The Sharks are Circling

The recent debt ceiling negotiations, which I have said time and time again are just theatre because nobody is going to cut anything anyway, have drawn our attention away from the fact that several nations are taking our internal weakness as a sign that we have become weak throughout our whole structure.  While the president and the Congress talk and talk and talk, and the deadline for default gets closer and closer, we look foolish to the rest of the world.  We have a responsibility to pay our obligations, but we must also balance our budget immediately.  The fact that we have to go groveling to the Chinese and other nations to borrow money to run our government is appalling, especially given what we have now learned.  It seems that there are indications the Chinese are building electromagnetic pulse weapons with the aim of rendering our aircraft carriers vulnerable (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/21/beijing-develops-radiation-weapons/).  We know they have already tested anti-satellite weapons, as they blasted one of their old ones out of the sky in a test.  The Chinese didn't seem to care that this was a violation of several treaties, as treaties are only as strong as those who enforce them.  We depend on satellite technology in our war making strategy. Our GPS, our guided missiles, many of the precision weapons we use, are all dependent on satellites.  On another front, it seems that Iran is accelerating its nuclear program, and there is also evidence that they may have purchased rocket technology from Pakistan or elsewhere.  North Korea, a Stalinist throwback country, despite the fact that its population is starving, has gone ahead with its own nuclear weapons development and apparently has purchased missile technology from the Chinese, which would enable them to actually put the United States in range (although South Korea is a more likely target).  In the Middle East, the Muslim Brotherhood is strengthening its hold on power in Egypt.  We are their sworn enemy, and their aims include the destruction of the state of Israel.  We have been duped into thinking all those who oppose tyrannical regimes must be correct and worthy of our friendship.  We actually supported this group's ascendancy!  In short, many nations which hate us, and a couple that pretend to be our friends but in fact may harbor aspirations of becoming THE superpower, sense a weakness in our nation which has put us in peril.  I think the fact that we can't even get our fiscal house in order while the world watches is a big part of this perception.  Another huge part of this perception is the end of the United States' lead in space--we now have to depend on the Russians to take us.  John Kennedy must be turning over in his grave.  At any rate, I hope somebody is busy deciding what to do about all of this because it seems that the president and the Congress are devoting all their time to the debt issue.  That is important to be sure, but the #1 priority of government is to protect the nation and the people.  So let's quit dallying.  I say we institute my plan to eliminate the deficit (or one like it) so that the world will see that we are serious again, start buying more American products, quit borrowing money, and show the world that we have the will and backbone to act like a great nation again.  Then all those sharks in the water might think twice and decide there is a better meal elsewhere.

Time to Reform the Tax Code (For Real!)

For years I've had someone do my taxes, not because I can't figure out how to fill out the form, but because I need an expert who knows what deductions I can take and who constantly keeps up with all the confusing changes the IRS makes.

From the web site US Tax Code online: "The complete Internal Revenue Code is more than 24 megabytes in length, and contains more than 3.4 million words; printed 60 lines to the page, it would fill more than 7500 letter-size pages. Looking for something buried in that mass of verbiage can be daunting." This is ridiculous. How is anybody, other than an attorney or tax expert, supposed to be able to negotiate that maze? We need a change, and we need it now. For some time now I have advocated scrapping the entire U.S. Federal tax code and replacing it with a national sales tax. Think of it. Not only could we get rid of this daunting morass of legalese and bureaucrat speak, but we could replace it with what would surely be one of the most fair taxes around. No need for tax preparers. No need for tax attorneys. Everyone would pay into the system, commensurate with what they spend, meaning the rich would pay more than the poor, but all would feel as if they were contributing.
A national sales tax would be easy to collect and easy to police. We wouldn't need the thousands upon thousands of IRS agents looking into everything we do to make sure we are complying with line 2, item 27 in sub paragraph 112. We'd have to do some rough numbers, but I'm calculating somewhere in the neighborhood of a 20% national sales tax would get the job done. We would eliminate all deductions as well, and April 15th would no longer be the day your taxes were due. You would pay your taxes as you consume. Yes, there would be no mortgage deduction. But there would be no income tax either. Everything would be taxed under my plan, but only to the extent that the revenues required to operate the government efficiently and pay down our debt were collected. You'd pay the national sales tax on everything from a stick of gum to your car to your house. Corporations would pay on what they buy as well. The machines they use, any supplies, anything they buy, would be subject to the tax.  Of course, this idea goes hand in hand with balancing the budget and eliminating the deficit. While eliminating the deficit is the priority, tax reform must happen as well. You've read about my plan to balance the budget. Well, in some areas we could save more than the percentage I recommend, which would allow us to not cut as much in others, as long as the overall spending cut totals were met. In this vein, and with this idea, the IRS could be reduced in size by 80 or 90%, allowing us to divert some of those cuts into savings elsewhere. I've also written that I think we need to get rid of the plan known as "Obamacare." As part of that plan, thousands of IRS agents are being hired to enforce the punitive taxes in that plan and the mandate which goes with it. I hate to stop any kind of job creation, but this is one place job creation should be not only stopped, but reversed. As I've said before, if we balance the budget, there will be a renaissance in investment and the economy will start to flourish. Then we can absorb all those IRS workers. The IRS will be out of your life, April 15th will no longer carry such a stigma, and we can get on with moving this country forward. Maybe we could turn the building into a giant mall or something which would generate revenue instead of sucking it up.

