By John Brummett
Here are a few questions for tea party types who say the federal government must be drawn down with taxes lowered and with all of this oppressive meddling in our ideally self-sufficient private lives ended.
These questions are for those who say the federal government must strictly balance its budget, matching actual current income to actual current outgo, in the very way, they say, that they balance their finances at home.
So here are the questions:
Do you live in a house on which you owe a mortgage? But, you say, the private homeowner is building equity with his debt. Yes, that’s true, although he is able to do so only with borrowed money. Anyway, government is building equity in human beings — isn’t it? — when it educates them, helps them stay healthy, seeks to create and subsidize jobs for them and protects them from criminal harm?
If saddled with a home mortgage, do you accept the government subsidy each April 15 when you get to deduct the interest on that mortgage from your taxable income?
Do you drive a car on which you carry a loan of 36 months, 48 months or 60?
Do you possess any retailers’ credit cards on which you carry charges on a time-pay basis, especially if, say, the refrigerator or oven or washer/dryer conks out?
Do you carry plastic from Visa or American Express on which you might, from month to month, compile the occasionally unpaid principal balance? For that matter, have you ever run up more credit card debt than you could pay, then filed for bankruptcy, then won election to Congress on tea party themes? No? So you’re not Rick Crawford?
Do you put your kids through college with cash alone or do you run up a little debt to do so?
Do you set aside any income into an IRA or 401(k), and, if so, do you accept the deferment on taxes for that income — a loan, you might say, and thus kind of a subsidy, from the federal government, which keeps its hands off the money while you save it and try to turn it into yet more money, still tax-deferred, by investing it effectively?
After mom or pop has depleted all resources, first by bequeathing many of them to you and then for long-term health care — beginning with residential care and then assisted living and then the nursing home and then the Alzheimer’s wing — do you accept government’s Medicaid or do you insist on anteing up those thousands each month yourself?
Do you tell the grocery store that you want to pay not the amount scanned on your item, but the amount the product would really cost if the government didn’t send subsidies to farmers on that rice, that corn, that wheat, those soybeans?
Do you wish to fight our nation’s wars and the terrorists only by cash-and-carry or would you permit selling of bonds if it would produce proceeds for missiles and bombs and planes?
Ever heard of that before — war bonds? Did you know that America’s biggest deficit as a percentage of the economy was during and immediately after World War II? Are you glad we didn’t take on the Germans and Japanese, and rise up literally to save the world, on a straight balancing of current income to current outgo?
If household expenses ever got tight enough to scare you, which can happen, did you only cut back on spending or did you, at the same time, look for ways to bring in a little more money — or “revenue” — by asking for a raise, putting in for a promotion, seeking a second job or selling something?
If you lost your job altogether, for that matter, did you merely cut back on spending or did you also file for unemployment compensation and maybe cash out a life insurance policy, seeking, that is, to attack even a constricted budget both from a spending side and a revenue side?
Please don’t call or write with your answers. I’m not seeking your literal response. I’m only seeking your fair-minded consideration, your introspection.
The point is that we don’t need to choke our government — or, more to the point, ourselves — with such simplistic devices as balanced budget amendments. The point is that we need to make our often-essential deficit and debt more sustainable, more manageable, more responsible and less massive, and that we should do that by addressing both income and outgo.
You’re right, my tea party friend, about how government must change its ways. You’re not right, though, in the over-simplicity of your assessment or in the impractical, even drastic, nature of your remedies.
——-
John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699.
August 4th, 2011 at 6:45 am
This is wordy and involves thinking. You don’t have anything short and catchy like Cut, Cap and Balance do you?
August 4th, 2011 at 9:01 am
John,
Your talent for providing clarity on a practical basis is astounding!
I do so appreciate your writing!
Sincerely
August 4th, 2011 at 10:03 am
THE REPUBLICAN CONGRESS FORCED CLINTON TO BALANCE THE BUDGET. However, discipline like that is very rare. We need the Balanced Budget Amendment to force the hard decisions on cutting spending. If not we will continue to spend like crazy. If forced to balance the budget it could be done. Senator Pryor has asked for ideas and I emailed this to him below from John Stossel:
“It’s not hard to balance the budget. On my show, we made enough cuts to create a $237 billion surplus. I cut whole departments, like Education and Commerce. I cut two-thirds of the Defense Department (which still leaves it much bigger than China’s). I indexed Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security to inflation, raised the retirement age, and took away benefits for rich people. But I don’t have to run for office. Congressmen do, and they can’t even manage to cut ridiculous tax breaks like those for ethanol.”
