According to David Frum' s opinion article Time For U.S. Government yard sale, Frum establishes his view on the current Recession in the United States. He states in his article that it may be true that the current recession is the worst recession we have seen since World War II, but is not the right time to raise taxes nor to cut spending funds just to pay off a debt of $1 trillion. Instead of cutting spending or raising taxes, the government has another way to cut debts, which is to sell off some of its assets. By selling off assets, it would slow down the growth of debt which would help the government at this time. Frum explains the situation through an example of a family which has placed their child in college but has now lost their job. That family would have to take their child out of college to save money. But If the family owns a second house, then it would be wiser to liquidate the house before taking the child out of college. Frum then goes into detail about how the United States owns its share of "second houses". One of Frum' s examples of "second house" would have to be the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) which was created during the depression to help the south east. The TVA owns and operates over twenty-nine dams and six nuclear reactors. Frum states that the government does not necessarily need to own TVA, while they can simply sell it off to help pay off some of the debts. There are many other options for the government in which to perform. By selling off unnecessary assets, this would create a new tax revenue that would help the economy.
Furthermore, Frum also states that by selling by off assets does in fact help the government. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was the woman who had "privatized British public assets during the transition to a more competitive free-enterprise", which in the end their assets had rapidly became more useful and valuable. So overall Frum' s idea of selling off unnecessary assets would possible help. This article is possibly directed towards republicans than democrats due to the fact that the article illustrates to sell assets and in the end regain them. But overall it is clearly directed to an audience in which has a high level of education in which could understand the recession as a whole. Now Frum idea of selling assets is not problem free but it is an alternative to tax increases that would put the government in an even worse recession.
All together, I would have to agree with the idea of selling off unnecessary assets to help the economy. Many people disagree with his plan because they feel that the idea sounds good on paper but putting it into action would be the hard part. Some also state that it is only a temporary solution for a long term problem but I believe this plan could possibly work. We will never know until we try rather, than just sit and allow our financial debt to grow and grow. However it does appear to appeal more to republicans than to democrats due to the fact of selling assets regaining them whereas democrats do not favor this. But instead of choosing sides at this point, we need to focus on the big problem, which is to get the United States out of the current recession.
