Closing the Deficit

Credit: Amac.us

What could be the best way to close the deficit?  Is it going to be raising taxes on the rich? Cutting spending for the elderly, education, and the poor?  It's going to take a little bit of everything.  The federal government's spending has gotten out of control.  The feds are running trillion+ dollar deficits and both parties of Congress have not come to a real agreement of how to stop the deficit from growing bigger.  The Baby Boomer population is retiring faster than new workers can take their place.  There's also less people working now than before the recession, so that's putting a damper on revenue as well.

As part of the fiscal cliff deal, taxes were raised on the wealthiest earners and the social security tax was raised as well for everybody.  Republicans are saying that is enough tax raising on American citizens, but the Democrats keep pushing for more.  Democrats are proposing that the "Sequester" be replaced with more tax revenue and more broad based cuts versus just spending cuts alone.  The Republicans should stand firm and let the cuts happen, because everybody knows you can't just tax your way out of a deficit.  In the future higher taxes may be an option for closing the deficit, but right now the economy is not strong enough to make higher tax revenue sensible.  The bigger focus should be on giving businesses incentives to higher more workers, which in turn will create higher tax revenue for the federal government.

While spending has slowed in the past few years, it's still on an upward trend.  Yes, any sort of spending cut is going to hurt somewhat, but it needs to be done to save the country from future pains of too much debt.  The Democrats need to start taking it more seriously, in order to get America in fiscal order.  It will have to truly be all the way across the board as well.  From defense, to Medicare/Medicaid, to Social Security, and other discretionary spending.  It can be argued how much Obama's stimulus package really helped, but this sort of spending can't be kept up forever.

If any business were ran like the federal government is today, they would have gone under a very long time ago.  Investors would have pulled out all their money, and people in general wouldn't be interested in giving more money than what the services they receive are worth.  Congress has to work together, and come up with a plan where everybody feels it will be what's best for the country, no matter how politically suicidal it is.  Are members of Congress willing to risk their jobs for the good of the people?  Most of us feel we already know the answer, but hopefully politicians will prove us wrong.  

Separation of the Church and State

In 9 states and the District of Columbia, gay marriage is now legal in their respective jurisdictions.  This means that gay couples living in these states now have the same rights as straight people when it comes to marriage.  It's been widely advocated that the states should not ban gay marriage just because the Bible says that it is not okay.  The church is saying it is a sin to practice homosexuality to begin with.  To marry two gay people is adding insult to injury, and the church should not be forced by the state to perform this ceremony for gays. I am not a proponent for gay marriage, nor am I against it.  However, everybody should have a right to what they believe in.

"Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable."-Leviticus18:22.
The church already asserts that practicing homosexuality is a sin, let alone gay marriage.  There are already churches that wed gay couples, because they believe that if two people truly love each other, they should be allowed to be married.  This is how state law believes it should be.  Does that mean that all churches should have to be performing ceremonies to wed gay couples?  Absolutely not.  These churches are staying true to the Bible and it is their religious right to not have to wed gay couples.  The First Amendment gives the church's rights immunity to law. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;".  Even if state law legalizes gay marriage, a majority of churches still do not recognize it.  Don't force them to do so.

Supporters of gay marriage say all states and the federal government should legalize gay marriage, so these people may have the same rights and recognition as straight couples do.  The church is saying no, and makes it very well known that gay marriage should not be legalized.  Gay couples feel this is not fair and the church should not decide what the state does. They are right.  The state has it's own set of laws that are separate from the Bible and that's how it's supposed to be.  Who is the church to say that gay couples can't get married under state law, just because God says it's "detestable"?  The church does not need to be getting involved with state law and instead needs to focus on it's own laws and follow them as they see fit.  For the churches that do allow gay couples to marry in their respective house of God, let them be the ones that have to face judgement when their time comes.

There is a reason for the separation of church and state.  It's so the people who follow the Bible can exercise their right to religion without punishment by the state, and it allows the people of the state to practice what they believe in freely, without discrimination. Let the churches decide individually who they wish to have married.  Some churches will and some churches will not.  The point is that it will give everybody a fair shot in representing what they believe.   

