"T" is for "Taxes", "D" is for "Debt"

It is dark upon the Stoa, cold and moonless. It is nights like this that thinking is done in its purest form. No distractions but those you bring with you. Honest dialog with yourself. Careful, though, we all lie to ourselves and it is sometimes difficult to know when you are really being honest with yourself.

The current bickering over the tax rates, yes, I said "rates", is rather moot at this point. Whether the government loses this "revenue" (see my earlier posts for my feelings on the use of that word) or is able raise this income on the backs of less than 2% of the American public does not change the fact that our current servicing of the debt is growing more and more unsustainable, tax rate change or not. The current MONTHLY cost to service the debt, this is INTEREST payments ONLY, costs as much as several departments of the Federal Government's combined ANNUAL budgets. I put some words in caps because I really wanted to make that point.

The American government is only paying on the interest of our debt, not reducing the principle at all, while continuing to deficit spend. Just in 2010 the cost of those interest payments in one month equals the combined budgets of several department's annual budgets. The point is so important to make I had to say it twice.

Extending unemployment benefits will add another half Trillion dollars to the deficit. Giving the 2001 and 2003 tax rate reductions another two years of life will reduce tax receipts (if you look at it like a Democrat) by more than a half Trillion dollars over that time (not factoring the economic growth that will result, as a Republican and Historian would look at it).

Tax rate reductions do not add to the deficit. I resisted using caps there. One word and one action alone increase the size of the deficit. That word is "Spending". If I spend x amount of money based on y budget in FY2010, but realize that the budget will now look like z in FY2011, then I must realign my spending priorities to look like b. Not hard to figure out is it? Kind of like grocery shopping with a pocket full of cash. If you hit the check out lane and the cashier rings up more cost then you have money for then something is going back on that shelf. Again, not very hard to figure out. Shame our congressmen can not figure that out.

Another point that has me more than a little concerned is how easily the politicians of today pull out the class envy card. Shamelessly proclaiming themselves to be the Socialists that they are. The main stream media was running the usual hit pieces on the Republicans while trying to sell the public on the Progressive angle and I saw the thread they were weaving quite clearly. Why are the rich going to pay less in taxes then any dozen families earn all year? Heck, ten years! They then cited a basketball player who will get to KEEP 310, 000 more this year then last. A baseball player will get to keep $600,000 more this year, while Joe Shmoe will see is tax bill drop by $1,500. Gee, that does not sound very fair at all, does it?

How about thinking like this about it: why should that basketball player or baseball player have to shell out a half million dollars in taxes anyhow? Not just a half million, but a half million MORE then they did in 2009? They were blessed with talent, genetics, and a free agent system that granted them the ability to earn that money. Kudos to them. Just because I'm not earning a half million dollars a year does not make me less of a father or husband. The best part about this is that someday, someone may want to pay me a lot of money for my hard work and I'll be damned if I'll give more than half of it to a faceless, cruelly inefficient Federal bureaucratic machine. Its my money to begin with, not the government's.

The Federal government was restricted in scope by our Founders for very good reasons. Governments grow, like black holes. The more money that swirls into the center, the greater the resulting influence of its pull becomes. The States have forgotten that they were as much a balance in our Federal Republic as the three branches of government. The Federal government needs to do only a few things to discharge its responsibilities under the US Constitution: 1. protect us from foreign invasion, 2. negotiate treaties with foreign entities in the name of the whole, 3. regulate trade disputes between States, 4. provide for a common currency, 5. and maintain the integrity of both the spirit and letter of the founding documents.

Humans are vane and lust for power and control, always. Whether it is a two year old in a sandbox eying the toy of the other two year old, all the way up to the 80+ year old Senator that thinks that running a campaign out of a rent controlled apartment while owning a beach hotel in another country (while paying no income tax) is all above the board. The Founders knew that we were an inherently flawed creature and worked very hard to create a document that gave us just enough structure to keep us from self-destruction, and enough space to grow and add to it and ourselves over time, just as long as we did not forget where the ultimate authority for the continued prosperity of our Republic comes from.

If you are scratching your head over the last few lines then all you need to do is read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the answer will be self evident.

Time for this Stoic to climb under a nice feather-down European blanket. The Stoa has frost on it and I can feel the cold through my sandals.

Live well.

--Zavost