Posted on 02/15/2010 8:29:28 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The United States of America is swimming in an ocean of debt and Washington’s most recent budget, estimated to increase the federal deficit to at least a whopping $1.35 trillion, threatens to raise sea-levels even higher.
But as Americans wail and gnash their teeth over the profligate spending by the federal government, they should also recognize that austerity is painful and starts at home. If Americans are paying attention, they will speak through their votes in this election year. Specifically, they must insist that state budgets help minimize the spending problem, not exacerbate it, which requires a ‘taming of the fiscal dogs’.
To highlight this issue, I present to you the “CANINes”: California, Arizona, Nevada, Illinois and New York. These are the five worst offending states, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, in terms fiscal shortfall as a percentage of overall budgets for 2009.
Americans are debating a budgetary boondoggle on the Federal level, without giving due attention to the underlying mess that is contributing to the problem at the state level.
Sadly, and quite worryingly, nearly all remaining states are just varying breeds of CANINes: the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that in 2009 there were budget shortfalls in 48 of the 50 states, totaling $166 billion in aggregate. In 2010 the shortfall will be in the range of $180 billion. This increase in shortfall from 2009 to 2010 occurs in spite of all of the assistance the states have received through the gargantuan federal stimulus package enacted in 2009.
Higher taxes and reduced services are not an enjoyable combination, but they may be necessary remedies to problems brought on by excesses from the past and politicians’ unwillingness to face challenging issues sooner.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
Am I my brother’s keeper? Let the states with massive debts go off on their own. The fifty state union was a nice idea, but the time is past for us to call it quits.
We need a tax rebellion backed by the states themselves.
I’ve always thought that California is to big and needs to be split in half. Let them split it from San Francisco south and take the debt with them. $451 Billion deficit is almost unsurmountable for any state. They most likely will raise taxes but I wouldn’t go for it unless the cut their budget by over 50%....including what they spend on immigrants.
Want to control deficit spending??
End the FED.
No Fed - no money printing, no inflation, no Gov’t promises for entitlements that will be paid off with less valuable dollars decades in the future, no Fed buying of Treasuries, Fannies, etc., etc...
He forgot Michigan.
As far as I am concerned, no state should be FORCED to help another state. It would be similar to FORCING me to help my neighbor. I am NOT my brother’s keeper, nor do I want someone or something to keep me. The problem is that the government wants to keep the people by forcing them to do things that are not in their own best interest or the best interest of the nation. The federal government does more harm than good.
Everyone will talk about anything else, but nobody will face the problem. You can't have medicare. It you want it, payroll taxes to pay for it need to go up 5% immediately and to 10% total, before too much longer. You can't have social security benefits that go up as fast as wages, and go up even in years prices don't. If you want them, the payroll tax for social security needs to go to 10% now, and then ratchet up to 15% over the next decade.
Everything else is a complete smoke and mirrors distraction. We either decide we can live without middle class entitlements, or we put in place regressive 15-25% payroll taxes on top of everything else we are paying.
There are no free lunches. Personally I think it is flat crazy that middle class people expect handouts from the government, instead of supporting themselves. But if they want to give up a quarter of their paychecks for it, they can vote to do so. They can't vote to take somebody else's instead - there is no somebody else and the stone has no blood left in it.
So what is Washington debating instead? How to "compromise" on multi trillion dollar new handouts to the middle class, paid for by the tooth fairy.
I wholeheartedly agree.
Fat chance of it happening, though. This is a "democracy", after all. Two wolves and a sheep voting on what they'll have for dinner. At least we won't rid ourselves of our parasites without the crisis you so assiduously avoid.
I believe Rahm Emmanuel said recently to the effect "never waste a good crisis." Amen to that. Let's take the thing down (or rather let it fall) and then rebuild a republic where all political power resides with men and women who produce more than they consume. The franchise should belong to folks who aren't on the dole, who pay their bills, who don't commit crimes, and who can pass a basic literacy test and civics exam. All else will get whatever we decide we can afford. Beggars can't be choosers. No sane society would give them political power over others, including the vote.
But we know that isn't true. Look what happened the last time we all got exited and put the GOP into office across the country. Pundits were even asking whether we've become a one-party state. And then we had Rove declare that the GOP was now the "party of big government" and we watched a GOP dominated Congress pass pass pork-laden highway bills and ruinously expensive entitlement expansions that were signed gleefully into law by a GOP President.
Elections don't work anymore. We've proved that beyond all doubt. And it makes perfect sense that they don't work. After all, you "dance with them that brung ya" as they say in Texas, and "them that brung" the majority of voters who have figured out long ago that they can vote their ways into my wallet. And into your wallet.
I'm a reasonably successful professional. I busted by backside for everything I have. I absolutely reject the notion that people can legally rob me by the simple expedient of forming a 51% majority.
Look at the income tax rolls. A bare majority pay no income taxes at all. And that makes perfect sense in a democracy. A bare majority of 51% can vote its way out of having to pay and can externalize their costs onto the remaining 49%.
That's democracy, which is why I say to hell with democracy.
I mean, do you really suppose for a minute that a bare 51% majority of Americans, when given a choice between cutting their entitlements or increasing taxes on the top 49%, won't opt for the tax increase with alacrity? Or that a majority of that 49% minority won't ensure that the tax increase gets kicked further up the scale onto guys like me who are in the top few percentiles of earners?
Imagine an inverted pyramid and you have a pretty good picture of our society. It's inherently unstable. Which is a good thing, since I hate it. All we really have to do is to let it fall.
You're obviously a very smart guy, so I can't imagine that you actually believe that. Please explain why you retain faith in elections after the GOP leadership sold us out first chance they got in 2005?
One lost election, or one president too friendly to big government (largely out of a hopelessly misplaced longing to be liked), don't change history.
Nothing will make the left's economic policies actually work in the long run, and whenever they are in office, they are judged on their results, not their jive talk. They always fail that test, and they are failing it again as we speak.
Have a little more faith in the American people. They've done a heck of a lot in 235 years...
I have no faith that a majority of American voters will vote away their entitlements. Ain't gonna happen. Not ever, short of a major crisis.
Two, we don't have socialism in this country.
Three, the size of the state has been rolled back in many countries, many times. Including the US after wars. There is absolutely nothing undoable about a particle of it.
The left peddles the myth that everything they do is an irrevesible ratchet, but it is pure poppycock. Men are free and they can do whatever the heck they want.
I have no faith in doom mongering pessimism of the sort you are peddling. I have plenty in the American people. The former has never done anything for anyone, ever. The latter have freed two thirds of humanity and created the greatest prosperity in human history.
You yourself state that the big problem is middle class entitlements. Just to be clear, you believe that this same middle class is willing to vote itself a significant cut in entitlements?
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