Back from Vacation

LIFE IN THESE UNITED STATES

I read a lot of stuff, sports, news, politics, history, cereal boxes, whatever, I'm an information junkie. I can't watch Independence Day without trying to think about the physics of stuff or whether having the President actually fly a plane without a succession plan was really a good idea. Honestly, it could have led to a coup by the guy who was in My Bodyguard.

The initial thought for this blog was actually a book, just for people who were annoyed as I was about the edges of politics that ranged from the pedantic to the pedestrian, from the moronic to the extreme left fan fiction of ivory tower elitism. But what it really was all about was Reader's Digest.

My grandparents, likely because their first language wasn't English but still had a library had a very large collection of Reader's Digest books, the condensed version of every crappy book you could possibly imagine. They also had many actual Reader's Digest magazines, where possibly my fabulous sense of humor came from; from such wonders as Life in these United States and Humor in Uniform, it probably sent me on my lifelong love of Parade Magazine, where every Sunday I return to the Howard Huge of my youth.

But more importantly they had a set encyclopedias, I'm unsure of the encyclopedia thing but I imagine there were some nice fellas that made a fortune selling encyclopedias to new immigrant families, as the license to do well in America. An access to the knowledge of everything. My father later bought us our own World Book encyclopedia. Education is the gateway to the American dream.

So here we are in 2009 with access to the greatest information source of all time, the Internet. Yes, we are still "malinformed" about just about every issue. There is a conspiracy theory for every stripe in the political spectrum, but little discussion, all vitriol, stupidity and rumor. The left wing does some stupid stuff, don't get me wrong but the right wing has invented all kinds of stupid. However what usually gets left out is data and logic. It appears that neither party wants to do much but feather their own personal nests and perhaps some bacon for their districts, but fails to want to look at the huge issues down the road for an America that has been so financially promiscuous without taking the prophylactic processes of paying for what we really want, which is in fact guns (we spend more than every country in the world combined on "defense"), and butter (the elderly being active voters are getting/will be getting huge entitlements in which they have not put in enough to fund them for 40 years of shuffleboard and complaining about their taxes)

The political ponzi scheme will soon come to an end, with either decreased entitlements and a decrease in the US military's footprint in the world or much higher taxes. Likely a combination of all of these. No party wants to be holding that hot potato, but every day that we do address these issues, we choose to fail. The recent financial meltdown has left the government with little non-Keynesian resource, this is the time you run deficits, recessions and national emergencies.

But soon and sooner than everyone thinks it will be time to pay the piper. I may be the only person in the country asking for a tax increase. And I think it's time for everyone to pay a bit more, 3 or 4 in ten don't pay a penny in federal taxes, while I don't want to balance the budget on the poor and working class at the same time everybody's got a cup and they ain't pitched in. Certainly the wealthy pay most of the taxes and have benefited the most from a pro-business and pro-wealth government that has protected a great deal of their income and in fact assets from being seized.

We've got spoiled, generations of politician selling snake oil, running up deficits, cutting taxes during wartime, understanding that Americans, other than a small few in uniform were not willing to sacrifice that in fact, someone else would pay the bills. It's understandable as our own lifestyles started to exceed our income, using cheap credit and the equity on our homes, as the US government appeared to draw on the equity of it's own reputation.

Certainly there are taxes that can be directly tied to usage and become more fee-based than taxes per se. For example, a gasoline or other energy tax attached to roads and alternative energy development, and social security and medicare taxes will need to go up to pay for the longer lifespans and the increased price of medical care. But mostly it will be income taxes, enough to move towards some control of the deficit along with budget cuts.

Nobody likes budget cuts or higher taxes. People always talk about cutting government waste, etc. "Why is my money being paid for this", etc. But honestly what most individuals pay in taxes for a year wouldn't cover the cost of one patrol in Bagram, it is in fact a partnership of the people, taxes pay for the things that we can' t buy as individuals. One person's waste is another person's livelihood or essential program. It becomes a difficult process, ending a government program is like leaving a great party, you don't want it to end because you know you're just going to be hungover later. Cutting government means cutting services, or making some of those services fee-based. On a local level for example, everybody expects that once the snow stops falling, even after a New England blizzard that they have some God given right to get right out on the road and drive on a perfectly clear street, this call for services is expensive.

But taxes are the worst option, they are pretty much treated with disdain by everyone. It is seen as an instant paycut, as restricting innovation in business. It's perhaps the hardest sell of all. During WWII there was a top tax rate of over 90%, essentially due to the national emergency the government was confiscating all high income. In fact, these very high tax rates existed for years after the war was over. While I'm not suggesting going back to these extremely high tax rates that likely encouraged hiding income in tax shelters, the reality is that for all of us, taxes will go up.

There are not likely going to be a lot of letters going to members of Congress asking to raise taxes, there will be fewer members of Congress who will likely take a stand to take a bite out of your wallet so don't be concerned. It will be left to further generations, our children and our grandchildren to tackle this debt monster.