Liberals, Really?

Tea Party this, Tea Party that. Seriously? Get a grip! It is a battle of ideas necessarily articulated in a convincing way that successfully counters opposing ideas and concepts by defeating them with a logic that resonates with voters.

The perceived facts on the table are that we have, and are continuing to, spend more dollars than we can reasonably derive from the economy. The vast majority of the arguments presented in by Dowd, et al call for greater taxes and cuts in the defense budget - 20% of the budget - as though that will make it all groovy.

This is the polarized thinking of the late 1960's out and really needs revisiting. Social Security is 21% of the budget. Medicare and Medicaid is another 20% with other Income Security another 7%. Some fresh, imaginative thinking is needed on the other roughly 48% of the bugeted spending that is doing more to harm the middle and lower classes by way of inflation than any scheme dreamed up by the ruling class every time the Treasury and the Federal Reserve create more dollars and more debt.

If the Tea Party is anything, it is an amalgation of the frustrated voices of some Americans who have come to believe that they do not have any voice in a government that seemingly works against them at every turn and is unraveling the conception of America that they hold.

Truth be told, much of the elitist, progressive agenda has brushed them off as 'fly overs' and irrelevant. That was and is a tactical mistake. In the rush to achieve liberal/progressive goals, a significant portion of the population has been excluded and is, albeit belatedly, objecting. As they find themselves increasingly priced out of existence, even as they do all the things that are supposed to work, they look for a solution to the question of "Why?".

When searching for a solution one must first discern causes, effects and the outline the proper sequence of steps that will lead to remediation and restoration. Unsurprisingly, they have discovered that beyond taxation the greatest progenitor of their disaffection from their expected reward to be the cruel price inflation caused by the bailing out of everyone but them. The lower classes have their safety net (albeit with inflation diminished results), the upper class has their exoneration from the suffering the consequence of their actions ( much more reduced in their impact) but the working stiff has once again been stiffed. No jobs, higher prices, home values shrunken to a joke. Predictability they are angry. Who in their position wouldn't be?

Yet here we are fretting about higher taxes which we all know invariably result in higher spending rather than spending constraint to a managing and -God forbid! - reducing the debt that is driving the inflation in prices in everything but the value of their prime asset, their home which is going to hell in a hand basket.

Their argument goes, "You don't deserve any more money until you learn to manage the money you are already receiving!" bears some merit. Any reasonably responsible parent would say the same to their child.

Perhaps it would be of value to stop dismissing and objectifying alternative views and pay some attention to what drives their concerns in a constructive way. After all, not everyone lives in Manhattan - or wishes to.

The Actual Choice - Cutting Now or Crashing Later

General - Deficit spending has gone unaddressed for close to forever but definitely for the past 45+ years as if there was no end in sight. Well here we are at the bitter end and we can either whine about what was done or correct the errors, work back the debt in a disciplined way and leave the balance sheet in far better shape than when we inherited it and leave the stewardship issues for the generations that follow.

This will require a determination and vigilance that is usually reserved for states of war. Everyone's ox will get gored and the gravy trains must be derailed and the track bed shredded if it's going to take.

I believe that the free market system will kick in and unforeseen forces will come into play that will offset some of the perceived "pain" that will be required to get us healthy and fit again.

Military (-40%) We have to give up trying to fix the world on the US taxpayer's dime. NATO was one thing following a WWII crushed Europe. The same goes for SEATO and the rest. If we are going to provide security services then either we get paid market rates for it from countries than can well afford it or they can step up and develop their own security forces. We have been played like an addled uncle.

Medicaid (-40%) There has always been a thorn in my side when working people can't afford medical care but those who need/choose to learn how to work the system can get a much higher level of care on the taxpayer's dime. It encourages the 20th century version of slavery.

The desire to have and provide essential medical care to one's family should be part of one's compensation package and be an earned benefit - not a right. Reliance on Mediaid should be limited to episodic care that is either less than or equal to basic compensation based coverage, not superior to it.

I am aware that there are those who believe that they are incapable of working in a traditional 40 hour/5 day structure and they may be correct to a point. I suggest that this is a learned mindset aided by enablers who profit from keeping their client roster popuilated and politicians that need a class dependent on them. Unlike Massa's on the plantation, any robust entrepeanuer will recognize the opportunity here when a significant number of these people can provide minimally time sensitive production from a home based computer.

