Milestones
By Miles H. Barber

We do not have an income problem in America, we have a spending problem.

The President wants to tax the rich and have them pay their fair share.

This is rhetoric that plays well to the poor, the average wage earners in the workforce and uneducated college students. It sounds like the rich are the source of our financial fiasco and all five fickle fingers of financial fault should be pointed at them.

We even have college students camping out on Wall Street in protest of the wealthy hoarding all of America’s cash.

Maybe the President and our college students should do this fifth grade math test.

Our 2012 government budget is $3.7 trillion and our revenues are $2.6 trillion.

How do we cover the 1.1 trillion shortfall difference?

• Raise taxes on the wealthy?
• Confiscate all the wealth from the rich to cover the deficit?
• Reduce our expenditures and raise taxes on everyone?
• Do nothing as usual and borrow more money?

Here are some helpful hints.

If the government took all the wealth of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett ($100 billion) and not just tax them but actually took their wealth, here is what it would pay; the government deficit for the month of November 2011. Now, what do we do for December?

Well, that didn’t solve the problem, so let’s say the government took all the wealth of the top 10% of Americans (who currently pay 50% of all income taxes). Not just tax them, but confiscate all their wealth.

That would be enough money to cover our government’s deficit through October, 2012 ($1.1 trillion).

What would we do for the balance of 2012 and all of 2013 and thereafter?

The average college student would say, “Hey man, that’s a problem.”

The average fifth grader would say, “Gee, that doesn’t work for very long, we need to reduce our spending and raise taxes on everyone.”

The average President and half the Congress would say, “Gee, wealth confiscation is a good idea. Let’s propose that along with our new Jobs Bill and borrow more money.”

Now we see the problem.

Borrow and spend has not and does not work long term.

Confiscate and spend works short term and is devastating long term.

Do nothing and spend is injurious both long and short term.

Taxing the rich is only a drop in the bottomless bucket of government’s bloated budgets.

It might work for a reelection campaign if only fifth graders do the math. (They don’t vote).

Without meaningful government cost cuts combined with uniform tax increases, we are sentenced to a dismal and dreary fiscal recovery.

The reality is, we have created an over supply of government agencies, bureaucracies, commissions, departments and branches.

Let’s look at just one of those agencies like the Department of Energy (and ask this question; when have we ever seen anything significant from the DOE)? They have 16,000 employees with an annual budget of $26 billion and we don’t even have a National energy policy. This is just one of the thousands of government department’s taxpayer’s support.

We totally endorse college students holding protests. They just need to get their protest location correct. A sit in on Capital Hill would be a more intelligent rallying place.

Miles Barber can be reached at Scweekly2011@yahoo.com