Isolationism Is Not a Dirty Word

Imagine for a moment that you were a kind person and, when a friend asked if he could borrow some money, you readily agreed since times were good and you were flush with cash. Then word got around and before you knew it, dozens of people were all of a sudden your "friends" and asking you for money as well. Being a nice person, you acquiesced and loaned them money too. As time went on, some people came to you and said they couldn't pay you back, so you waived their obligations and basically just gave them the money. This eventually morphed into just giving everyone on the list your hard earned money. Eventually some of these "friends" started to imply that if they didn't get money there might be trouble. For instance, if you didn't give Bobby money, it was believed that he wouldn't have enough money to buy gas and therefore he would go rob somebody to get gas money. So you gave Bobby money, not just to help Bobby out, but to avoid any mayhem Bobby might create. People who were definitely not your friends caught onto this and made veiled threats that, if they didn't get some of your hard earned money as well, they would cause trouble, so they got put on the giveaway list too. Pretty soon you were giving money to hundreds of people, and the list included, incredibly, people who wanted to hurt you in one way or another. It also included people who claimed they needed the money to feed their families but who in fact just took the money and partied with it or bought fancy cars or houses.

You also decided that, because there were so many people and some weren't acting nice to some of your friends, and there were many others to whom you didn't lend money that didn't like you or your friends either, you would give some of your friends not just money for expenses, but weapons with which to defend themselves, until you were giving out basically double what you were giving before.

Now imagine that things got bad for you economically, and you didn't have any money or weapons to give all your "friends". However, many of them were still being very aggressive, and some were even threatening to hurt some of your other friends, or maybe even your family. So you decided that you would borrow money from various sources to keep your good will giving going, and some of the people you were borrowing money from were actually receiving money from you as well! While there were a few true friends you actually wanted to help, you now found yourself in a position where you were paying hundreds of people money, some because of veiled threats, others because of those threats and, still others who were receiving money and lending you money at the same time. Of course you also had to pay interest on the money you were lending because you were borrowing it from someone else, and this expense increased constantly. You did this until finally you went broke and then there was no money to give to anyone because you didn't have any and nobody would lend you money either.
A sad tale, isn't it? The saddest part of all is that this the state of foreign aid in the budget of the United States of America. Have you looked at a list of how much aid we give and to whom? You can find some good information at sites like: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/foreign_commerce_aid/foreign_aid.html. Just click on the excel or PDF sheets for the desired list. You'll probably notice we also give grants, so include this in your search. What you will find is that we give hundreds of millions to billions to countries which are either our direct competitors, or which are trying to undermine us in some way, or which will never think of giving the money to the people. And all of this money is borrowed, much of it from China. The world has got to be laughing at us. Did you know we also give foreign aid to China? It's crazy. We give money to Zimbabwe.

Do you think Robert Mugabe is going to let one cent slip through his fingers and into the people's hands?

The problem is that this situation has slowly accrued over time. This Congress or that Congress decided it was a good idea to add this or that country to the list. That's one of the problems anyway. The other is that we can't afford it. So here is my idea. I say we terminate all aid immediately, including military aid, then, in the same legislative session, create new bills for aid to those countries we truly feel it is in our interest to help. We need to really look at things like aid to Afghanistan and Iraq and see if we can figure out some other program, because there is an oligarchy enriching themselves in both countries. We give aid to Pakistan yet we launch drone strikes against them for harboring terrorists. We give aid to Russia although Mr. Putin actively opposes our interests on a regular basis.

Now many people will read this and call me isolationist. They will say it in such a way that it sounds like a bad word. However, I feel it's time for the United States to look after its' own interests first, especially in hard economic times. To borrow money which you then give to someone else is ludicrous. On top of that, I listened to George Carlin's "seven dirty words you can't say on TV" skit long ago and you know what? "Isolationism" isn't on there. It isn't a dirty word.