Anyone watching Congress of late knows two painfully obvious things, none of them presents our economic situation without spinning them to their own advantage, and it's election time again. And who gets hurt as they attempt to gain favor of the American electorate first and foremost, and do their sworn duty of taking care of the country who elected them second? Of course it is us.
History has shown over the last few administrations that we have a universal problem that cannot be blamed on any one political party. Needless to say, if you are currently in need of a financial advisor, the last person in the world you would want to put your economic portfolio in the hands of is a member of Congress.
The current platitude of the season is "we are broke....", and if you can sob a little while saying it, you get extra style points. The simple fact is, this is an absolute lie. This country has plenty of revenue, more than ever before. We are an economic behemoth whose business is coveted by every country the world over. Get our business in any economic sector, and you can literally make a fortune, pure and simple. Ask Japan, ask India, ask China. They have gotten rich primarily of us (or U.S. to be more accurate).
The trouble is not so much how much money we have, it's how we spend it. Of course we spend too much, more than we can afford every administration since the Clinton / Gingrich years, the last time we actually had balanced budgets. So why not get their expertise? They did it before, let's put them to work on it again. A Congressional advisory committee. Throw in Greenspan for good measure. Examine the overblown budget...page by mind numbing page. Let them get their highlighters out, and start cutting. It would be a true bi-partisan commission advising Congress on the two things we need to do to get out financial house in order......two simple things......spend less, and make more.
Let them cut ridiculous things we spend our money on...planned parenthood and the National Endowment for the Arts....and I am sure there are thousands of organisations like them on the public payroll. Let them make the unpopular decisions without worrying about what the public thinks, none of the three are going to be running for anything (Gingrich for Pres? now that's ridiculous) and should be capable of making the hard decisions without worrying about getting elected for anything.
Let them report that the reductions in regulations have made corporations preditory and monopolistic (not to mention remove methods of consumer protections); let them report that we need to simplify the tax code so that the IRS can focus on all those who are illegally avoiding paying their fair share. Let them examine our history and report the truth for once....and the truth is, if you made $250k last year, you paid on average $67,398, and in 1981 you would have paid $126,953. In 1940, corporations paid 43% of all federal income taxes, in 1950 it was 39%, and in 1990 they paid 19%. We coddle corporations today, and they slap us in the face by moving their workforce overseas and their money out of the country...this has to stop. We need to make it financial suicide to manufacture products overseas and bring them into the country. We need to make it advantageous to create jobs here if you want to sell your goods here.
When it comes to revenue, we need to simplify the tax code and eliminate all credits, deductions, tax reforms and loopholes that allow everyone to avoid paying their fair share (not to mention the ridiculous notion that we need to incentivize being rich with tax breaks...). We need clarity and transparency in the way everyone pays their taxes. And we need to make it a crime to set up shell headquarters outside of the country in an attempt to hide revenue and shield their companies from taxes. We need to make it a crime to take your personal revenue and wire it off shore to countries such as the Grand Caymans and Switzerland to avoid paying taxes. We need to find out who they are and tax the living shit out of them. We need to setup a month long amnesty to allow everyone to get their money from overseas and get it back into their country where it belongs...safe....and taxable.
We need to reduce our entitlements...and that means Medicare and Medicaid. Actually if we left the money alone, they would be much better off, but Congress can't keep their hands off from it....more voodoo economics. More bait and switch con games of now you see it, now you don't.
And we need to get our heroes out of Iraq, Afghanistan and everywhere else....unless we are welcome, and the host country are willing to pay us to protect them. It is mind blowing that we are spending ourselves stupid in oil producing countries, and they do not give us anything for our troubles. We need to shift our country from being the world's watchdog, to being the world's paid mercenaries.
Want to fix our financial problems? Get out of two wars, simplify the tax codes, eliminate all non-essential spending, and establish a non-partisan committee to advise Congress on how best to do what the country desperately needs to do....
Earn more, spend less....or do both.
If we do this, we will find we have plenty of cash...to do what we should have been doing all along...updating and improving our infrastructure, educating our populous and taking better care of each other.
And that is my world...the World According to Kimba.
Thanks for reading.
BTW, your taxes are due on Monday.
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