This week Congress returns to work after their three week undeserved vacation. So now it’s time for them to dig their heels down and find money to support the tax cuts that Obama and friends want to continue keep in place to help get the vote they need to win this year’s election.
There are many ideas that are being floated around Washington, but the one idea that is being avoided is the one that many Libertarians and Conservatives are calling for for years. It’s the idea of cutting many programs that are not the responsibility of the federal government. It’s gotten to the point that the federal government has funded so many programs that can no longer be funded. The real issue is how many of those programs should not have ever been put in place to begin with (but that’s for another post).
There are many programs that can be dismantled and/or eliminated to lower the cost of running this country. The biggest problem America is facing when talking about the deficit or the debt ceiling is the fact that Washington is spending way too much. Instead they want to play the number game and say they’re going to cut spending over a ten year period. I laymen terms that means they will cut back on future projected spending.
Let’s look at it this way, the federal government spent $3.5 trillion in 2010 and according to the most recent available tax revenue information (2007), only collected $2.4 trillion in taxes (after refunds). Washington is already spending more than it collects. Add on to the fact that there are other programs that politicians want to have funded in the future. Let’s say they “plan” to spend an extra $300 billion each year for the next ten years, in that case they would be spending another three trillion dollars on top of the already $3.5 trillion. So now they say they just “cut” $500 billion dollars. What that really means is that now they expect to spend only an extra $250 billion dollars each year on top of what they are doing already.
The federal government has been doing nothing but growing for the past few decades and on the path they (politicians) are going, it will continue to grow. Don’t be one of the many that fall for the creative accounting practices of our politicians. Wake up and see for yourself that this country is already bankrupt. the only reason we are still operating is because China and other countries are still willing to buy our debt. Once they stop buying our treasury bonds, it will be over for America.
The ONLY way to get the deficit and the debt under control is to reduce current spending. Yes it’s not going to be easy for the American citizen to do it, but the alternative is not a pretty site what-so-ever.