Thursday, December 6, 2012

Fiscal Cliff Madness

This whole "fiscal cliff" thing is really bothering me.  There have been no actual solutions to the problem offered by either side.  Most people understand that I am a conservative and have no problem defending smaller government and more personal responsibility, so to my more liberal leaning brothers and sisters - what is your plan? 

Is it making things so "fair" and "equal" that no one in this country seeks to be unique, creative, entrepreneurial, and wanting a "good" life for themselves?  Why is there a distinction made between rich people who make their money my creating companies and jobs and rich people who make their money by playing sports or acting or just plain being stupid?  Why again do you listen to the latter and their thoughts on how you should live your life when the majority of the former just want to be left alone and support the rights of everyone to do their own thing as well?

Is life fair?  No.  Should part of government's role be to make the playing field as accessible and fair as they can?  You bet.  Should government then manipulate the game to punish the hard work of those who are successful following said rules and give more of the results of that success back to people who don't put in as much effort under the banner of "fairness" and "equality"?  I personally do not think so.

Let's let facts be the facts and make the truly hard decisions, popular or not, to get this country financially solvent again and back to a place where, popular or not, America is respected.

FACT: "Rich" people (small and large business owners, top athletes, Hollywood "elites", and heirs to fortunes) fund most of the federal government's income in terms of income tax.

FACT: Most of the spending outside of entitlement programs (Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, welfare programs, etc.) are almost completely funded by other federal tax sources (gas tax, capital gains tax, corporate taxes, cigarette tax, etc.).

FACT: Even taking all of the "1%'er's" monies would only fund our government's out of control spending for about a week

Here's my common sense approach to getting this thing under control and something my wife and I have done recently with pretty good success in finally being in control of our money:

STOP SPENDING MORE MONEY THAN YOU EARN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HAVE AN ACTUAL WRITTEN BUDGET AND STICK TO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DON'T BORROW MONEY TO BUY THINGS YOU DON'T NEED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LIVE WITHIN YOUR MEANS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's a big one:

STOP COVETING WHAT OTHERS HAVE AND CONCENTRATE ON THE BLESSINGS YOU DO HAVE AND WORK HARDER TO POSSIBLY GET SOME OF THE LUXURIES YOU MIGHT DESIRE. 

Less government and more "us".  Shouldn't that sound good for everybody?


To my friends both conservative and liberal - please respond (civilly of course) with your ideas on how to solve this issue.  Let's solve this together, remove the politics, and get this crisis licked with good 'ol American know-how.

Thanks for listening.

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