The editorial in Friday’s The Citizen, reprinted from the Concord Monitor was totally irresponsible. So, I submitted the following as community commentary to The Citizen, and something similar to the Concord Monitor. I doubt they will publish my input:
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Please check the attribution of The Citizen’s April 13, 2012 editorial, titled, “A budget to widen nation‘s income gap.“ If it really came from the Concord Monitor, please check to see if they have replaced their editorial staff with the Democrat National Committee. I am shocked that our respected local paper would print such a partisan and totally non-constructive editorial.
The editorial calls the Ryan plan ”radical”. Compared to what? Lets compare it to the Senate‘s budget. Oops, the Democrat controlled Senate doesn’t have a budget, it hasn’t passed a budget in three years!
Perhaps the Ryan plan is radical compared to President Obama’s budget. That budget received NO votes, not even democrat votes, just like President Obama’s budget last year.
Everyone, President Obama, Treasury Secretary Geitner, Fed Chairman Bernacke, the credit agencies and others say our government cannot continue to spending this way or there will be a fiscal disaster, as the editorial suggests, we’ll go over a cliff.
Where are the Democrat plans to avoid this disaster? The most we get, apparently supported by the Concord Monitor, is as Secretary Geitner said, “we have no plan of our own, but we don’t like your plan.“ That isn’t helpful, that is irresponsible!!
The editorial wants to raise taxes. President Obama and many Democrats, say, “soak the rich”, they claim we need the Buffett rule to solve our problems. As usual they are misleading the public, just like charlatans everywhere, they create scapegoats to cover their failures. The highest revenue estimate I can find (most are far less) generated by the Buffett rule is $20 billion, about 4 days worth of deficit spending!! That doesn’t address our problem! It is MEANINGLESS!!
If Democrats think people are not paying enough in taxes, why didn’t they change the tax law when they had total control of Congress? Because they think that with media support, like that from the Concord Monitor, The Citizen and the major TV networks, they can maintain short term success by fooling people into believing they are doing something useful.
The Democrats and the media harp on the gap between rich and poor. But, there are only a miniscule number (236,883 in 2009) of people earning $1 million or more per year (compared to 140 million filers). They typically pay an average of 24.1 percent in Federal income taxes compared to the 15 percent paid by the middle class, and the ZERO percent paid by nearly half (many get subsidized). Except when they promote crony capitalism, and support liberal programs, the rich have no negative impact on the American middle class or poor. What money they don’t spend, they invest so others can create jobs or they leave it invested which bolsters the value of retirement plans and the invested savings of the rest of us.
Do the top 1 percent earn a lot of the money? Yes, about 17 percent of total income, and they pay about 37 percent of the taxes collected. Frankly, that seems too much, unfair! Could they pay more? Sure, so could most of us, we can buy cheaper food, skip medicines, drive less, skip the childrens’ music, dance, or swimming lessons, etc. But, I don‘t see why anyone should pay more taxes when the government wastes so much. Cut the waste, abuse, mismanagement, fraud, eliminate failing and counter-productive programs, then lets talk about raising taxes.
The deficit problem cannot be solved by raising taxes. If you took every penny earned by people earning over $1 million and added all the income earned by everyone who earned over $100,000, you would not eliminate the deficit. (If you tax away all income from the high income earners, they may not work so hard next year, then who pays for government‘s irresponsible spending?)
Of course the bottom 20 percent earn less than the top 20 percent. The genius of our capitalist system is that almost everyone starts at the bottom and then moves up, just like I, and most of you did. As people get more experience and contribute more value to what their employers provide to consumers, they earn more money. The bottom 20 percent keeps changing, filling with the next set of young, inexperienced, low value workers. And, the top 20 percent changes too, as people who contributed big last year don’t this year.
Every economic system has income and wealth disparity. The Soviet Union did, China does, Cuba does. The real difference is at the bottom where their poor live and are usually stuck in abject poverty. In other systems, people get to the top by force and by achieving favors from those with power. In our system people typically earn their way up the ladder by doing things of value to others. Our system helps far more people.
The examples of tax increases being used to cut the deficit are so rare as to be considered non-existent. Every time there is an agreement to increase taxes, spending increases more.
Just last summer the debt ceiling agreement directed that spending cuts be found or automatic cuts will take place. No cuts were found, and now Congress is working to avoid the agreed to “automatic” cuts. Also, immediately after the anguishing debate highlighting the need to cut spending, President Obama showed his contempt for the agreement and the good of the American people by submitting a request for an additional $447 billion in deficit spending.
Part of the Ryan plan assumes that appropriate legal and regulatory changes can halt President Obama’s war on middle class jobs, so millions more Americans can return to working towards their dreams (and get off welfare programs, thus reducing government spending).
The editorial says we need more money for education and infrastructure. We already spend more money per student than anyone, and the results keep getting poorer. The education problem is not the funding, it is the structure, outside influence. We need to bring control and the money home were people, parents, really care about the results.
President Obama claimed his stimulus plan would address our infrastructure, yet almost nothing was done even though there were enough funds to redo the whole Interstate Highway System and rebuild every questionable bridge. More money is not needed, the available money needs to be spent appropriately, and as promised.
Our country suffers from a spending and debt crisis. If our country is to avoid a disaster for the middle class and the poor, then serious governmental reforms are needed. In the absence of leadership from President Obama, it would be helpful if Democrats would work with Paul Ryan, the only person willing to face the hard, disagreeable facts and propose a solution that seriously tries to avoid our country’s guaranteed crisis. It would be helpful if the media would honestly and constructively promote and assist this effort.
Sadly, it looks like much of the media is too partisan and more interested in short term Democrat party victories than in keeping our country from going over that cliff, destroying the lives of middle class and poor Americans.
Don Ewing