What Obama has Done for the Economy

When Obama came into office in 2009, the economy was in a downward spiral to disaster.  People were losing their jobs and the stock market was crashing.  Home prices lost over half their value, and the American auto industry was on the brink of closing it's doors forever.  This was a very tough time for the American people.  Obama came riding in on a white horse, promising change, and turning the economy around in his first term.  People believed he could do it.  People believed he could save our country from disaster, and make it better than ever.  So how did he really do?

Let's start with unemployment.  The unemployment rate stood at 7.8% in January of 2009 when he first took office.  It shot as high as 10% in October 2009.  Since then the unemployment rate has dropped back down to 7.9% for January 2013.  Sounds pretty good, right?  Well, yes and no.  The economy has been adding jobs consistently since November 2010, however not enough jobs for the economy to pick up steam and get rolling again like it once was.  This unemployment is lower, because people are going back to work, but also there are less people actually looking for work as well.  People who are unemployed and not actively searching, do not get counted in the unemployment rate.  So jobs are being created and people are making money again, but it's still not enough.  There are too many people living on unemployment and welfare, and they need to be given a very strong incentive to go back to work.  Maybe more job programs can be created to help train people in areas that need new workers. Perhaps, cutting funding for food stamps and unemployment checks to show people they can't live off the taxpayers forever would do the trick as well.

General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford Motors were deep in debt, people stopped buying new cars from them, and financing had dried up.  The Big Three had lost market share to international manufacturers such as Toyota and Volkswagen.  While Ford was able to pull itself up alone without government assistance,  GM and Chrysler weren't able to do that.  GM was given a $49.5 billion loan, while Chrysler received $12.5 billion.  Chrysler originally received $4 billion under the Bush Administration and $8.5 billion under the Obama Administration.  Chrysler paid back $10.6 billion.  So while Obama's loan has been repaid in full, taxpayers are still on the hook for $1.9 billion, which the Obama Administration had written off.  In 2010 when GM went public again, they paid back about $23.1 billion, leaving $26.4 billion left to be paid back.  The Treasury will sell it's stake of 200 million shares at $27.50 per share, which equals out to about $5.5 billion.  This means the taxpayers will have lost money on both of these loans.  The big question is, was it worth it?  Taxpayers are left footing the bill, but millions of people got to keep their jobs and helped keep the economy from sinking further than it already had.  What if GM and Chrysler had gone under?  Who would've taken their spots and filled the gap? What would have happened to all those employees?  These are questions that can only be answered in theory.  Some people think the bailout was a good idea, while others thought capitalism should've taken it's natural course.

The bottom line is, Obama has done a so-so job.  People are quick to say that he really has saved the economy and the country, even though work still needs to be done.  Others say he has made it worse than ever, and all his government spending is only going to hurt us further.  Yes more people are working, and the auto industry is doing well again, but it has been at the taxpayer's expense, which could lead to worse problems in the future.  We will have to wait and see.   

The Sequester

The "Sequester" is coming.  Starting on March 1st, 2013 $85.4 billion will be cut from federal spending.  While this may not happen all in one day, it will certainly be felt through out the year.  Both Republicans and Democrats are placing the blame on each other, when in fact it was both parties who had agreed to it in 2011.  There was a small taste of what compromise could be.  Now that the spending cuts are actually here, nobody wants to take responsibility for it.  Democrats are blaming Republicans, for not wanting to replace the spending cuts with more taxes and broad based spending cuts, while the Republicans are saying it was Obama who had come up with, and promoted the idea of the Sequester in the first place.
 
The Republicans had already agreed to raise taxes with the fiscal cliff deal.  Now it's the Democrats' turn to go with the spending cuts.  Even though the cuts being put in place are going to hurt, in the long run it's still better for the overall health of the economy.  Nobody is recognizing it, but Republicans and Democrats actually have already compromised.  Now they just need to do it on a much bigger scale.