Before we start making drastic cuts in government spending as President Obama is proposing and some on Congress are demanding, such as a five year freeze on domestic spending, maybe we should put it to the voters in realistic terms and not political rhetoric, in the truth and not dogma, and in the programs we not just use but need. Before we start making drastic cuts let ask the voters if they'd rather share, meaning add taxes to pay for what we need and want government to do for the people.
It's time to stop trying to just cut spending and cutting taxes more which creates a never-ending spiral of overspending. As has been noted, even if you got rid of everything but the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, entitlement programs and interest on the debt, meaning what people call "discretionary" spending for all the other agencies, you will not balance the budget.
As has been noted, repealing the Bush-era tax cuts, which Obama pledged not to extend but did so in a backroom agreement with the Republicans to get his bills passed in the lame duck session, would not balance the budget. All those tax cuts wouldn't dent the debt and only added to it and the deficit. We're at a point all the choices are gone save one, and it isn't cutting selected parts of the budget, and even if we did as Obama proposes, one thing is inescapable.
There were still be a debt. That's the reality. There isn't enough there to cut unless and until you take serious and significant cuts out of DOD and HSA and take serious looks at Medicare and Medicaid. We can't be spending more in Iraq and Afghanistan than we spend for comparable programs here. Why are we rebuilding those countries, their infrastructure, their police and army, and their economy?
Why are we sending more money overseas in various programs to aid and support other countries and not investing in people, programs and services here? Aren't we more needy? Don't we pay the taxes? Don't we deserve to have our government be there for us? And just maybe we would raise our own taxes to do that?
If the money would be guarranteed to help Americans, create American jobs, get companies opening factories in America, help the poor, the sick, the many who are in bad mortages from no fault of their own, and so on down the list of programs we all use and need, then I think voters may realize it's about sharing.
Sharing has been the history of this country. And not sharing has also been the history (see 1929 market crash which precipitated the near two decade depression). But sharing has always won the day. President Johnson proved it, and has other presidents who proposed and won new programs to help America and Americans.
And we're there again. So, put it to the voters. Or the voters will and can decide in 2012 what they think of the budgets cuts and their new found reality. The President and Congress has the power now, but we have the power in November 2012. And that you can cut, but we can cut you from our lives.
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FIRST voters need to decide for themselves that they will no longer let themselves be bought by billion dollar corporate political ad campaigns. THEN you'll get a congress that will listen. With the congress we have now (thanks a lot corporate funders) we're not going to get anything positive, period. IMO
ReplyDeleteSo true as the Tea Party is learning with "their" representatives accepting corporate and lobbyists' money, hiring former Republican staffers and attending corporate sponsored fund raisers, and learning the Koch Brother and other wealthy individuals and some corporations backed the Tea Party events and the Tea Party Express.
ReplyDeleteThey'll also see what happens when ideals meets reality and their government benefits and services get cut or eliminated. I'll laugh when they start bitching about "their" rights to those benefits and services, like Medicare and Social Security. It's the old adage for the, "Be careful what you wish for...", which for them means, "Be careful what you demand." Less government means exactly that, less for everyone, and more so the elderly, the poor, the needy, the sick, and so on.
And you can bet a lot of people will be angry with the Tea Party for being assholes toward all Americans and about America for all of us.