Every time the government wants to get our attention, they declare an emergency. First it was the banking crisis, then car companies, then stimulus crisis, and now it is the debt limit crisis. I am getting crisis'd out. How about you?
Remember the old story about the boy crying wolf? Well, the government has done it once too many times for me and now I do not believe a word they say. Can the latest crisis, the debt crisis, be that bad? We have enough money to pay the debt payments, social security, and military. What we do not have enough is to pay our Senators and Representatives and our Presidential salaries and benefits as well as all those former public servant benefits. I think that if the government needs to address debt, they start in their own offices!
We also do not have the money to pay for those special things that were great at the time they were proposed and passed. However, times are not great now and we need to get rid of them. In a previous post we discussed the millions spent for Chinese Prostitute training so they would not get drunk before they met their johns. What a waste! Add to that the wasteful grants to study shrimp exercise.
What about foreign aid to hostile nations? Let's get rid of that!
We need to get back to what government is meant to do. The Feds must protect us (military), control interstate commerce, conduct foreign affairs. However, as an example, we don't need an Education Department as that is a local and state issue. We need to look at every program in the government and decide if it is necessary. If not, it should be eliminated.
Can we expect that from Congress and the President, probably not. If not, I think it is dereliction of duty and each should be brought up on charges.
That is my plan, what do you think?
When you stop and think about it, it could be said that this isn't as a big a crisis as the media is making it out to be. The debt ceiling has been raised 74 times since the sixties! I do think it's a problem and obviously the debt ceiling is not doing what it was intended to do, control spending. It's time to revamp how we think about the budget and federal spending. I am for drastically cutting spending and balancing our budget!
ReplyDeleteagreed! My proposal is to cut spending back to 1958 levels. Cut those agencies that should be local i.e. Education and cut things that are not totally necessary.
ReplyDeleteWhy not establish a new system of Luxury tax on businesses that are unable to fall? A free market system is supposed to be like Darwinism (The strongest survive, the weakest are killed, and eaten). But now, we have companies that post record-breaking profits, while simultaneously laying off American workers. Why not use the government as a referee, and establish a new tax on these gluttonous, old-fashioned, giants?
ReplyDeleteLuxury tax can be a very important part of the sports world. It's sometimes applied to the total payroll of a sports team if the total exceeds a limit imposed by the sports league. (Pretend that major banking firms, corporations, and institutions that are "Too big to fail" had these same limitations placed on them by the IRS.) The purpose of that sports luxury tax is to prevent major teams with large incomes from signing all of the top players in a league. If a team had the financial leverage to buy every top player, then the competition within the sport would perish and the interest of fans would likely wane. In this interesting instance, luxury tax creates (literally) a more level playing field. The money that is derived from a luxury tax applied to professional sports contracts is divided among teams in smaller markets. These teams generally use the funds from the luxury tax to sign important players.
With a system like this, the Fed debt would be wiped out in months, it would force large firms to be more responsible with their money, and our countries infrastructure would be paid for (ironically) by the giant corporations that have been finding new ways of dodging import/export taxes by driving American jobs overseas...
I like this idea, especially for those companies that have been bailed out like the banks, GM and Chrysler etc. It would help level the field. Take for example Ford which did not take any dollars but has immense debt competing against GM and Chrysler without any debt. Talk about an unlevel field!
ReplyDeleteI would also like to see a 0% corporate rate which would have two advantages. First it would bring back from overseas billions of dollars that are stuck over there. Second, it make our companies much more competive with foreign corporations.
I would require them to payout a significant part of their profits in dividends, say 75% unless they were investing new plant and equipment, hired employees or spend $ on research and development. All of these are job producers.
Anomymous's comment is out of the box thinking--I love it! Keep it up.