Well folks I think you all have
to agree, no matter what your politics, our country is in a mess right
now. We are divided like I have never
seen since I have been around, unemployment has been close to 8% for the last 4
years and our government is spending $1 trillion more than we take in every
year. In this blog segment I want to
address the issue of runaway government spending as addressing everything in
one segment is just too much
Our country collects more tax
revenue than any country in the world but in the last 4 years we are spending over
$1 trillion more a year than we have collected.
Obama cannot come up with a budget, and I do not think one has been
approved by the Democratic controlled senate since Obama became President. The Dem’s just keeping asking for approval to
raise the debt ceiling but offer no plan to get this run-away train under
control. I feel there are some things
that we could do now to start working toward a balanced budget.
1. Stop all foreign aid immediately. We are borrowing money and then turning
around and giving it to other countries and this is just ridiculous. Once we get our own finances in order by
having annual balanced budgets, then we can consider trying to help others but
for now we need to focus on helping ourselves.
2. Reform the welfare program by creating a
system that gets people off welfare and to where they can take care of
themselves. I am a firm believer in
helping people in need when the ones in need are doing all they can to help
themselves. I do volunteer work through
my Rotary Club to help others and it is a feel good experience for me. What I cannot stomach though are lazy people
that feel the government owes them so they lie around on their butts, collect
their monthly welfare check and do nothing to try and better themselves. This needs to change so we can get these
people off welfare and back taking care of themselves.
First, anyone on welfare needs to
submit to regular but random drug tests.
Some states are already doing this but this needs to be universal. Anyone using illegal drugs should not be
collecting welfare.
Second, the welfare system needs
to include free vocational training and education programs that all adult
welfare recipients have to participate in.
If you give someone money to buy fish for dinner, you feed them for one
meal. If you teach them how to fish, you
feed them for life. As part of this
reform, I think each recipient should have an advisor or counselor to help the
recipient select the best development path for him or her so they can get to a
self supporting status as soon as possible.
Getting people off the welfare rolls and on to payrolls would save us
huge amounts of money and at the same time, increase our base of taxpaying
Americans.
3. We need true immigration reform. Allowing an uncontrolled flow of illegal
immigrants to enter this country and then allowing them to become US citizens
without going through the naturalization process in pure insanity. No other country in the world allows this and
this includes Mexico . Mexico
will throw you in jail if you enter their country illegally. Also how can you justify allowing illegal
immigrants coming in from Mexico to obtain citizenship through an amnesty
program but immigrants from Europe and overseas still have to go through the
naturalization process.
I am sure you are now asking well
how this affects our budget deficit.
Well what this does is it puts huge additional demands on social
services including our public schools, hospitals, etc. If you want a good example of this, just
look at the state of California . That state has had a very liberal policy
toward illegal immigrants and it has been overwhelmed by this. The state is hanging by a fiscal thread and
is on the verge of bankruptcy. Their
taxes are sky high and people and businesses are leaving the state by the
droves because of this. Sooner or later
this fiscal house of cards will collapse and I look for it to be sooner. Bottom line, immigration reform not only
makes us safer but it also will save us a lot of money. I know people that went through the
naturalization process and I commend them for it as they did it the right
way. How do you think they feel about
giving illegal immigrants amnesty and automatic US
citizenship? I think we all know the
answer to this.
4. Reevaluate every program that receives
significant federal money and determine if it is really worth what we are
spending. We waste so much money on pork
projects that members of our Congress have shoved down our throats so they can
benefit the people that elect them.
Every one of these programs needs to go through a viability evaluation
and terminated if it is not money well spent.
I know this will take a lot of people to do this, which will cost money,
but it would be worth it as it would save us far more when the wasteful
spending discovered is eliminated.
We have to have more reliable people
in place to eliminate the fraud and/or waste in many of our major government
agencies such as the Dept of Defense, Medicare, etc. Anyone caught trying to scam the system by
fraudulently overcharging a government agency for goods or services needs to do
significant prison time. All of you have
read about this kind of government waste and/or outright fraud it is time we
develop a zero tolerance policy for it. We
need to better organize these departments so we have an adequate number of
qualified people in place to effectively address this problem and fix it.
5. The special retirement and medical benefits
that all members of Congress and the other governing branches have need to be
terminated immediately and the funds now in those programs need to be rolled
into Social Security and Medicare. It is
about time the people that govern us be subject to the same federal programs
that the rest of us are forced to be part of.
Also, if Congress fails to pass a budget by the required deadline, their
pay is suspended until they have passed a workable budget.
I know there are many more things
that need done before we get to where we have a balanced budget but I think
this is a darn good start don’t you?
