Impact of permanent Bush tax cut extension including estate tax (Photo credit: Wikipedia)Many people are worried about the deficit and many more are worried about social programs in this years elections.
Let's talk about the deficit which today some like to blame on President Obama. Do people have short term memory loss about how we got this deficit? Don't take my word about how we grew the deficit-- let's take it right from the The New York Times:
“With President Obama and Republican leaders calling for cutting the budget by trillions over the next 10 years, it is worth asking how we got here — from healthy surpluses at the end of the Clinton era, and the promise of future surpluses, to nine straight years of deficits, including the $1.3 trillion shortfall in 2010. The answer is largely the Bush-era tax cuts, war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, and recessions. Despite what antigovernment conservatives say, non-defense discretionary spending on areas like foreign aid, education and food safety was not a driving factor in creating the deficits. In fact, such spending, accounting for only 15 percent of the budget, has been basically flat as a share of the economy for decades. Cutting it simply will not fill the deficit hole.”...How the Deficit Got This Big http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/opinion/sunday/24sun4.html
You must know by now that President Obama has tried to fix this deficit by ending the Bush tax cuts for the rich in the last few years. This hasn't happened because President Obama has been blocked by the Republicans in Washington who only want more tax cuts. We know that tax cuts and two Bush wars got us into this deficit so why on earth would any voter today vote for Mitt Romney and the Republicans to take us further down this debt road?
Years and years ago I remember when I was a school board member a few people in the school district wanted to hire a private bus company to transport our school children. Our district owned its buses and our drivers all lived in the district. The whole idea was we would save money. We would sell the buses and of course the drivers would be paid less by this private firm. This may sound great but you get what you pay for. Our own drivers were taxpayers in the district. Many of our drivers had children attending our district schools. Our own drivers were more dedicated to the needs of our towns' children and could respond quickly to school district needs. Our own drivers were much happier because they were invested in the district.
So aren't we all today invested in our social programs? We put money into our Social Security and Medicare /Medicaid programs. We Americans benefit from these social programs. These programs have helped many Americans for decades now. Republicans would have us believe the only way to save these programs is to let private for profit companies take control of them.
We don't need to be so drastic and quick to change programs which are working well. There are plenty of smart people who have easy fixes to make these programs solvent for years and years to come.
It's time to stop blaming President Obama for the mess in Washington that was caused by years and years of bad politics, President George Bush's tax cuts and those unpaid-for wars.
President Obama can't change the past but he is doing what's right for all our futures. He deserves our votes this November.
By W.G. Henrich
By W.G. Henrich
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