Progressive Budgeting

- Insanity Defined -

 

Earlier I was working on this week's column and after I heard the State of the Union address and then I read an article regarding a vote that will probably take place in the US Senate this week, my heart and mind forced me to stop the article I was working on and revisit an issue I have written about before.  This week the Senate will probably vote to raise the debt ceiling.  Two things about that article bothered me.  First, the fact that about one-third of all of the debt our government has borrowed has been borrowed in the past three years.  Second, the use of the term "debt ceiling".  I believe I can speak for most of us regular taxpayers when I say that I wish common everyday terms would be used by our government to explain what they are doing.  The US Senate should simply say that they are going to vote to borrow more money and obligate you and me to pay it back.

It is important that I once again say, "The way our government is borrowing money is wrong and immoral without even addressing what we are doing to our children and grandchildren".  Who is at fault for the bad behavior of our government officials?  I’m glad you asked.  You and I are the ones who bear most of the blame.

Those who subscribe to the Progressive way of thinking expect you to believe that they have the right to make decisions for you and they expect you to accept their decisions without question.  Progressives will tell you that we need to borrow more money in order to make our country improve financially.  Ask yourself if borrowing more money will truly make the individual lives of our taxpaying citizens better or will additional debt simply allow our federal government to keep doing things the same-old-way and continue to become larger?

Look at some facts.

When Barack Obama became our president in January of 2009 our national debt was $10.626 trillion.  Today our national debt is $15.28 trillion and rising.  A vote this week in the Senate will probably be approved and President Obama will sign an authorization to borrow an additional $1.2 trillion bringing our debt to $16.48 trillion within the next few days.  Currently our national debt increases about $5.0 billion per day.  Since President Obama took office our national debt has risen 44%.  Another way to say this is that 31% of all of the money our country owes has been borrowed in the past three years.  Once the $1.2 trillion is borrowed we will owe $16.48 trillion, an increase over the past three years of 55.1% in the debt we need to pay back from our taxes.

How does this break down for each of us?  Every citizen in the United States and every new baby is born owing $48,000, an increase of $14,000 since President Obama took office.  Every family in our country owes $126,000.

What is this administration doing about this issue?  Making it worse.  The United States Senate has not passed a budget for about three years.  When President Obama presented his budget to the senate, his budget was defeated by a vote of 97 against and 0 (zero) for.

I won't go into detail in this article, but if you research the past statistics you will find that there is a direct correlation between government debt and jobs.  More government debt equals less jobs.  Government debt hurts private lending, which makes it more difficult for businesses to grow by purchasing new equipment and hiring more employees.

Here is what we are looking at for 2012.  The federal government will receive about $2.635 trillion from all tax revenues and it will spend about $3.609 billion leaving a deficit of around $1.0 billion, so it will borrow $1.2 trillion.

The average American household takes in $63,000 per year.  The following chart compares our federal government to this average household.

If you had an income of $63,000 this year, would you spend $86,000 and borrow $28,691 from your credit cards to make up the difference?  Would you do this knowing that your credit card debt would be $394,019 by doing so?  Of course not!  You would do what any reasonable person would do, spend less.

Our federal government MUST cut spending.  The Obama Administration announced a $450 billion cut in money being paid for our Defense Budget over the next ten years.  In 2011 the amount of money provided for defense was around $700 billion or around 20% of the total budget.  The defense department is being required to cut the amount of money they have to work with by 6.43% per year.

Keeping with this method of working toward balancing our budget, I would suggest that congress and the president implement the same financial cuts throughout all of government.  After all, the amount being cut is only $6.43%.  If we take the federal budget of $3.609 trillion and cut $2.32 trillion over ten years, the 6.43% annually comes to $232 billion.  I can name on one hand the elected officials who hold national office who have consistently promoted cutting spending at this level or greater.

Earlier I said that you and I bear most of the blame for our country's financial condition.  Why do we bear the blame?  We are responsible for what congress does because we elect the members of congress and in so doing we grant our decision making authority to them.  We have a very important election coming up and I hope that you are looking at the actions of every candidate for US President, US Senate, US Congress, governors, state representatives and mayors.  If you cast a vote for someone and after the election say, "I was deceived", shame on you.  BEFORE an election is the time to find out and know what agendas and ideals a candidate will promote.  We all have about ten months to get to know the candidates who are asking for our votes.  Let's all make good use of that time.

If when reading this column you think I sound upset and angry, you're darn right I am.  Our country is in a very bad financial situation, one that will soon cause irreversible harm to us and our children.  I wish to ask one thing of each of you, "Please cast well-informed votes this year on November 6^th".

* If you would like to reach me, please send an email to: comments@ProgressInAmerica.com.

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" You may not be important, but you casting a well-informed and well thought out vote is one of the most important things you will do for this great country of opportunity in which we are privileged and blessed to live."

[Nick Streza. PROGRESS IN AMERICA, Redefining The American Dream, (Tate Publishing 2011), page 255]