Sadly, I do agree our budget deficit is getting out of control. I know it's within the norms economists draw up for Gross National Product versus our debt, but it is still troubling the amount of money our government has to borrow. Every single day.
Sooner or later, we, the taxpayers, are going to have to pay all that back. With interest. This is troubling not only for me, but for my kids one day, and their kids. We treat the Treasury as payday loan shop, without thinking for a second how much all this quick cash is going to cost.
But that does not mean cutting employment benefits.
That would be a complete failure of the purpose of government: helping those who cannot help themselves against forces greater than themselves. One of the most basic functions of government.
That is why peoples from social contracts. In the olden day, the kings protected, or ruined, his people from forces greater than them. Invading armies, for example.
No one man could stand against an army, which is how cities with high walls got started. Cities got together and made nations. Then our nation decided we didn't need a king to call the shots for us, we would elect fellow citizens to do so, and that's basically America in a nutshell.
Two great forces have converged on the working and middle class of this country: the whole scale looting which occurred in our finical sector; and the utter decimation of our manufacturing and industrial jobs. These jobs, and the security they offered, went hand in hand with the American Dream being available to everyone, no matter your birthright.
The American workers had little to no hand in these forces of economics, yet we are the ones paying the dearest price. The Republicans are failing the American workers in their time of need, not their time of want.
Do the Republicans really believe that the citizens of this land want to be unemployed?
That hardworking men and women want to collect these benefits instead of having an honest job with honest pay?
How can a citizen find a job if there are no jobs to find, anyhow?
How can one afford medical insurance when their mortgage payments have inflated and both parents are working just to put food on the table?
Why is austerity being handed down to the middle and working classes when the upper class got a huge tax break during a time of war, during which they also almost collapsed the global economy?
I can understand the Republicans wanting to pay for it. As a deficit hawk, I am appalled daily at how quickly our debt is ballooning out of control. The Republicans seem real quiet when it comes to revenue, though. They only like to talk cutting to the bone.
I come from a Republican heavy area, but even they know that some sort of taxes are needed to at least protect the shore, build the roads and pick up the trash. If the Republicans in Congress are looking for a way to pay for this, I have three very good ideas.
- Since the Republican Party loves to live in the sepia-drenched utopia that supposedly was 1950s America, then we shall go back to the era in tax structure. For in this wondrous time the GOP is constantly harking back to, the upper class paid 91% in income taxes. The rich were still very, very rich, but not insanely rich.
So what we do is extend the tax breaks for anyone making less that $250,000, which is still a lot of money, and tax any citizen above this 91% in both income and capital gains. Their excess wealth can put food in the mouths of the poorest babies and still have a surplus to start paying down the deficit.
But we all know how Republicans do not want to give hand outs to starving babies, so there are other options.
- End all subsidizes to corporations that do not pay US taxes or do not have their headquarters in the United States of America. Close all loop holes for corporations so that they must share the same tax burden s living breathing citizens of this republic.
This should not even be considered a new tax on corporations; corporations have long skirted their fiscal responsibility to this country. They have enjoyed tremendous benefit from our republic, while paying little, and sometimes nothing, in return. This bill is now due.
This is also one of the most fiscally responsible changes we could make today and would more than pay for the unemployment, allowing Republicans to satisfaction that it will not be added to our debt.
Of course, we all know Republicans are in the pocket of corporations, so let's cut spending.
Yes, I am suggesting cutting spending like a back row conservative. I have two major programs I'd love to see on the chopping block like I was Ron Paul visiting the Department of Educations.
- End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.
If we can't help our fellow citizens in their time of need, then we really have no business running an empire.
Because currently, the Republicans are saying we can't even afford cake.