Time To Make A Choice

There is one thing that "almost" everyone I talk to can agree upon. Whether republican or democrat it seems we have all come to the conclusion that we can't continue to run budget deficits forever.

If you read this and the first thing you want to do is begin blaming one party or the other, don't bother. WE are all to blame.

We can not continue the path we are on. We must either decide to make very deep cuts to social service programs, or raise taxes significantly on EVERYONE. Not just the very rich. Just taxing the rich more wouldn't be enough.

Every dollar taken in in taxes in a year is consumed to pay for Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security alone. That leaves every other program and service including DOT, DOD, Treasury, and countless other programs to be funded by loans.

With recent reports of 45 percent of households having at least one member receiving aid from government and nearly half of all people paying zero dollars in taxes, I'm afraid there is no cutting of the programs. At least not without riots in the streets.

All this leaves us in a position where taxes will need to go up dramatically in order to pay our every expanding debts. This could include a VAT tax on top of income taxes, high taxes on corporations (which would likely be very detrimental to business), higher personal income taxes across the board or maybe even all of the above.

How would you solve the problem. Cut programs, raise taxes or a combination of the two.

Just a hint for those of you who would blame Iraq/Afghanistan war operations for the deficit, fine, but realize that ALL the money spent on all the war operations in the last 9 years is still 300 billion less than the budget deficit this year alone. So, you can say we need to stop the wars, and that would be a good start. However, one year's worth of war costs is less than 9 percent of the deficit. We've got a long way to go. It's time to make a choice.

A Liberal Point of View

I have been contemplating for a while whether or not to continue this blog. It isn't that I don't enjoy writing it. I certainly have. I'm just not sure that it is productive. I'm fairly certain the words I write aren't changing any ones opinion regarding the topics covered. Anyway onto the purpose for this post.

I read the following phrase on a blog I follow:

"I feel that people should be able to do what they want UNLESS it is totally distasteful, insensitive or just plain stupid."

This is not a person who lacks the mental capacity to have an intelligent conversation. To the contrary I have found her posts to be well thought and well written, even if I rarely agree.

This quote on the the other hand shows a rather telling lack of foresight. The problems with this line of thought are obvious, and I don't feel the need to explain them. If I do have to explain you won't understand anyway.