August 4th, 2011 at 6:51 pm
“I’m only seeking your fair-minded consideration, your introspection.”
If you were really trying to be fair-minded, you would point to all of the spending programs championed by the Left . .. which is the primary cause for the near-bankruptcy the USA finds itself in now.
August 4th, 2011 at 10:27 pm
If the budget was balance for every year in the future it would take 389 years to pay off the National Debt if we paid $100 million each day. We are adding 4 billion to the National Debt everyday.
Nonpartisan Public Notice showed that if Washington wanted to hoist tax rates to actually cover spending, the top tier rate would go from 35 to 88 percent; the middle tier from 25 to 63 percent and the lowest from 10 to 25 percent.
Government Paid in 2010 $413,954,825,362.17 in interest
Last years interest is more than the
Debt Of Commerce
Debt Of Health
Debt Of Human Services
Debt Of Transportation
Debt Of Veterans Affairs
Debt Of Housing & Urban development
Debt Of Justice
Debt Of Homeland Security
Debt Of Agriculture
Debt Of Treasury
Debt Of Labor
Debt Of Small Business Administration
Combined
Washington will not quit the spending till it’s forced to do so. One way or the other the day is coming.
August 5th, 2011 at 1:27 pm
Brummett’s soul-brother John Kerry wants media to “not give equal time” to Tea Party.
Sen. John Kerry was on MSNBC “Morning Joe” this morning and said “And I have to tell you, I say this to you politely. The media in America has a bigger responsibility than it’s exercising today. The media has got to begin to not give equal time or equal balance.
August 5th, 2011 at 4:04 pm
A report from the Internal Revenue Service found that the rich — 8,274 people with incomes of $10 million per year or more — earned a total of $240 billion in 2009.
Even of you confiscated every dime they earned, you would barely have enough money to cover government spending for 24 days.
Of course, about a quarter of that money already goes to the federal government for federal income. So make that 18 days.
Another 227,000 people earned $1 million or more in 2009.
Millionaires averaged taxes of 24.4% of their income — up from 23.1% in 2008.
They, too, did not earn enough money to come anywhere close to covering the annual deficits that are $1.5 trillion a year.
Individual tax collections totaled $1,175,422,000,000 in 2009 — or 15.4% of all income.
Doubling federal income taxes for everyone would still leave us $400 billion or so shy of balancing the budget.
August 5th, 2011 at 5:01 pm
captainamerica, please educate yourself on the real causes of the deficit, identified by the Congressional Budget Office:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8540
I’ll give you a hint: The first four letters are B, u, s, h…
August 5th, 2011 at 7:03 pm
No, Middleclass, you need to educate yourself. I have been following the budget and fiscal issues for 2o years now.
And it is a typical mistake of partisans (like you) on both sides to lay the blame for our current situation on Presidents of the opposite party. Liberals like you blame Bush. Tea Party types blame Obama. Both sides are partially correct – and partially wrong.
That’s what a hate about politics, there is always enough evidence for partisans to reaffirm their biases.
The truth is, most of our current fiscal problems were created long before Bush or Obama entered the White House. Bill Clinton received reports back in the 90’s about our looming fiscal crisis – primarily caused by entitlements and the retiring baby boomers.
Of course, any reforms Clinton wanted to implement regarding entitlements were blocked by Lefties in Congress.
August 5th, 2011 at 8:41 pm
captainamerica, yes, I could tell how much you dislike partisans by your initial post blaming all our troubles on liberals. Congrats on avoiding being a partisan yourself.
But I’m intrigued by your suggestion that the Congressional Budget Office is “liberal.” Maybe math has a liberal bias, too.
You said the financial mess we’re in is due to “spending programs championed by the Left.” So look at that chart I linked to that breaks down the chief contributors to the debt (http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8540), and tell me which are the Lefty spending programs: Is it the Bush tax cut or the wars? (Previous to Iraq, we never paired a war with a tax break for the wealthy; that was Bush’s idea.) If you’re not comfortable with hard numbers and facts, I can understand why you’re so confused.
By the way, it’s not just “liberals like me” who blame Bush for the mess we’re in. It’s most Americans. In a July poll, 54% of respondents said Bush is to blame for this mess, while 27% said Obama is to blame. (See: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/180255/20110714/bush-george-w-bush-obama-economy-u-s-economy-unemployment-unemployment-rate.htm) So the average American doesn’t have as much trouble viewing that chart as you do. Time for an eye exam?
