Our Nation's Debt Crisis (An Honest Editorial)

USDebtClock.org) and am just completely amazed. If we ran Vicksburg Daily News the way our leaders in DC have run our government, we would have been out of business before we ever registered the website.  The United States Government is a business and you’ve got to look at it that way.  They’re a service business… just like a hotel. You’ve got to pay to stay in a hotel.  Sure, you get freebies for staying there… continental breakfast… maid service… maybe a free newspaper… even a wake up call so that you don’t miss an important appointment…. but in the end… the price of those services are built into the price you pay for the room. If you’re running a hotel and you want to provide a luxurious stay for your guests, you have to ensure that you have the facilities and staff in place to do so.  Those things cost money.  You have to factor in the costs of those things, plus the things that you provide to each customer for “free” before you can reach a decision as to what you are going to charge for your room.  That’s why luxury hotel rooms cost upwards of $300 per night. The US Government wants to provide all kinds of amenities for it’s constituents, but ultimately the price for those amenities has to fall to the people who are being provided those services… the constituents. We all pay taxes… some of us more than others.  WHY? Why don’t we all pay the same percentage of taxes?  When we go to Walmart and buy a $100 bicycle, we pay $107 bucks because of a 7% sales tax.  If we rent a $100 per night hotel room in Warren County, or get a $100 dinner, we actually pay $108 because of the sales tax, plus an additional 1% tourism tax (add an additional 2% if you rent a hotel room in the Vicksburg city limits.) We pay those prices regardless of what we make.  The clerk at Murphy USA pays the exact same for a Big Mac as Mayor Paul Winfield or me or you… you get the point.  That seems to make sense. There are people who have paid into a the Ponzi scheme that is the Social Security system for years who are legitimately worried about receiving all of their benefits. “Baby Boomers” like my mom have paid into that system for more than 40 years and it’s not just her Social Security benefits she’s has to be worried about.  What about Medicare?  40 years of paying into the system should provide her with pretty decent care, huh?  Guess what.  Medicare is about to start slashing benefits and upping the costs. We’ve gotten into the mindset that we’ve just got to take whatever the government gives us and be happy about it.  WRONG ANSWER!  Neither party is looking out for what’s good for us as a collective. The Democrats want to raise taxes and make small spending cuts.  The Republicans want to make drastic spending cuts and ensure that the taxpayers don’t pay anything more that they already do. WAKE UP, WASHINGTON!!!  You morons have put us into this crisis and in debt to the Chinese and God only knows who else by doing just this for YEARS! It’s going to take drastic spending cuts PLUS some moderate tax hikes to START paying down our debt.  We need to do MUCH more, though. It’s time that you brought in a team of real-world business people to look at your books.  We’ve got some really well qualified accountants here in Vicksburg who are ready, willing and able to dispense financial advice to their clients.  That advice is invaluable to those people who listen.  Those people who don’t listen, more often than not, find themselves OUT OF BUSINESS! We posted the COMPLETE Constitution of the United States, including the Bill of Rights all the other twenty-seven amendments on Independence Day.  I wonder how many members of our current congress have read that document in it’s entirety.  Since when does the Constitution allow for many of the programs offered by our federal government? It’s definitely time to start cutting what our government spends.  I believe that it’s also time that we raised taxes, and I know that’s not a popular thing with anyone – including me.  I darn sure don’t want to give any more of my money to the feds, but at this point, I realize that if I want the great experiment that is America to continue, I have to be willing to part with more of my hard-earned money than I already do. There’s more that can be done.  The welfare system is an enormous drag on our economy.  There are many people who are on welfare who are perfectly capable of working to pay their bills.  The problem is, those who are capable aren’t able to find jobs that they are qualified for.  Maybe it’s the lack of jobs, maybe it’s a lack of education and there are those who purposely don’t have a job and are perfectly comfortable living off the government dole. Here’s a pretty radical idea.  If you’re on welfare and are capable of working, you have to work.  Period.  If there is not a job in the private sector that you can find, there are lots of community service projects in your community that need staffing.  The grass at the city parks needs constant attention.  There is always trash to pick up.  There are small maintenance jobs that need doing.  We’re paying for lots of kids to be in day care centers….  maybe we OPERATE a day care center where some of the mothers who can’t find work can put their skills as child care providers to work. The idea is simple.  If you want to continue to collect a check and just can’t seem to find work, pay your dues by giving back 20 hours of your week to make our community a better place. Oh… anyone who gets a check from the government, whether it’s Social Security, an honest-to-God PAYCHECK or welfare benefits better be able to pass a drug test.  Flunk that and your benefits are suspended for six months and won’t be re-instated until you can pass three consecutive drug tests – which YOU (the person being tested) will have to pay for! We have to “provide for the common defense” of our nation.  That’s actually in our Constitution.  