Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Why You Have to Cut Your Household Budget, and the Government Doesn't.

If you are anything like the average American these days, you are counting your pennies. The average American is taking a pay cut, their working hours have been cut, jobs have been lost. Unemployment is rampant, some counties here in South Carolina are way over the 20% unemployment mark. Foreclosures are up, people are losing their homes, their cars are being repossessed, its not pretty. The stock market tanked, 401k's are decimated, its official, we are in a recession.
 
So, the average folks, wise beings that they are, are reacting. They are being smart, paying off credit cards, eating out less often, and going without. Americans are buying less expensive clothes, cutting the cable bill to the cheapest service, and canceling yard care expenses. Americans get it, times are tough, its time to spend less, and save more.
 
Except for our do nothing, Democrat led Congress. While average Americans are taking pay cuts and cutting costs, the Congress voted themselves a pay increase for this year. Nice. I see you guys get it. Oh, and thanks for voting yourselves a significant increase in the amount you are allowed to claim as "expenses". Americans should not only give you a raise, but buy you lunch and limo rides more often. That's awesome. I wish I could vote myself a raise, and a bigger expense report too. Hell, I wanna limo ride too, if Im paying for you to take one.
 
And Obama? While he is living it up in limos and servants, does he keep it real to the street, and pay tribute to the little guy? Nope. Screw the little guy. While Americans scrimp and save to get by, Obama raises the federal budget from $2 trillion to $3.6 trillion, increasing spending and the deficit hugely. In other words, while most Americans don't have money to shop, Obama goes on a spending spree. While most Americans are desperate to pay of their credit, Obama is running America's credit with foreign governments up. Nice, I see you get it too.
 
And who gets to pay for this giant spending increase? Why of course, you, the little guy. I wish I could vote myself a nice new credit card and have you pay for it. And pay for it we will.
 
Why do Obama and his cronies in the Congress do this? Because they were trained to. In all the public service textbooks, only one solution is pointed to, when there is a budget shortfall. The textbooks only list one action when government spending gets higher that what the American taxpayer is providing. And what is that answer? Raise taxes. The textbooks never say to cut spending. So YOU, dear reader, should cut spending when you make less money, in fact you HAVE to. But the government should NEVER cut spending, sarcastically speaking.
 
So about Obama's plan that he learned, does raising taxes make more money for the government? If history repeats itself (and I hear it does), the answer is no. California raised taxes a few years back, and did that make California more money? No. Instead large numbers of businesses left California, and now California has a $40 billion budget shortfall, because as all these businesses left, all their tax revenue left too. Ditto New Jersey, read up and educate yourself on that one. The same thing happens not just to states, but to federal governments. Enter the exodus of American manufacturers, who can easily set up shop in Mexico, China or Eastern Europe. But I mean hey, if Obama and his henchmen in Congress are trying to drive more American businesses overseas, they have the right plan.
 
The point is that Obama simply cannot nearly double the federal budget without raising taxes. If you need a car, and you only make enough money, dear reader, to buy a $10k used Honda, you simply cannot go out and buy a $18k used Mercedes. Well you can, but there's a name for that. Foolishness.
 
And I fear that's we have in our current crop of elected leaders.
 

6 comments:

Unknown said...

I wouldn't call it a "do nothing" congress. I'd call it a do plenty of the wrong thing congress.

Doc Kim

James Johnson said...

Yeah...like blaming the CIA so they put the head back in the sand...

RightKlik said...

No matter what the economy looks like, libs think the government should be spending more.

Good times? Let's spend money...we can afford it.

Bad times? Let's spend money...how else will we get through this?

Unknown said...

This is my first visit to your blog and I will return to read you again soon. Thanks for stopping by my blog!
~AM

Timeshare Jake said...

It's going to get worse as the onslaught of new taxes like the VAT start.

Anonymous said...

Tax and spend...damn it, I KNOW how to spend my on damn money!