This may come as a huge surprise to you: it’s not the size of our government that is the problem or the taxes raised or the programs we support or even the waste that amounts to pennies falling off a table.
Our government is large because it serves 309 million people, not the 4 million people we had when the government was formed in 1776. It is large because it is the leader of the free world. We provide the aid others need, in all the forms in which it is needed, including defense. We provide all the services our people demand – all of them, including those demanded by you and me, not just the “welfare cheats that drive Cadillacs to the grocery store or just won’t help themselves when it is too easy to ask for a handout.”
For the current fiscal year, the US government is spending $113 billion for the two Bush wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The government is asking for $107 billion more for the next year even though bin Laden has been killed. We have been in those two countries for almost 10 years. It is that spending (several trillion dollars altogether) and the tax cuts Bush imposed on us together with the lack of oversight by financial regulatory agencies that caused most of the turmoil in our economy Obama is now dealing with. We will not recover overnight, not by cutting out all waste, not by cutting somebody's favorite program, not by cutting the federal budget “across the board by 10%” or some such magical formula. It’s going to be a long hard slug…through increases in taxes, scaling back our ambitious global defense posture, and restructuring the entitlement programs that benefit us all. Make no mistake about it: it will take a full generation to recover from the Bush misdeeds. We will recover sooner if innovations in energy production and alternative energy sources come to market on an economically feasible scale.
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It has been a large government for oh, about 100 years, by any definition you care to use. It will be larger in the future. And the Rs will still say, “What we need is a smaller government.” No, we need a government that makes wise decisions, exercises good judgment, and helps citizens understand its complexity. But that doesn’t sell newspapers or cause people to tune in. So, it doesn’t get much air time or ink. But in order to survive, we need elected officials who will make hard decisions in our best interest even if we tell them we might not vote for them again. Sometimes, the people do NOT know what is good for them. Sometimes, even when they do know what is good for them, they don’t want elected officials to take the action that will be in their long term best interest, preferring instead for the short term fix, the politically expedient view. We are a sad lot, we voters.
It is also a government that relies on taxes paid in, yours and mine. There’s nothing wrong with taxes. Taxes work for the common good. Thank God most of us are willing to pay our share. We need to be sure ALL pay their fair share and not let those who can afford to influence the tax code “play it” for all they are worth -- because they will.
Depending on how you count it, between 66% and 85% of taxes go for Defense, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and interest on the national debt. About 15% is left for discretionary spending. You could cut out all discretionary spending and make only a small dent in the debt. I’m talking about cutting out the entire Executive Department and the entire Legislative Branch of government. That’s what’s in that remaining annual 15%. In other words, you can’t get there from here.
You have to start by cutting defense spending, slowing the rate of growth of all entitlement programs, raising the age of eligibility for Social Security and Medicare, raising taxes on the wealthy a lot, and raising taxes on everybody else a proportionate amount. It is not easy; it is not simple. AND if anyone in this Congress votes for any of the above items I have listed, we voters will make sure they are on the street looking for a job after the 2012 elections. And that's a fact.
See what I mean. We won’t let our elected officials do – actually DO – what is in our best long term interest.
1 comment:
Yes I agree with you, the government is big because we, and the rest of the world, have asked it to be and as I said in the other post the vast majority of what we spend is tied up in programs that the majority of Americans do NOT want touched which leaves our elected officials in a no win situation IF getting reelected is a major priority for them. That's it right there. The thing that is keeping them from making that tough, but correct, decision that will preserve the union is the "fact" that we will remove them from office for doing so because "Sometimes, the people do NOT know what is good for them." so we, the masses, react in an irrational way and cost those elected their seat at least for a term. Well then I say to the elected, so what! Make the tough decision that you know is right for the future of this country, and that would be in keeping with nature of a republic, regardless of whether or not you get to keep your seat. This is not about you! If your ideas are right and you get sent home this election cycle then by the next the fruits of your labor will have shown themselves and you will all the capital you need get back to that beloved seat.
One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence from Georgia quoted Edmund Burke, a member of British Parliament, as he reentered the chamber at the Second Continental Congress to change Georgia's vote from Nay to Yea as it related to the question of independence by saying, "In trying to resolve my dilemma I remembered something I'd once read, 'that a representative owes the People not only his industry, but his judgment, and he betrays them if he sacrifices it to their opinion.'"
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