The T Word - Part 2 - We Are On A Fiscal Cliff...

Last year our do-nothing congress and anemic president could not agree on increasing our debt ceiling.  So they passed it on to a bipartisan committee that gave us two options.  

To state what our government did with these options, I quote Fareed Zakaria of CNN:

“It's a punt. I mean, it's one more occasion where Congress has basically punted, kicked the can down the road, use what metaphor you want. It cuts $21 billion out of the 2012 budget, which is the only budget over which this Congress actually has any authority ... The Democrats are saying no cuts to entitlements. The Republicans are saying no taxes. That's great except we all know the only solution to our long-term debt problem is cuts in entitlements and new taxes.”

They punted and now we are on a fiscal cliff.  We have to do something but are faced with a congress that would rather blame the other party than actually compromise.  That compromise would have to be like Mr. Zakaria states “cut entitlements and new taxes.”  No, my tea party friends, he does not mean to cut taxes but to repeal the Bush era tax cuts.  We need to a balanced approach that will have to be longer than any term in office to work.  

Below is a chart from the Congressional Budget office which shows what will happen if we do or do not repeal the Bush era tax cuts:


President Bush started these tax cuts because we had paid down to the point where we did not have a budgetary deficit.  According to him, we had earned them.  Then we got into two wars.  It is no wonder we are in this fix. But to solve the deficit and therefore the debt we need to do things slowly. Do it quickly and we will be on the road to recessionville again.

What do they say to people on the edge of a building or of a cliff?  Back away....slowly.  Doing things slowly involves compromise, are you listening, congress?

America has to be for the people, not for the parties.  Our parties have gotten us in trouble.  That is one of the reasons I am an Independent, therefore I am an American first and foremost.  Taking oaths to NEVER increase taxes is doing a huge disservice to our country.  Democracy depends upon compromise.  If there is no compromise, there is no progress.

Lastly, I will quote ousted Republican Representative from Oklahoma Mickey Edwards from his book “The Parties Versus the People”:

“In a sane world, in which the men and women we elect to Congress apply their own research and intelligence to the important decisions that confront them, we would expect some number of Republicans to vote with Democrats and some Democrats to line up with Republicans. But on the big issues, the ones that matter most, solid blocs face other solid blocs, unmovable, unflinching in their loyalty to the party "team." And that is because of the framework within which our politics unfolds. As we will see, party leaders control important committee assignments, provide or withhold money for reelection campaigns, and advance or block team members' legislative priorities; in our political system, one often pays a significant price for exercising independent judgment.”