media outlets are digging their own graves.

This condition cannot continue indefinitely; the economy will either quickly recover—despite the ham-handed efforts of government—or it will plunge into the abyss. With either outcome major newspapers, many of which are already on their deathbeds, and the hysterical television networks will have lost much more than revenue. They will have lost readers/viewers, yes. But they have also lost credibility, and that is much, much more difficult to restore.

Only in an insane world would an organization assist in its own demise.

Welcome to planet Earth.

Unfortunately, removing the wooden stake from the heart of this measure would result only in the elimination of all discussion about any controversial issue on Radio and (to a lesser extent) TV.

During the 1970′s, our stations, chained by the requirements of “fairness”, simply eliminated all contoversial talk and substituted music. With a small staff, it was not possible for us to adequately handle rebuttals to issues raised on our stations. This was a chilling of free speech, not “fairness”.

The one and only purpose of the “Fairness” Doctrine is the stifling of dissent. Period.

Back in the ’70′s, usually only a single group might oppose a stated viewpoint and request “equal” time for a rebuttal. Today, there are hundreds. The nightmare that would result from reinstating this flawed scheme would sign the death warrant for AM Radio.

Imagine if your station carried a discussion on abortion in which the viewpoint was pro-life. Now come demands for time by NOW, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and more, each wanting “equal time” to air their views. It’s a can of worms that no station wants to open.

Legal scholars claim the doctrine will not be restored and even if it is it would not withstand a First Amendment challenge at the Supreme Court. I’m not so sanguine about a court decision striking it down. One can get better odds in Las Vegas.

With all the other problems it faces, Radio does not need a return to the bad old days of the “Fairness” Doctrine. That idea is dead, and should stay that way.

Let all issues be discussed, without restriction. That’s more than fair—it’s the American way.