Governmental, business, and personal debt are necessary for nearly everything. The government borrows money from other countries to uphold fiscal promises it has made to businesses and citizens. Businesses borrow money from banks and the government (sometimes it's hard to tell the difference, and sometimes there's not one) to purchase product so they can continue to operate. Citizens borrow money from anyone who will listen for every imaginable expense.
Think of a "middle class" (quotes are necessary because the middle class doesn't actually exist) high-school student looking at his future. His parents don't make enough money to pay for college but they make too much for him to qualify for grant money. His grades are okay but not stellar. He starts looking at the cost of schools and sees that he really only has four options.
1) Go to college using a mix of government and personal loans. (Side note: Personal "student loans" are legalized loan sharking)
2) Join the military. Once he's done spreading democracy/doing Big Brother's dirty work/occupying countries that haven't seen conflict in 70 years/protecting his country (You can pick which one of those you like best. It's fun. It's your very own Choose Your Adventure) he can let Uncle Sam pay for his college.
3) Magically find a job, with zero higher education or experience, that will pay for his college education.
4) Don't go to college.
If you've read my post on college, you know how I feel about that racket. But realistically, your chances of being financially successful without some form of college education are pretty slim.
This kid chooses option number one. While he is attending school he meets a lady friend and gets married. Now, he doesn't want to start his new life by living with his parents, so they begin looking at apartments and houses. House payments are less than rent payments so they buy a nice little home to start their family. Between the mortgage and school loans he's now sitting at $150,000 (quite conservative for certain areas of the country) in debt...at 22 years old.
You know the story from here. Money gets tight, credit cards become a necessity, and no matter how much they pay the debt never quite seems to get any smaller. Notice how I haven't mentioned his wife's potential debt or any children. It's out of hand enough without that.
This is American culture. This is the American way. This is the American Dream.
And when the government as a whole starts trying to help everyone accomplish their own American Dream, it becomes disastrous.
We (You included. Congressmen/women are elected. They even let ladies vote now. It's a new thing they're trying) have gotten ourselves into our very own Kobayashi Maru situation. There is physically no possible solution that will allow us to continue our current borrowing/spending, uphold our current financial obligations, and maintain our current income. Improvements MUST be made on all three fronts. Bickering with your millionaire colleagues over minor
Borrowing/Spending
This will have to be the main focus.
- Foreign aid has to be reigned in. More spending does not equal more help. Analyze where the money goes. Cut the middlemen or cut the program.
- Unemployment benefits simply cannot last for 112 weeks. (I may be wrong on that number. It may actually be higher) If they're unemployed for that long then something other than their resume is suspect. I don't want to see anyone lose their belongings, but handing someone money for over two years enables fiscal irresponsibility and puts the financial burden on other Americans. I am not demonizing the citizen here. If you can collect unemployment, and use that money to pay your bills for two years, why would you want to get a job?
- The security theater that is the TSA has to be stopped. Feeling up a six year old girl does nothing to keep me safe. And spending millions upon millions of dollars for machines to take pictures of her naughty bits while her clothes are still on is insane.
- Governmental salaries/pensions need serious cuts.
- A simple version? 5% budget reduction for EVERY government program to start. Then reevaluate from there.
Financial Obligations
- Are we seriously still planning universal healthcare? Does anyone honestly want to give more responsibilities to the assclowns in Washington right now?
- Corporate tax incentives are completely out-of-hand. GE is in the 35% tax bracket. They made $14.2 billion in profit last year. Not income, pure profit. They paid as much taxes as my cat did. (Just for giggles, 35% of $14.2 billion is $4.97 billion. GE cheated the American taxpayers out of nearly $5 billion.)
Income
- Can we please stop pretending that illegal immigration is something that can be stopped? The only way to stop someone from trying to make a better life for themselves/their family by coming into our country is to shoot them in the head. Many people actually suggest that. Would you stop breaking another country's ill-conceived and selectively-policed law if you thought that doing so would provide a better life for your children? Of course not. Personally, I think having Americans line the border and fart at people trying to come over would be more effective than our current tactics. Illegal immigrants are here working, driving, getting healthcare, and doing everything else that other humans do. Can we please give them a simple way to become an American citizen so they can start paying their share?
- Bonus Round: The above suggestion would also provide a huge, giant, gargantuan new source of income for Social Security, Medicare, AND Medicaid which would in turn mean we would need less cuts for those programs.
- I previously mentioned GE and the tax code. A huge chunk of their income was reported as overseas income. We cannot compete with labor costs in other readily-exploitable countries. When companies move jobs offshore they save on labor and taxes and America is left with fewer jobs and tax revenue. I don't have an incredibly insightful suggestion here because, quite frankly, I don't have the time or intelligence to piece together just what the hell our tax code says. I just wanted to mention that our current tax code REWARDS companies TWICE for moving jobs out of the country.
Some of these suggestions may be completely unfeasible, or mildly insane. But are they really any worse than the ideas our elected officials get paid to tell us we want?