I say that part of providing for our defense is to provide proper medical care for those who were injured while defending our country, and that includes psychological injuries.  There are WAY TOO MANY troops who come home with mental issues that take years to overcome.  Just talk to any Vietnam vet you can find.  Some of those issues don’t become apparent for years, but they are there.  We HAVE to provide for our vets. Those who have paid in to Social Security and Medicare should have access to those benefits.  We cannot end the Social Security and Medicare programs abruptly, but we can provide an alternative for future beneficiaries. We can offer to let people invest their own money for their future.  WOW… what a brilliant concept.  Let a person control their own destiny!  In doing that, though, we need to ensure that folks who have paid into the system receive the benefits that they have paid for!!! Let’s see, what else can we do to reduce the overwhelming amount of money spent by the federal government?  What about slicing the pay of the lawmakers themselves?  Further limit the amount of staff members a lawmaker can have and cut the office budget for that lawmaker in half.  Limit the amount of staff that the President or the First Lady can have and put caps on the salaries that can be offered to those staff members. Ask why the First Lady needs twenty-four staff members.  Now there are people who are going to say this or that about me dogging on Michelle Obama for the number of staff members.  I’ll go one step further…  Laura Bush had eighteen staffers.  WHY?  Justify the reason that she had eighteen staffers? I understand that the First Lady of the United States needs a staff.  What’s the matter with having just – and I’m thinking on the fly here – say… six.   A chief of staff to coordinate with everyone on the staff; a full-time secretary, who will fill in for the chief of staff when that person in on leave; an office assistant (who fills in for the secretary), a personal stylist – hey.. we’ve got to make sure that she’s looking her best; a publicist so that the public will know what’s going on with her boss; and lastly a person solely dedicated to coaching the First Lady on proper protocols when she visits an area. We need to take a look at the ENTIRE federal budget!  EVERY SINGLE LINE ITEM!  If it’s not necessary, CUT IT!  It will be a time-consuming process, but think about some of the things that are just automatically re-funded year in and year out, because they were funded years ago and just keep getting passed – with increases, mind you, due to the rising cost of living.  It’s a process called Zero Based Budgeting and would require lots of work, but it’s not like we’re paying these guys to be up there in Washington for nothing. Need I remind you about Representative John Conyers (D – Michigan) had to say about reading the ObamaCare legislation that was rammed down the throats of the American people. “I love these members, they get up and say, ‘Read the bill!’ What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?” WATCH THE VIDEO AT THIS LINK OR AT THE BOTTOM OF THE ARTICLE. Yes, Congressman Conyers, I do expect you to read the bill.  I expect you to pour over every single (BLANKETY-BLANK) word of the bill.  That’s what your constituents pay you $174,000 a year for… and that doesn’t included the nearly $1.1 million the taxpayers subsidized in salary expenditures for your office in 2010!  Read the bill. That’s why I ask for a line item review of every single document related to our budget.  I know that there are monies that need to go into a “black budget” for our defense department and intelligence agencies, but these, too, will need to be justified to someone who can be cleared to go before the others on the budgetary review committee and speak up for the total amount that needs to go into the “black budget” and that needs to be a defined area of our national budget – a budget which can be seen by all Americans BEFORE it is approved. What ever happened to the five days of sunshine promise?  Oh, nevermind…. that was made in the middle of a campaign and we all know what the color and smell of campaign promises are. Some of you are going to ask where my political allegiance lies.  I’m a staunch libertarian with a conservative lean.  I have some very liberal beliefs, but for the most part, I’m a little right of the middle on the issues… but not too far right.  I’m a middle-of-the-road type of guy who believes that there is NO business that is too big or too important to fail.   If our leaders cannot make our current system of government work, then we strip it down to the bare bones and go back to the system of government was originally laid out in the document that we had to start off with… the Constitution of the United States.  We include all twenty-seven amendments and we start from there. I believe that within a year or two, we could start paying down our debt and be fiscally solvent within a decade and a half.  All we need to do is look to the Constitution and then look at our expenditures.  Yes… we’re ALL gonna have to pay our fair share… each and EVERY one of us. There are some people who will be unhappy and there are people who will fall on hard times, but you know what…  WE WILL ENDURE and WE WILL REACH OUT OUR HANDS TO HELP THOSE IN NEED.  To borrow a phrase from the younger generation… That’s how we roll. Our churches and civic groups will come together to feed, clothe and shelter those in need.  Our communities will come together to protect and educate our children in the ways of right and wrong.  They do that now, but the government gets in the dang way.  They put up roadblocks that make it impossible to give a hand UP to those who are getting an handOUT! WAKE UP, WASHINGTON!!!  The time is NOW!  At the rate you’re going, none of you are going to be employed and there won’t be a UNITED STATES… there will just be the states that USED to make up America…. and that’s unacceptable! [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW7mOaPnYYA[/youtube]]]]]> ]]>