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What do you want?
By Greg Awtry
What do you want and how much are you willing to pay for it? You want a new house? How much are you willing to pay for it? You want a new car? How much are you willing to pay for it? You want a new TV, computer, cell phone? How much are you willing to pay for it? And the most important question of all; can you afford it?
What do you want from your government and how much are you willing to pay for it?
Do you want an Army, a Navy, an Air Force and the Marines? Of course you do. How much are you willing to pay for national defense? If you look at President Obama’s 2010 budget and divide the 718 billion dollar defense budget by roughly 350 million Americans, the price tag for national defense would cost a family of four $8,208 a year.
Using that same formula the federal Department of Education’s price tag is $537 a year. Health and Human Services is $880 a year. The State Department’s price tag is $594. Homeland Security, $491. Transportation, $822. Veterans Affairs is $640. Housing is $537. Energy is $297. The list goes on and on and on.
The 2010 budget is $3.6 trillion dollars. That translates to our imaginary family of four to about $41,142 dollars the federal government will spend on us. Now here’s the problem. We will only pay $2.4 trillion dollars, or about $27,428 per family.
That leaves $1.2 trillion dollars of unpaid bills, or about $13,714 per family of four. What will Washington do? Well, borrow it of course, in your name. The interest alone, without paying off any of the principal will cost our family $5,121 in 2010.
And if that is not bad enough, President Obama’s 10-year budget has us borrowing even more every year through the year 2019. In that year the interest alone will be over $1 trillion dollars and will cost our family more than $13,000 a year. Folks, that is just the interest. The federal government will spend, on our family of four in the year 2019, an amazing $61,390.
Have we lost our minds? This is insanity. The United States of American cannot survive with that amount of debt. There is no plan in place to pay it off, just to borrow more every year. Our family’s share of that debt will soon be over $125,000.
And that number takes into consideration our individual income taxes will go up by 60 percent in the next five years. That’s right. Individual Income taxes are estimated to be $1 trillion in 2010. The budget shows individual income taxes will be $1.6 trillion in 2014, a 60 percent increase in the next five years.
Corporate income taxes are expected to go up in the next five years from $179 billion to $420 billion, a 135 percent increase. Total receipts to our federal government are expected to increase 50 percent in the next five years, and even then it won’t be nearly enough to feed the monster. We will still have to borrow billions from foreign countries just to supply the basic needs the American people want from their government.
President Obama, Senators Johanns and Nelson, Congressman Adrian Smith, read my lips, “We can’t afford it!”
There, I said it.
There are a lot of things in my life I would like but can’t afford. Common sense and a small dose of responsibility prevail so I simply say no, I can’t afford it. It doesn’t hurt. I’m not embarrassed. It’s just reality. Millions of Americans live in that world of reality every day.
Then there are the Washingtonians. They have completely lost all common sense, responsibility and reality. In their unexplainable effort to save us all from the recession, inadequate health care access, corporate greed or any other crisis of the month, they are going to throw us a $5 trillion life preserver that weighs so much it will sink not only us, but our children and grandchildren in a sea of red ink as far into the future as the political nimrods can predict.
And now, from the darkening shadows of a Social Security and Medicare program going broke, we want to have some sort of guaranteed health care insurance for all. Is it a bad idea? No, it is not. But can we afford it? Let’s say this together, “No, we cannot afford it.”
As I wrote to both Nebraska senators in the past two weeks, please consider health care reform, but only after first balancing our budget and paying off our national debt. Then and only then should we even begin the discussion about adding another trillion dollar federal program.
So the question is, “What do you want from your government and how much are you willing to pay?” Go ahead; look up what each government department spends. You might find it as ironic as I did when I tried to find out how much we spend on “National Intelligence.” It is not divulged, but then I wouldn’t divulge it either considering there is no actual scientific proof we have any national intelligence at all. Apparently, we can’t afford it.
Contact – greg.awtry@yorknewstimes.com.
What do you want from your government and how much are you willing to pay for it?
Do you want an Army, a Navy, an Air Force and the Marines? Of course you do. How much are you willing to pay for national defense? If you look at President Obama’s 2010 budget and divide the 718 billion dollar defense budget by roughly 350 million Americans, the price tag for national defense would cost a family of four $8,208 a year.
Using that same formula the federal Department of Education’s price tag is $537 a year. Health and Human Services is $880 a year. The State Department’s price tag is $594. Homeland Security, $491. Transportation, $822. Veterans Affairs is $640. Housing is $537. Energy is $297. The list goes on and on and on.
The 2010 budget is $3.6 trillion dollars. That translates to our imaginary family of four to about $41,142 dollars the federal government will spend on us. Now here’s the problem. We will only pay $2.4 trillion dollars, or about $27,428 per family.
That leaves $1.2 trillion dollars of unpaid bills, or about $13,714 per family of four. What will Washington do? Well, borrow it of course, in your name. The interest alone, without paying off any of the principal will cost our family $5,121 in 2010.
And if that is not bad enough, President Obama’s 10-year budget has us borrowing even more every year through the year 2019. In that year the interest alone will be over $1 trillion dollars and will cost our family more than $13,000 a year. Folks, that is just the interest. The federal government will spend, on our family of four in the year 2019, an amazing $61,390.
Have we lost our minds? This is insanity. The United States of American cannot survive with that amount of debt. There is no plan in place to pay it off, just to borrow more every year. Our family’s share of that debt will soon be over $125,000.
And that number takes into consideration our individual income taxes will go up by 60 percent in the next five years. That’s right. Individual Income taxes are estimated to be $1 trillion in 2010. The budget shows individual income taxes will be $1.6 trillion in 2014, a 60 percent increase in the next five years.
Corporate income taxes are expected to go up in the next five years from $179 billion to $420 billion, a 135 percent increase. Total receipts to our federal government are expected to increase 50 percent in the next five years, and even then it won’t be nearly enough to feed the monster. We will still have to borrow billions from foreign countries just to supply the basic needs the American people want from their government.
President Obama, Senators Johanns and Nelson, Congressman Adrian Smith, read my lips, “We can’t afford it!”
There, I said it.
There are a lot of things in my life I would like but can’t afford. Common sense and a small dose of responsibility prevail so I simply say no, I can’t afford it. It doesn’t hurt. I’m not embarrassed. It’s just reality. Millions of Americans live in that world of reality every day.
Then there are the Washingtonians. They have completely lost all common sense, responsibility and reality. In their unexplainable effort to save us all from the recession, inadequate health care access, corporate greed or any other crisis of the month, they are going to throw us a $5 trillion life preserver that weighs so much it will sink not only us, but our children and grandchildren in a sea of red ink as far into the future as the political nimrods can predict.
And now, from the darkening shadows of a Social Security and Medicare program going broke, we want to have some sort of guaranteed health care insurance for all. Is it a bad idea? No, it is not. But can we afford it? Let’s say this together, “No, we cannot afford it.”
As I wrote to both Nebraska senators in the past two weeks, please consider health care reform, but only after first balancing our budget and paying off our national debt. Then and only then should we even begin the discussion about adding another trillion dollar federal program.
So the question is, “What do you want from your government and how much are you willing to pay?” Go ahead; look up what each government department spends. You might find it as ironic as I did when I tried to find out how much we spend on “National Intelligence.” It is not divulged, but then I wouldn’t divulge it either considering there is no actual scientific proof we have any national intelligence at all. Apparently, we can’t afford it.
Contact – greg.awtry@yorknewstimes.com.
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