This Is No Way To Balance A Budget
Apr 21, 2011 Political
Looks like the federal government is having trouble with simple math and accounting procedures. Politicians of all stripes talk about balancing the budget and living within our means but none of them have grasped the concept that if cash out is greater than cash in there will be a deficit.
Last year the government paid more out to people than it took in from taxpayers. People on some kind of government support amounted to $2.3 TRILLION. These social welfare programs cost us more money than the $2.2 TRILLION that people paid in taxes. That means there is 0.1 TRILLION dollars on the negative side and we had to spread that 0.1 TRILLION among all our other obligations. Yes, there was other income but not enough to account for the more than a trillion dollar deficit we ran last year.
We are at the tipping point where what we pay in taxes is about equal to what we pay out for social programs and this is not good. We cannot meet our other obligations with this kind of imbalance and as long as social programs are the sacred cows of the Democrats we will continue to run deficits until our entire system collapses.
We need to have serious reform of our temporary social programs so that there is no incentive to stay on them and we need to reform Social Security and Medicare so that benefits stabilize and the programs are eventually privatized so people can have a real return on their investments. We need to stop implementing programs that end up making people slaves to the government at the expense of the people actually paying taxes and end this cycle of ever increasing deficits as a result of poorly run social programs.
While Barack Obama is running around the country (ignoring the victims of the terrible storms in the South) to raise money for Democrats (and his reelection campaign) he is also giving speeches about the budget. His only answer is to raise taxes on the wealthy when this could never, ever solve the problem even if 100% of their wealth was confiscated.
Repeal the current tax system, implement a flat tax system (for everyone) with no loopholes, reduce corporate tax rates and close the loopholes in that system and completely revamp social programs while cutting out unnecessary programs and we can get back to sound fiscal footing.
Unfortunately, Obama seems to have been surfing instead of attending class as he suffers from the same knowledge deficit as those who think we can manage by spending more than we take in.
A hand up, not a handout…
In a related story, the government is on pace to hit the debt ceiling by next week. No Easter recess for them…
Cave Canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
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Tags: budget, economy, social programs, taxes, tipping point
Democrats Spin Failures into Successes – Reward Selves
Oct 27, 2007 Political
The Democrats took control of Congress in January and they planned to put their aggressive agenda into play. They had already promised America that they would be transparent and ethical. Since taking the reigns of power they have been neither transparent nor ethical. They have put billions of dollars of earmarks into legislation and often done so under the cloak of darkness. There are even earmarks for organizations no one can prove exist and those earmarks passed despite concerns that the recipients might not actually be around. The fact that Jack Murtha put in those earmarks should concern everyone as Murtha was caught on video tape trying to take a bribe.
The Democrats said they would go to a 5 day workweek. They have trouble with math because the day starts in the evening on Monday and they are done by noon on Friday. To these people, that is a 5 day workweek. Now the Democrats plan to reward themselves for all the “hard” work they have done by reducing the workweek starting next year. They claim that it is to give them more time in their districts but we all know it is so they can campaign and work to get a bigger control of the Congress. Everything they do is designed to get more votes and greater power. Rangel’s tax scheme is designed to have minimal impact on people making less than $150k (individual) or $200k (couple) because the Democratic base largely falls under those targets. The tax increase is designed to hurt people who generally vote Republican so basically, the tax increase is designed to make Republicans pay for government and social programs and to get more Democrats elected.
Many of the Democrats are justifying the short workweeks scheduled for next year by claiming that they worked really hard this year. Some claim they had to work hard to clean up the messes of 12 years of a Republican majority and some claim that they need to spend more time with their constituents. I want to know how they have not had enough time already. Every time there is a federal holiday they get the entire week off. They take the entire month of August off and they take time off whenever they feel a need to be in their districts or to attend a meeting paid for by some lobbyist. They are a disgrace and can lay little claim to success for this year. Their crowning achievement, to them, is passage of a minimum wage increase. They act as if this was some big deal and they did what they promised but the fact is, they attached this increase to a war funding bill that had nothing to do with a minimum wage increase. They did this because they could not have gotten it passed otherwise.
In reality, the Democrats have been dismal failures this year. But they still thump their chests and claim they did a great job so they want to work fewer days a week next year. They have complaints because they have not gotten a pay raise and they have families at home who they would like to spend time with. Well boo frickin hoo. The members of our military have families from whom they are separated and they do not get a week off for the holidays and they do not get a month off at a time. They do their jobs and they get paid a hell of a lot less than members of Congress, who are overpaid for the work they actually do.
I have an idea. Most people who have real jobs work about 240 days a year (excluding any vacation they might take). How about if Congress has a schedule where they must work 240 days a year to get paid. They can either work 3 weeks a month in DC and spend 1 week each month at home or they can work 4 days a week (days that must add up to at least 40 hours) and spend Friday-Sunday at home. They may also have off the normal federal holidays AND ONLY THOSE HOLIDAYS (not the entire week). Each member must spend 240 days a year working in DC on the job or they do not get paid.
Instead of patting themselves on the back and giving themselves rewards, Democrats should be asking why the approval rating of Congress is near single digits. Perhaps they should be worrying about why they are failing to accomplish anything that they are supposed to do as in approve a budget.
I think if they want to spend more time in their districts we should replace them in the next election so that the job will not be such a burden to them.
Source:
New York Times
Tags: bribe, Congress, constituents, democratic base, Democrats, earmarks, rangel, social programs, tax increase, tax scheme