“Don’t tax you. Don’t tax me. Tax that fella behind the tree.”
The Budget
Everybody knows the federal government is bloated because of spending on welfare, pork-barrel spending, and bureaucratic red tape. The Republicans want small government, so they lower taxes. The Democrats push big government programs, so they tax and spend. Right?
Wise Up! Everything written before this sentence is factually and logically wrong, playing on your emotions to distract you from what’s really going on.
And what’s really going on is a ton of spending and programs that will go broke in your lifetime. Social Security is not the problem: it’s making a surplus. Spending on welfare moms and environmental programs and 60’s era regulations are not driving us broke.
What is? Take a look…
There are only three really big parts of the budget: military ($460 B/yr and over $200 B/yr for Iraq/Afghanistan), medicare/medicaid, and the national debt. Who’s responsible for all this? Over 2/3 of the all the national debt in US history has been racked up by Republican administrations from 1980 to now.
The problem: all the budgetary things that politicians love to pick on just aren’t that big. The Defense budget is “non-negotiable,” so the biggest single thing we can control is the national debt. If we shrink that, we shrink the interest payments like we did in the late 90’s. But doing that can only mean a tax increase, particularly on the wealthy (ironically, the ones who currently profit the most from that debt).
Find out more…
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Budget in EZ form: More than you wanted to know, but readable
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Grover Norquist: The single most powerful big government/tax fighter
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National Debt website: Lots of quick factoids and arguments on the budget
