In October 2010, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stated "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." Then, less than a month later, the House was convincingly won by the Republicans; and Democrats in the Senate saw their overwhelming majority diminish. Armed with a so-called "mandate", the Republicans immediately began to press the advantage.
They fought all measures that would allow any of the Bush tax cuts to expire. Anything that the Republicans could oppose without taking too much political heat, they vehemently opposed. They changed the focus from job creation to deficit reduction. Since then, to their credit, they have functionally owned the news cycle narrative and set the agenda while the President has played defense and assumed the role of Reactionary in Chief. Meanwhile the Democrats have been frustrated and eerily silent.
However, this is all a sham that bodes more toward assuming power than providing assistance to the average American and spurring the economy. Unemployment is reported at being over 9% and by most estimations, in reality it is actually well over 10%. Instead of coming up with viable solutions to put people back to work, Washington is fiddling while Rome burns!
Furthermore, Washington is looking to increase unemployment. It is not a question of "if" but a matter of how much. To drive this fact home, you have congressmen like Rep. Broun of Georgia saying that government workers need to find a "real job". When you talk about cutting government spending, you are talking about cutting jobs which, in turn, increases the unemployment rate. Speaker Boehner keeps insisting that we ". . . don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem" and that raising taxes is a "nonstarter". Which further let's us know that the deficit debate is neither about job creation nor fiscal responsibility.
If Washington was serious, you would hear pragmatic debates that put everything on the table. For example, if jobs need to be created, how about lowering the corporate tax to between 15-17%? Let the corporations know that if they bring jobs to America they will not have to start paying corporate taxes for the first five years. Then close every loophole that rewards companies that take jobs overseas and raise the tariffs. This would lure the companies that have fled to Ireland, China, India and Singapore due to the fact that we have the highest corporate tax in the world. In addition, it would encourage foreign corporations to build in America. This would put people back to work and broaden the tax base.
Allow the Bush tax cuts to expire and reform the tax code. Limit tax deductions and credits; and these should only apply to taxes paid. The government is hemorrhaging revenue every year with people receiving end of the year tax bonuses as refunds. If you owe me $20 and pay me $30, when I give back $10 that is a refund. Even if I took into account something notable that you did and cancelled the debt, your refund will be $30.
However, if you owe me $20, pay me $30 and I give you a check back for $375, only $30 is a refund. The rest is a bonus. This practice needs to stop if we take fiscal responsibility serious. Individuals and corporations are getting away with billions of dollars that could go toward cutting the deficit. If we curtailed this practice, we would be well on our way to cutting the deficit significantly.
For the likes of Rep. Broun, I have a novel ideal. Since it looks like we want to cut entitlement programs on the federal level, how about this? Since each Congressman and each Senator technically represent a state, how about taking every one of them off of the Federal payroll with the exception of the Speaker of the House and the president pro tempore. They should get paid by the people of their state. This would free up more revenue to help cut the deficit.
Now, of course you will never hear any of this in Washington because Washington is not serious. All you will hear is the deficit debate getting tossed around like the political football it is. The same goes for immigration reform and any other topic that can serve as a reliable "go to when the chips are down" issue when the subject needs to be changed. Remember "jobs, jobs, jobs"?
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