Fair Share
As I look at the debate in Washington, D.C. over federal spending and how we get this nation’s finances under control, I always marvel at the words, “the wealthy need to pay their fair share”. Usually this occurs when the President talks about rolling back the Bush era tax cuts. While I don’t think taking more of an individual’s hard-earned money is a good idea, I am willing to concede that in tough times, shared sacrifice must be made by all. However, if that means the wealthy need to pay their “fair share” then by that logic don’t the we all need only take their “fair share”?
Abdul, what do you mean? Here’s what I mean. When I wrote this blog post at 6:04 a.m. Thursday, the national debt was $14.3 trillion and our federal deficit was about $1.4 trillion. Our largest budget items were Medicaid/Medicare, Social Security, National Defense, Interest on the Debt and federal pensions. I’d put numbers next to these figures but they kept changing every time I switched tab screens on my monitor. And while I laugh when Congress and the White House say they cut $38 billion from the budget, that’s really just a fly in the bucket. The federal government overspends just slightly more than $4 billion a day, that means they managed to balance the budget for nine days, and left the other 354 alone. Luckily, the nice little financial scare the government got from Standard and Poor’s threat to make its credit rating look like my brother-in-law’s will hopefully serve as a catalyst to make real change in our national spending habits.
It’s no big secret that we are driving this country off a financial cliff if we don’t turn our spending around. My wife and I are willing (both under 45) are willing to not only give up Social Security, but also and Medicare and be willing to take care of ourselves and responsible for our own destinies. We have no problem with honoring the commitments for those that promises were made, but the rest of us are going to have make some adjustments.
The same thing also goes for those people who consume what some would call a disproportionate amount of government services, they’re going to have to share in the sacrifice as well. If we’re going to make this work and turn this government’s financial situation around, everyone is going to have to pitch in, rich, poor and everyone in between.
Who’s ready to sign up? By the way in the 15 minutes that it took me to write this, our national debt just went up another $30 million.
