Posted on 03/10/2011 4:44:58 PM PST by David DeGerolamo
I remember the celebration among real taxpayers after the November 2010 elections. Happy days are here again and the Republican led House of Representatives will save the country. Really?
One of the first consequences was a “deal” with the devil where the Bush tax cuts would be continued in exchange for extending unemployment benefits for 99 weeks through December 2011.
The news from March 9th told us that 35% of the total wages and salaries comes from government payouts. From CNBC.com:
Government payouts—including Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance—make up more than a third of total wages and salaries of the U.S. population, a record figure that will only increase if action isn’t taken before the majority of Baby Boomers enter retirement.
As President Reagan put it so succinctly: Government is the problem. So why are people giving the Republican Party a pass based on the following actions?
Our current federal budget is $3.69 trillion which includes $1.4 trillion which we do not have. This money is being printed by the US Treasury under the direction of the Federal Reserve - a private organization controlling our money supply. Is anyone concerned that 38% of our spending is being subsidized out of thin air? So why is no one addressing the Republican Party pledge to pass $100 billion in tax cuts which is now $61 billion?.
Here is the reality of our bankrupt country in terms of how the Republican Party will save our future:
1. $61 billion represents 23.3% of the deficit spending for just the month of February, 2011
2. $61 billion represents 1.65% of the total budget for 2011.
3. $61 billion represents 0.43% of the country’s national debt.
4. $61 billion represents 0.04% of the total amount of the national debt plus the amount owed by unfunded liabilities.
To put number 4 above another way:
I owe you $100.
You come to collect your money.
I offer you a nickel.
If I am in Chicago, my life is not worth a plugged nickel unless I had four ounces of Kobe beef from Japan which is $100.
When a political party or politicians start to address this nation's economic collapse, we will have some hard choices to make. Political posturing is not accomplishing the necessary measures that are not even being discussed. Of course, we can always console ourselves by chanting "We will take it back in 2012".
Think of it this way. Your monthly income is $2000 and your monthly spending is $3700. You tell your family that you MUST cut back spending. After deliberating, they agree that they can cut $5 from spending.
Is this person serious? The Republicans were not in the majority when that 'deal' was made.
I am serious. Obama made the deal with the Republicans in early December as the first step for future negotiations.
Here is one of many articles detailing this arrangement “between the White House and newly empowered Republicans on Capitol Hill”:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/us/politics/07cong.html
Let me get this straight, the Republicans only hold one house of the Congress, and do not control the Presidency, but it is their fault?
You really need a civics lesson.
Exactly! Sounds like someone thinks the republians with control of only one house should’ve waved a wand and made it all better in what 3 months? Apparently does not understand how our government works?
Join date of 9/30/2010 too.
The spineless Pubbies controlling only one house of Congress does not prevent them from at least PROPOSING what they Promised.
They are not getting hit for not winning. They’re getting hit for not putting forward the numbers that they promised.
Now do you understand the point?
A great description, but let's up the accuracy a few notches:
You are your family's sole provider, and your monthly income is about $2,000 a month ($23,000 a year). Your wife Angie and teenage daughter Britney are regularly spending over $3,000 a month ($37,000 a year).
This means you're personally going $14,000 more into debt every single year. Never mind saving anything, you're going $1,170 deeper into debt every single month, with no end in sight.
You tell the family you can't do this, that it's rapidly bankrupting you.
So wifey promises to solve the family's ongoing financial crisis. She proposes that she and Britney, instead of eating out together twice a week, will eat at home instead. This will let them trim $83 a month from the budget, or $1000 a year.
Mom and Britney then engage in a heated argument over whether they should cut $50 from the monthly budget, or just skip a meal at McDonald's, thus saving $7.22 a month. When Mom (the "fiscal conservative") wins the argument, Britney says "the hell we will," slams the door, and storms out of the house.
And those, in fact, are the actual household figures.
The federal government is currently spending your household into oblivion to the tune of $14,000 in ADDITIONAL debt per year, on top of the massive debt they've already run up in your name.
The Republicans bravely proposed that they might cut that down to running up only $13,000 more in additional debt in your family's name every year.
Now they've backed off of "saving" you $83 a month, down to "saving" you $50 a month, or $610 a year.
The Democrats have a counter proposal that will save you about $7 a month instead.
All the while running up additional debt in your name to the amount of around $1,170.
Each and every month.
But they weren’t empowered - and that’s the bottom line. No amount of spin can change that fact.
United States Constitution
Section 7 - Revenue Bills, Legislative Process, Presidential Veto
All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives;
The House controls the funding even for approved legislation such as health care.
The GOP cuts are a starting point. You can wash your hands and surrender to the rats, but I ain’t marching with you.
IBTZ
The House can pass all the legislation it wants, but nothing happens unless it passes the Senate and is signed by the President.
Since the government has to be funded, a compromise will have to pass and it will not be pretty.
All we can do in the next two years is lay down markers for where we want to go. No substantive cuts will happen until 2013 at the earliest, and only if we beat Obama and can get a working 60 vote majority in the Senate. It’s a stand off until then. Both sides will chip away at the margins and try to get symbolic victories. But there will be no major changes until after Obama is out.
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