Polispeak in political math and jobs made simple
Written by Michael Vass
There has been a lot of talk about huge budgets and deficit spending over the past couple of months. Numbers in the trillions of dollars have been tossed around, to the extent that few seem to comprehend the meaning of such numbers. So I thought I’d try to simplify it all.
Let’s start with the budget President Obama is pushing hard to get passed. He is asking for $3.6 trillion dollars. Overall his plan will reduce the deficit to about $500 – 700 billion dollars. And then, no matter who does the math, everyone agrees the deficit will double and grow for every year until 2019 – at around $9 trillion dollars.
In simple words that means the following.
If the average American owes $6,000 in debt right now, the Government will add another roughly $100,000 to their debt. This money is the future earnings of each American, spent now. That money will be paid back via taxes – no matter what income level you have.
According to the Obama budget plan, that debt to taxes will drop to $50,000 in 2012. So you will have to bay back far less of the money the Government has taken from your future earnings. [None of this includes interest on the money taken.]
But in 2013, you will owe $105,000 (plus the $6,000 in debt you already owed). By 2019 each and every American will owe some $300,000 to the Government that will come from your taxes – regardless of what income level you have (plus interest).
Put another way, If next month all your debt was cut in half would you be happy? Would you still be happy if the month after that (in 2 months) you owed slightly more than you owed today? And in 3 months you would own 50% more. By the end of the year you would owe roughly 250% more than you owe today.
Ie. the average American owes $6,000 right now. Next month, in this example, it would be $3,000. In 2 months from today it would be $6,100. In 3 months from today it will be $9,000. By the end of the year the average American - making less than $30,000 a year - would owe $15,000 plus interest that would come out of your income as taxes in this example.
Does that sound like a good plan?
Well add another factor to this plan. Jobs.
You might have a job today. If you have that job tomorrow, the Obama Administration counts that as a job saved. If you lose that job in a week, the Obama Administration says that they helped you keep your job longer under their plan. If in 4 months you get a new job, the Obama Administration says that they created that job for you. Do you feel more secure with their plan? (By the way, in month 4, going by my example above, you would owe around $9,500 regardless of the fact you had no income for over 3 months.)
It gets better.
According to the actions of the Democrat-led Congress, certain aspects of America will be changed. This stems from the AIG fiasco.
As of right now, any contract the Government does not like can be ignored. The executives at AIG had contracts for their bonuses. The contracts meant that if AIG had money, they must pay the bonus. Congress and the Obama Administration knew this, and kept the contracts as they stood. Thus the bonuses must be paid.
But because this is politically unpopular they retro-actively punished the AIG executives for having a contract. This is illegal and unconstitutional. And it means that if the Government can arbitrarily change one contract, they can change ANY contract. (Thus if you got a job with a contract for extremely good pay, the Government could decide to take up to 70 - 90% of it based on how they retro-actively punished AIG. And you still would owe the $15,000 from the above example at the end of the year with more than 3/4 of your income removed via punative tax.)
In addition, the Government is saying that they can adjust the pay of ANYONE, if they deem it to be too much. Yes, so far they are saying only people that received money from the Government, but to some extent every business receives money from the Government, as does every citizen.
And at this very moment the Secretary of the Treasury is asking for the power for the Government to take over ANY business that they deem to be in trouble and important to the economy. What qualifies as important to the economy? There is not qualification set. What is trouble? Again there is no limitation set. (So following the examples above, if you started a business and made it a superstar of business for a time, the Government could take it from you. And you still would owe money.)
So if we look at the historical actions of the Government, once they are capable of doing something, they expand to do it more. Remember, there has not been one Agency of the Government that has closed, or ended operations, or received less operating capital for the last 40 years that I am aware of. Do you think that expanded powers that are undefined, and directly intrude on the public life, will become less or more powerful in the future based on historical factual actions of the Government?
These are the things that President Obama is asking for right now. These are the changes that are happening right now. These are the things that Congress and the Obama Administration are using polispeak to achieve.
According to these plans, your child cannot possible afford college. These plans also mean your retirement funds are at risk. According to these plans the Government will decide your health care options. The Government will decide how much ANY citizen might make.
And if you somehow have extra money, the Government will take more of it if you try to donate it – since they know where you should donate better than you do. [Tax rates on donations have been increased. Fact] Or if you invest it, the Government will take more of that money, if you make a profit. (Thus if you avoided losing money in a contract, or losing a business, and you made a profit on an investment of say 10% in a year - a very good return - you would in fact lose 25% when taxes and commisions are factored in. And this is the proposed change to investment taxes, not an example.)
On top of that, the Obama Administration will force EVERY American to pay more for electricity and fuel. Because the Government will force you to conserve, as they know what amount of energy you should use. Again this is a fact of what the Obama Administration is proposing.
If you doubt what I am saying, just read the proposals and do the math. Everything I have explained is a simplified version of what is before Congress and the President. Though the Obama Administration has failed to live up to the promise of presenting all the potential laws to the public before being signed (in fact even before all of Congress had had the chance to read all the details of the laws proposed), you can still look this up.
And when it comes to math, you might also want to add in $400 billion and $787 billion to what is in the Obama budget for what he has already spent. No that is not part of the $3.6 trillion proposed budget.
So now that you can understand these huge numbers in a real manner, how do you feel? Do you think the future of America is better or worse? Do you think the lives of our kids will be better or worse?
April 15th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
[...] look impressive while diverting attention from long-term problems. I once offered the example of lowering the average Americans debt, just as President Obama has offered to lower the national debt. No one that I presented this scenario to found it to be worthwhile, yet the Obama [...]
April 15th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
[...] look impressive while diverting attention from long-term problems. I once offered the example of lowering the average Americans debt, just as President Obama has offered to lower the national debt. No one that I presented this scenario to found it to be worthwhile, yet the Obama [...]
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:28 am
[...] all but ignored the most obvious of actions by the Obama Administration and the Democrats. I mean President Obama directly told the American public he is going to virtually triple the national debt with his budget, and the major news media didn’t blink. He directly looked out at America and [...]
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:29 am
[...] all but ignored the most obvious of actions by the Obama Administration and the Democrats. I mean President Obama directly told the American public he is going to virtually triple the national debt with his budget, and the major news media didn’t blink. He directly looked out at America and [...]
May 28th, 2009 at 11:25 am
[...] look impressive while diverting attention from long-term problems. I once offered the example of lowering the average Americans debt, just as President Obama has offered to lower the national debt. No one that I presented this scenario to found it to be worthwhile, yet the Obama [...]