So here's my thought, Pres Obama: The poor and the middle class have already taken their cuts.
Period.
The middle class saw so much of their worth, on paper, go down the toilet, the second that the housing bubble broke. I think some experts said it was a nine trillion dollar loss to people who held homes or other forms of real estate.
Other experts put the figure much higher.
Secondly, once the housing market collapsed, so did the economy. This was a loss of jobs, and then the local income tanked, and that affected almost everyone, except the financial class. (More on them later.)
Meanwhile, the slam in real estate prices, combined with the cuts in the amount of money circulating through the local economy meant that the states saw their tax revenue slashed. With states having less revenue, so did the counties, as the state normally distributes help to the counties based on how much money the state is taking in.
If you apply for welfare, medical insurance and food stamps inside the state of California, it can take over 75 days to get your claim approved. And the person making the application has very little recourse - the state and its administrative judges understand that the number of social workers is far lower than it was back when fewer people were applying for any help. So they excuse the delay. I assume the same is true of any of the other 34 states that have under-water budgets.
Mr Obama, when governors of the states that have a budget deficit went to your "good buddy," one Tim Geithner, for help, they were adamantly told that any help from the Federal government would hurt the nation's monetary situation. He made that statement quite confidently to Governor Ahnold Schwartzennegger, back in the summer of 2010. Then over the next 13 months, the US Federal Government was able to come up with 255 billions of dollars for modernizing the military, and offering up weaponry systems to Israel and the UAE.
Apparently we always have money to modernize our military, but ou Treasury officials want to have nothing to do one of the more sensible activities out there - help the individual states keep their programs in place. (For every state program that remains up and running,t here is money saved, in terms of things the Federal government needs to do.)
Mr. Obama, when you say for every one dollar in tax revenue raises upon the rich, you will cut two dollars from the Federal government's budget, I hope you think of reducing the military spending before you reduce the social safety net programs. (As explained above - those budgets are already "Cut back" due to severe personnel shortages at Social Service offices across the nation.) Our nation has a military whose strength in weaponry, cutting edge defense techniques and all other important gauges of military strength, surpasses the military strength of the next dozen nations put together.
Additionally, when Bernie Sanders' insisted-upon audit of the Federal Reserve went public, many of us discovered that there has been some fifteen to sixteen trillions of dollars of money loaned, through the mechanism of "digitized account creation" employed by your re-appointed public servant, one Ben Bernanke. Experts tell us that that least 4,7 trillions of these dollars of "loan monies" will never be repaid. (For those readers who don't understand what a trillion dollars does - these 4.7 trillions of dollars could run the state of California for some 66 years - and this is s a state with 37 million people!)
What gives with that? As a nation, the public has watched time and time again how our agencies take over - directly - the financial accounts of Bin Laden, and other rogue nations and rogue terrorist players. Well, how about it? Why doesn't our Federal government use its muscle to see to it that immediate re-payment through seizure of assets begins - unless these Big Banks and Financial firms agree to make the payments. (And please, no funny business. The public is not amused to find out that when the Big Banker TARP recipients re-paid their loans, they were given tax credits to off set the repayments, dollar for dollar.)
Finally, in conclusion, I want to say how impressed I was with Pete DeFazio, ("D",) coming forward over the last few days, to announce that none of this "Fiscal Cliff" nonsense really should be dealt with now. After all, the only reason the Big Political Players are so concerned is because their rich friends are leaning on them to make waves and create austerity programs right now. Apparently, if nothing is done, then the Re-extended Bush/Obama tax cuts for the rich will end, with some stating this happens on Dec 31st. See, there's the rub - the rich very badly want the tax cut extensions and will be most happy to do anything to keep those tax cut entitlements in place, even if it means they have to personally stab each Social Security and MediCare recipient in the heart.
Well, Sir, let them friggin' end! At least until there is the ability of every state in the Union to staff the social services agencies, keep the school teachers and fire fighters, social workers and project managers employed, let the damn tax cuts for the rich friggin' end. My household had to pay one percent more to enable the richest of the rich to gain by the entitlement of tax cut extensions! Stop it!
And do as the Honorable Pete DeFazio suggests-- wait until the newly elected Congress is in place, and let them make the decisions, which at least will be decisions created by the elected officials rather than the selected few.
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