Earmark This Amy – $22 Billion a Month
That’s what the Government paid in interest on its debt in October. Oh, when I say Government, I mean us taxpayers.
Now I am not one to freak out about deficit spending, but this is getting ridiculous. The problem is not revenue, hell revenue is through the roof. Tax cuts don’t cut revenue. The real problem with the Government is the spending.
Now amazingly, well more like, of course, Democrats like Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Strib MN) used debt interest payments as part of their “change” campaigns to get to Washington, but so far the “change” Democrats have done nothing to change the problem.
Earmarks and discretionary spending are still outrageous. Take the water bill that just passed. The original Army Corp of Engineers request was in the neighborhood of $5 billion dollars. The final bill was $15 billion, with a dozen plus projects added in conference committee. Yep, projects were added that were not initially voted on by either House of Congress.
I’m all for doing what needs to be done, but….
That bill was crammed chalk full of pork. Now sure, I know that everyone thinks that a water project for their city is critical to the nation, but it isn’t.
A commenter in my post yesterday about the Veto Override used an example of a $4 million drinking water improvement for the city of Goodview. The commenter claims that the project is needed because of an unfunded mandate.
If you ask me, and I know if you are still reading this, you really care, the problem is not who pays for the project per say. The problem is the unfunded mandate.
Americans had better wake up real dang quick. We cannot continue to go down this road. We can’t continue to want everything from Government. We can’t continue to rely on someone else paying for our desires. We can’t continue to allow (and demand) our Government lay out the agenda for how we live our lives. It is an unsustainable agenda.
We’re supposed to be able to petition our Government when we have a grievance, not to get it to pay for our local projects that have zero affect on the rest of the nation. Of American’s desire to get what they want, K Street and lobbyists were born. That my friends is where things took a turn for the worse.
When I was dreaming up this blog, one of the names I was considering was For Needs, Not Wants. I can live with a Government that helps out with true needs. The problem is, how many people does it take to become a real need worthy of Federal assistance?
Far too often that number is one. As in one member of Congress looking to buy votes with pork projects.
I was very hard on elected officials (and Republicans especially) yesterday for the override, so here I will be harsh with my fellow Americans.
You have absolutely no right to complain about the national debt when you stand there with your hand out. Democrats throw the word sacrifice around when they talk of Government, but they are misusing that word. Sacrifice is not giving more money and power to the Government.
Our founders never imagined that we’d be taxing the nation to pay for a city or pet project. Heck, they probably never imagined the Federal Government taking such an all encompassing role in the daily lives of Americans.
On the state level there is an even more dubious version of pork, LGA (local Government Aid). It isn’t “aid”, it is Municipal Welfare in my opinion.
I don’t know if Americans are truly serious about really solving the debt problem. I know for sure the politicians in Washington won’t do anything about it. If they do what is necessary, and refuse to be little piggies and not put their pork and earmarks in bills, they won’t be in Washington after the next election.
Term limits. That’s the only way we can really do anything about the debt. We need to return Government to the people. Career politicians who have been in office for decades are the biggest problem. Along with that, we need to ban former members of Congress and Government employees from becoming lobbyists.
The only thing short of that would be to nuke K Street. That was a joke, kinda. 
Term limits are NOT the only answer. Pass the FAIR tax, and 70% of the lobbyists lose their jobs– getting tax favoritism for their clients– immediately. No politician will be able to diddle with the tax code and increase taxes, they’ll have to openly raise the single, universal and very public rate. Withholding ends, and people will see their tax bill directly and daily, putting on more pressure. Social Security will cease “masking” the deficit spending. Add to that the benefits for the economy, for “solving” the Social Security problem, and for eliminating tax evasion as a business, and what’s not to like?