Open up Medical Insurance Co-ops so small business' can incorporate this as part of a predictable compensation expense.

Medicare (-40%) Means Test 101, Part A. Then roll this back until it's able to be done away with. Medical savings accounts are the wave of the new future that makes personal, employer and corporate responsibility the key to continued coverage. I am not talking about , "a gun to your head" government mandate but a social mandate of what is right, reasonable and acceptable business practice.

Social Security (+/-) Quick test question here. Is Social Security a funded by withholding from both the employer and the employee retirement account or is it a taxpayer funded entitlement? We were sold on the supposition the former state of affairs and labored a lifetime under the assumption that the money taken from our employers and us was being held in an inviolate trust account. That money was then "invested" in government securities so it is now part of the national debt. It's time to get honest and honor the 14th amendment's 4th clause and stop pretending SS is an expenditure from tax revenues. It's a matter of paying back what was already borrowed and spent from our trust fund.

Other (-50%) Run the government on the cheap - just like business has to.

Income Taxes (+8%) I favor the doing away of the tax structure as it stands. All deductions, subsidies, and the rest do not serves the national interest. A flat consumption tax added at each stage of transfer of materials and developed products all the way to the end consumer should take it's place. This should also be applied to imported goods and services with the tax based on the cost were the items originated and completed here.

This could be managed in such a way that it would do away with huge swaths of bureaucracy there to filter special case treatments engendering further cost effective savings.

Payroll Taxes (+8%)

Corp Taxes (+8%)
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Deficit neutral in 2012, minimum - $0.5 T in 2014 and up to -$0.75 T years following.

Debt to GDP from 70% in 2012 declining to ~ 22% in 2021

Revenue exceeds spending from 2013 out.
2013 $0.3 T
2014 $0.5 T
2015 $0.6 T
2016 $0.6 T
2017 $0.6 T
2018 $0.7 T
2019 $0.6 T
2020 $0.8 T
2021 $0.7 T

This comes to $5.4 T debt reduction over 9 years. Extended out and with further cuts in the future as social programs are scaled back to zero can put us in a debt neutral position in 25 to 30 years.

$14,653,833,000,000 and counting up at $2.88 BILLION a day is that huge a debt.

Watermelon Anyone?

This one's a keeper. I think it would be a wonderfully teachable moment to give the Baaaa-ma (I'd say Bama but Alabama deserves better) a permanent time out and take away his jets, helicopters, limos and all those mad cool techie toys the POTUS gets to use and get along on his pension that unfortunately we must pay under the 14th amendment and as an unemployed nut deprived "advocate" a la Bill Clinton so he can think he's finally feeling the pain of the disenfranchisement he claims to champion. The only question that remains is if his wife, the black version of Soupy Sales White Fang, will run for the Senate in some socialist stronghold and keep the nightmare alive.

On a related note, I had an interesting moment this evening. One of those little quick mind photos that perfectly encapsulate a much larger issue.

I was driving down the Harlem River Drive at the exchange where it becomes the FDR Drive and there was this very well developed and very physically strong looking black male off on the side of the road selling watermelons holding what appeared to be a length wise quarter section over his head with a sign that stated, "THE AVERAGE WHITE MAN SPENDS TOO MUCH MONEY."

(I'm not making this up - facts are facts and yes, I wish traffic was slow enough to take a picture.)

Seriously? WTF are you saying? WTF are you really about?

Somewhere in this tableau was a perfect depiction of the the incoherent thought process of entitlement based on assumptions of a racist mind. The scenario was finely tuned to guarantee a complete satisfaction of a thesis.

The successful or even slightly successful selling of his inventory to what would be largely white or at a minimum upmarket drivers would signify their agreement that yes, white men do indeed spend too much money because they have an unfair and unearned share of wealth and that the white male owes money to this watermelon seller and in fact all people he designates as deserving of redistribution to.

Failure to turn a reasonable profit on his enterprise supplies clear proof that white men are greedy and undeserving holders of undeserved wealth who have it in for the black man.

This is exactly the tactic that has worked so well for the likes of Jesse "call me Reverend" Jackson, Al "The Reverend" Sharpton and the rest of the race card guilt dealing radicals.

Thankfully we are helping kill the effectiveness of this tactic by showing it for what it is - and by buying our melons at our local grocer supporting our own towns and business people who we freely choose to support.