Don’t Raise The Ceiling, Open The Door
So what is the real fear for this Administration if the Debt ceiling is not raised? That we can’t pay our obligations? That grandma won’t get her Social Security check? That single moms won’t be able to feed their babies? The answer is no, although that is what they want the public to believe. What they are really afraid of is their shopping spree will end and when the costs of Obamacare kicks in there won’t be any money to fund it. To that I say, “You should have thought of that before you crammed it down our throats.” Now you want us to allow the Govt. to borrow more and go even deeper in debt. Where does it end?
I’ve been a millionaire in my life, on paper at least, before I made some bad investment decisions and lost it. I’ve also been bankrupt. I’ve lived in the upper tax bracket and I’ve lived paycheck to paycheck. What that has taught me is “DEBT IS HAZARDOUS TO YOUR WEALTH”. My successes and failures only affected me and my family, because I was gambling with my own money. I guess you could say I’ve paid millions for my education in balancing a budget. The lessons aren’t any different than many families face every month; learning to live within our income.
My wife clips coupons, shops at thrift stores, yard sales and flea markets all to stretch the spending power of every dollar I make. The thrill of bargain hunting keeps her focused and determined to provide everything we need for as little as possible. In twenty-four years of marriage we have never had a single credit card. Yet through the peaks and valleys we have never gone hungry or not had a roof over our head. My hard work and her thriftiness has always been enough to sustain us.
This country was founded on the principles of liberty and freedom and the PURSUIT of HAPPINESS. Happiness is not a Constitutional right. The freedom to pursue our own course towards our destiny is. The problem with the mindset in the Federal Government today is the ideology of social justice. The current Administration believes that it is their responsibility to level the playing field and that Government is the answer to every social ill in America. While that may sound like a noble cause it is an impossible task to accomplish. The Govt. is trying to be Robin Hood, but it really is the Hood that keeps Robbin’ the producers in this country to fund its agenda. That is unsustainable. You can’t solve problems with other people’s money, because eventually you run out of other people’s money. That is where we are today. The number of producers in the system are outnumbered by the recipients and that gap is going to continue to widen as more baby boomers retire and fewer young producers enter the system.
Here are some facts and the truth that they aren’t telling us. The Federal Govt. collects an average of around $200 Billion dollars, per month. That adds up to $2.4 Trillion dollars a year. That is close to the amount that they want to increase the debt ceiling. In simple math terms, that means THEY are spending almost twice as much as THEY are bringing in. That is irresponsible spending. They also accumulated unprecedented amounts of debt without even passing a budget for over a year. How can a Govt. run without a budget? Quite well actually, when there are no restraints on spending and no limits to the supply of money. This Administration is backed into a corner, because the money supply is almost gone and they don’t want or know HOW to restrain spending.
So they use scare tactics to convince the people that the Govt. tap is going to get shut off and have devastating impact on the everyday lives of all those well deserving recipients at the trough. It will be so horrible when the Govt. can’t fulfill its obligations to take care of the widows, feed the hungry, and help the downtrodden survive. Since when was that the Government’s responsibility anyway? Nothing makes me more nauseous than hearing Obama quote the book of Matthew as his justification for “social justice.”
I’ve read the book many times and have yet to read anywhere in there about the Government being the answer. God is a jealous God you know.
So will defaulting on the debt stop the funding of the current entitlements? Let’s look at some more facts: The interest on the national debt right now is about $20 billion per month. That’s only 10% of the revenue brought in each month. So how can you default if the interest payment is that low? The remaining $180 million can also easily cover Social Security and Medicare payments as well. There is even plenty of money to pay for all of our current military expenditures, although that is an area we are way over committed on. That all adds up to roughly 70% of Government spending. The remaining $60 Billion should then be prioritized on an as needed basis. This is where the sweat begins to develop on the brow of our current leaders. These are the real decisions that they don’t want to make.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said, “Prioritizing Government payments won’t work because it would spur deep cuts in other disbursements and still cause investors to shun U. S. Treasury securities.” Isn’t that exactly what needs to happen? Let me ask you a question. If you were China or any of our other “lenders”, which would make you more nervous about getting paid back, continued increase in debt or reduction in debt? That is pretty much a no-brainer. Of course, what do you expect from someone who can’t even do his own taxes right?
There are only two possible solutions to the debt issue. It’s the same solutions every household in America faces daily. We either have to spend less or earn more. It’s really that simple and always has been. The problem is we have two solutions, one from each side of the argument, and both sides’ stubbornness and posturing is not creating any real plan that both sides can agree on that really addresses those tough decisions that neither side wants to make. Nobody can agree on where to cut spending.
“The United States now borrows about 40 cents of every dollar it spends, prioritizing payments without raising the debt ceiling would force the U.S. to cut 40 percent of all government expenditures. Such spending cuts would have painful implications for people in every walk of American life.” – Tim Geithner, Secr. Of Treasury.
Again more scare tactics, this time directed at military and their families, veterans and government employees. I am not an anti-war libertarian, I believe in a strong military defense. However, do we really need 700 military bases across the globe? Do we really need over a 100,000 troops spread across the Middle East and Africa? Cut the budget, “Open the Door” and bring them home. Give them some much deserved time off with their families and then send them to our borders to “defend” our country.
Now let’s look at Government employees. Are all of them necessary? Are all of the agencies they work for even necessary? Make the tough decisions and audit every single department of Govt. and cut the budgets by at least 10%. When you add up all the employee benefits including holidays, sick days and vacation days, the Govt. probably operates at about 90% staffing already. Wouldn’t paying 10% of the Government employees unemployment be much less strain on the Govt.? Make the tough decision and “Open the Door”.
Why won’t they make these cuts? Because, it would make the Unemployment numbers move above 10% with an election coming up. We can’t fire that many people. If we can run the country without them, why are there in the first place? “Open the Door,” and this time hand them a shovel so they will be qualified to get one of those jobs CREATED by this Administration.
The one area we didn’t discuss is on the revenue side. Of course the quick answer from the left side of the aisle is always increase taxes and stick it to those greedy, wealthy people. I don’t think anyone can argue that increasing revenue should also be a major point of discussion in this Debt Debate. The real debate should be trying to figure out how to raise revenue without having a negative effect on the economy. Raising taxes on the wealthy 5% of Americans who make over $200,000 would help, but would not solve the problem. There aren’t enough of them to pay off the debt even if you taxed them 100%. Besides, most of us either work for or sell products and services to all those wealthy people. Encourage them to spend it.
The revenue source that would provide a continuous stream of income would be to create REAL jobs. Create more taxpayers. How do you do that? For starters, open up drilling and REAL energy exploration like Natural Gas conversion and Clean Coal technology. How fast could we pay off the debt if we had all the money we spend on foreign oil going back into our economy? Reduce the employer matching portion on a new employee for the first year to encourage businesses to train and expand their workforce. We have to get people back to work on REAL jobs so they can pay taxes and spend money, which creates more jobs.One last thing. Where is all that money WE gave to the banks to bail them out? They need to loosen up and loan some of that money out for business expansion and home buying. Both of those will create additional jobs.
Well, gotta go for now. Someone is at the Door.