August 5th, 2011 at 9:17 pm
MiddleClass,
Let me spell it out for you. What s driving our fiscal crisis is spending on entitlements. And entitlements are the sacred cow of Leftwingers.
Every election cycle we are subjected to a barrage of propagandistic attack ads claiming that grandma will be thrown into the street, autistic children will go without care etc. etc.
My favorite ad is the elderly couple eating a bowl of soup in their modest kitchen, with this look of worry on their face. The voice over then describes how “my opponent wants to destroy social security” blah blah blah. These sorts of attacks have created a climate in which sensible reforms have been impossible to make. And this is why we are bankrupt.
Heck, even Paul Krugman and John Brummett admit that we have a long term deficit/debt problem because of entitlements.
Oh, and your moniker “Middle Class” is hilarious. Lefties always imagine themselves as the protectors of the middle class. Funny how Middle Class residents of high tax, heavily regulated Blue States have been flooding into low tax, Red States in droves.
The Middle Class is voting with their feet- and they are rejecting Blue State policies in droves.
August 5th, 2011 at 9:21 pm
captainamerica I agree with you. Many of the things got there start more than 15 years ago such as the Housing, Banking and Wall Street crisis.
August 6th, 2011 at 9:01 am
captainamerica, OK, I keep trying to get you to look at the actual hard numbers here, and you refuse, so I can see there’s no point in trying to reason with you.
And I actually think THAT’S the real reason we’re in this mess. Because the argument you and I are having isn’t just theoretical. There are REAL NUMBERS involved, and I’m showing them to you, but you still want to believe it’s all just a matter of opinion. I’m sorry that math is confusing to you. You can go back to watching TV now.
August 6th, 2011 at 1:11 pm
Hey John, all these guys need to run for political office because they have all the required qualities……..
they never are at a lack of POSITIONS…..
and they all know EXACTLY how to fix ALL our countries problems in about a week..
I say we vote for them and give them 2 weeks salaries and then they can go home..
I rest your case John….everyone has a position and an answer….the one thing they do not have is a solution that will PASS and FUNCTION!
August 6th, 2011 at 3:23 pm
Middleclass, No, YOU are the problem, because you selectively cherry pick data that reaffirms your own bias. See, liberals hate defense spending and tax cuts, so they SELECTIVELY point to defense spending/tax cuts as the reason for our current predicament. . . . All-the-while SELECTIVELY ignoring the 80% of the federal budget which is non-defense spending.
But here’s the deal – there is SOME truth to the liberal argument that we need to cut defense spending and raises taxes. And I am all in favor of cutting defense, and raises taxes to the Clinton era rates.
But it isn’t enough.
Currently, defense spending is only 20% of the budget. If you cut defense spending in half you would trim our current budget deficit by about 1/3.
And If you reinstated the Clinton tax rates, you would only trim another 100b or so off the annual deficit. (Of course, tax receipts are just projections, it is almost impossible to calculate actual tax receipts in the distant future because they vary so much depending on economic conditions.)
So even if you cut defense in half, and reinstated the Clinton tax rates, you are still not able to cut the deficit in half.
But that’s just for THE NEXT FISCAL YEAR. This does not take into account the cost of entitlements which are projected to skyrocket over the next few decades!!!!!!!
So anyway, go back to your leftwing blogs, and go back to reading half-truths which reaffirm your own biases. I’ll stick with the actual numbers, even though they piss off liberal and tea party members alike.
August 6th, 2011 at 8:53 pm
MiddleClass, take a look at this interactive graphic of President Obama’s budget proposal for 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/newsgraphics/2011/0119-budget/index.html
Oh, and these figures are from the New York Times, hardly a Right-Wing outfit.
Anyway, of the $3.7 in spending, over half comes from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid alone. If you talk to the average Leftwinger – they believe Defense Spending is 50%+ of the federal budget. . .but this hasnt been the case in over 40 years
August 6th, 2011 at 9:14 pm
Now see MiddleClass, I am just trying to EDUCATE you here. I am trying to HELP you.
Take a look at these numbers http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_budget
Now, I don’t fully agree with these projections, but their general thrust is accurate:
(1). 20%+ growth in federal pensions in 5 years
(2). 30%+ growth in federal spending on healthcare in 5 years, and
(3). More than doubling of interest payments on the federal debt in 5 years.
Spending in most other areas, including Defense, remains roughly static. The website claims that the federal deficit will decline to $650 Billion in 5 years. . .but I am not buying that.