In 2007 the United States found itself on an economic precipice that threatened the livelihood and well-being of every American. That may be one of the few things that the people in our fractious nation can agree upon. That is pretty much where the sanity and agreement end. This crisis, rather than inspiring the best in us, has created a dysfunctional dynamic that will take decades to correct. It has given us Sarah Palin (someone I wouldn’t trust to teach a kindergarten class), the Tea Party (a group of pseudo patriots), and a media that is more interested in being known than being knowledgeable. The country is currently in peril economically, and we one political party that is so hell-bent on regaining power that if the American people have to suffer, so be it, and the other political party that has many admirable principles but is so cowardly that somebody could bluff them into blowing a “royal flush.” Lastly, we cannot forget the group of “robber barons” that will seek profits by any means necessary, even if it means the near-collapse of the world economy.
Many politicians and the media have adopted the mantra that the U.S. budget deficit is the most crucial issue that needs to be addressed by our government. At the moment, I believe we have many more immediate problems. Republicans and some Democrats use every media venue available to promote that notion. The Tea Party states that it is their raison d’etre, and corporations throw financial Molotov cocktails from the sidelines, stirring things up. What I find utterly jaw-dropping is the absence of this groundswell of concern about the deficit in the previous eight years. There was nary a peep from the Right and its minions. As the nation was engaged in two unfunded wars, took on a Medicare drug prescription program, and squandered a budget surplus with an unnecessary and unfunded tax cut, there was no outcry about what that would do to the deficit at the time. But like a runaway train, we have both political parties and their echo chambers (the media) telling the American people that this should be their primary concern.
For all the sound and fury about the seriousness of the budget deficit, what are Americans willing to give up? I am sure you have heard the insipid comparison between the federal budget and the budget of an American family. Two fundamental things need to be noted. A family cannot create its currency, and the average family does the same thing that the U.S. government does when there is a shortfall; they rely more on credit. The average debt for an American family is 117,951 dollars, and they make approximately 43,000 dollars a year. Clearly, excessive debt is not just a problem for the U.S. government.
One of the biggest problems we have as a citizenry, in my opinion, is that there is no connectivity between the problems that the federal government is experiencing and the decisions that John Q. Public makes and supports. For example, during my time, we were told that we could have the government we need and desire by paying less for it. The Republican Party, led by Ronald Reagan, found a miraculous elixir that would allow us to spend less, get more, or continue with the status quo. “Trickle-down economics” would solve all our problems. I always thought the choice of “trickle-down” was an ironic phrase to adopt because after the Reagan presidency ended, many of us felt as if we were pissed on. We now have 30 years of empirical evidence to show that Reaganomics has been a dismal failure for the country and the overwhelming majority of Americans. It is time to discount those that still want to trumpet the economic policies associated with that era. This is not a conclusion I come to due to partisanship; this is my position because it simply has not worked, and no amount of homage to this approach to governance will make it so.
The prescription I recommend has two components. We need to force politicians to stop lying to us despite how comforting their lies might be. There is no way to pay less and get more, and that is a fact of life that we continue to ignore and allow disingenuous politicians to sell us. It is a fact of life that we are confronted with every day in our personal lives. But this leads to a more significant point. Almost no one is willing to sacrifice anything. Older people have been convinced that the government’s involvement in healthcare in any way is the apocalypse, but they raise their voices loud and clear about how the government must keep its hands off their Medicare. It’s still not clear to me how much of that is based on ignorance or selfishness. I think it is despicable when politicians play on the fears of senior citizens. In all the discussions and debates about how we fix our anemic economy and financial situation, the silence has been deafening when it comes to people offering to give up something to help us back from the abyss.
The perfect example of this is the debate about the different options available concerning the “Bush Tax Cuts.” So far, we have had only two options presented to us by politicians and the media. The first one is to extend the tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans, otherwise known as the “middle-class tax cuts,” and the other being to extend all the tax cuts even for income over the 250,000-dollar threshold. The people that support letting the tax rates rise on income over 250,000–dollars state that expanding all tax cuts would increase the federal budget deficit by 700 billion dollars over the next ten years. Proponents of extending all of the tax cuts decry it is not the time to raise tax rates. The truth is that according to them, it is never the right time to raise taxes. I want to use this piece to propose that there is a third option. Let all the damn tax cuts expire! If we can save 700 billion by letting the tax rates for higher income levels expire, imagine how much we would not have to borrow by letting them all expire. Some estimates are that we could avoid borrowing an additional 1.3 trillion dollars. Why hasn’t this been an option? It hasn’t been an option because politicians are too spineless and self-serving to propose it. Many Americans that decry the welfare state are beneficiaries of it and won’t acknowledge it. Keep my tax cut. I won’t miss it and neither will many of you. While you’re at, you can tax every dollar I make for Social Security.
This situation reminds me of how some of us twist ourselves into a pretzel trying to justify how we ignore human suffering that confronts o our streets in our daily lives. Either the person is morally corrupt, solely responsible for their predicament, or they will take that pittance that we give them and use it for something other than food or to invest in the stock market. Well, right now, Uncle Sam needs a handout, and instead of turning our heads to avoid eye contact, we should do the sensible and right thing and lend a helping hand. The future of our nation is dependent on it.
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