I'll Bet You Didn't Know This, But???

Ya now what? Here's the real question for America. No it isn't how much to cut from the budget and no it isn't how much to increase taxes, although both sound enticing to lots of people. It isn't even how much of each to do. At least not yet. The real question is, first let's get the answers to a few questions. Here's a question for ya. How many taxpayers are there in the country? Then ask what the average taxpayer pays in taxes each year? Then ask how many of those taxpayers will be removed from the rolls as the government is reduced in size? Check the amount of lost revenue against the savings. Are we closer to closing our debt obligations. Now look at increasing taxes by eliminating the Bush tax cuts and how close that gets us to closing the debt crises. If either solves the problem, do it. If neither solves the problem completely, then it's time to look at some combination of the two. Now I know that many economists have already done that. The problem is that somebody doesn't have their listening ears on. When you increase taxes, lots of people don't like you and may not vote for you. When you cut the budget by eliminating entitlements and a whole lot of other things, lots more people are put out of work. It seems to me that we already have enough people out of work. That's the problem. If everybody was working, we'd have enough money to pay our bills. Putting more people out of work won't help. Ya know what I think? I think we need a little old fashioned compromise. Problem is, our politicians have lost that ability. It's like getting old and loosing your memory. In Washington, they haven't compromised in such a long time, they've forgotten how. It's been what? A couple of years?Another question to ask is what got us into this dilemma in the first place? There's a bunch of reasons. The Bush tax cuts, two wars, a housing bubble, derivatives. The list is long but it boils down to deregulation, irresponsible tax planning and unfunded wars. We borrowed too much and didn't keep an eye on the money changers. We need to make sure we don't make those mistakes again too soon.