President Obama unveiled his $3.8 trillion budget for 2013 last month. In short, he wants to spend almost $4 trillion dollars next year. I, and most conservatives alike, feel that this is just too much spending. We simply can’t afford it. To spend that much, we will have to borrow another $1 trillion – and that’s on top of the $1.33 trillion that we are borrowing this year to pay for 2012, and the $1.3 trillion that we borrowed last year, and the $1.29 trillion we borrowed the year before that – shall I go on? Keep in mind that we haven’t paid back a single penny of any of that yet. It is still “on the books” as our National Debt, which is currently $15.4 trillion and will be $17.5 trillion in 2013 if the president has his way.
By the way, who are these fools that keep loaning us this money? Most of this debt is short-term debt – meaning that we have to keeping “rolling over” large chunks of our total debt every month or so. Basically, we borrow more money to pay off the money that we borrowed earlier plus interest. Imagine going to the bank to ask if you can borrow some money to make your house payment this month. Then, next month you ask if you can again borrow some more money to make your next house payment, plus enough to payback the amount that you borrowed last month, plus interest. Sounds crazy, right?
The position of the Tea Party, most Republicans, and conservatives in general is that the government has become too expensive. The resulting debt that this spending has created is a danger to our country. We have to pay hundreds of billions of dollars in interest each year to our debtors. (Last year, we spent $345,949,000,000 in interest alone! That‘s $1,139 per man, woman, child in US.) This interest payment robs money from other programs and, if left unchecked, will eventually consume our entire budget.
Now Obama and the liberal left do not share the belief that government is too expensive. They claim that they are concerned about the debt and interest problem, but they see the problem differently. They believe the debt was created by a lack of revenue instead of gross over spending. If we had more revenue, we wouldn’t have to borrow as much money, so they say. If everyone would just pay their “fair share,” then everything would be okay, right? We need to raise taxes on the rich and those evil corporations (especially the oil companies), quit wasting money on wars and our money troubles will go away. This seems like a good and “fair” plan, doesn’t it? Isn’t that what the “99%” were advocating in the Occupy protests?
So, I have a plan. (Actually, I borrowed it from the link below.) Let’s make a law that no one in America can make more than $250 thousand a year. If they make anything more than that, then it goes to the government. Call it a “windfall” tax, if you like. And for all of those greedy rich people out there sitting on a mountain of cash, we can just confiscate their total net worth. Yeah, let’s “nationalize” the net worth of every billionaire and multi-millionaire on the Forbes 400 list. And don’t stop there; let’s raise the tax rate on the big corporations to say 100%. That’s right, let’s take 100% of the profit of every corporation on the Fortune 500 list. That ought to be enough to get things back on track right?
If you think so, then I urge you to watch this short video. It illustrates how our government might pay for the $3.7 trillion (about $10 billion per day) that we spent in 2011. This video offers a common sense perspective of why the problem is really an issue of spending rather than one of the need for more revenue.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=661pi6K-8WQ#t=58s
Right on!