We ain't broke

The current whining and handwringing in Congress over the US being so far in debt, the deficit, and other financial woes isn't a bad thing except they keep saying we're going broke.

They need to shut up and stop fearmongering. The US isn't close to broke. They just don't want to do the necessary things to help right the ship.

Here is a lovely column on the subject, but what the Republicans in Congress (and our President who suddenly has moved amazingly centrist when it comes to fiscal policy) need to understand:

You look like horrible evil people when you're attempting to cut subsidies to help pay poor people's energy bills in the winter and yet a man who made 5 BILLION, yes, 5,000,000,000 last year paid only 15% federal tax on the bulk of it. (To say nothing of wanting to cut all funding for the CPB which helps fund PBS and NPR.)

Is there wasteful spending in Congress? Of course! Are there programs that can be cut/merged/etc? Of course! Should we make some higher tax brackets on the super-rich? OF FREAKING COURSE!!!!!!

Why someone who makes millions of dollars a year pays the same percentage of tax as someone who makes hundreds of thousands is nonsensical. They may even pay less, percentage-wise, depending on how they made most of their money.

I'm all for attempting to reshape the Federal budget, but what is killing us right now is not the social safety net programs.

Its two wars that went un-funded for most of their terms.

Its a defense budget that keeps gobbling more and more money (oh, wait, they're going to try to cut $12 billion a year for the next few years...that's 1.8% a year off the DoD budget).

(An aside on defense spending. "The U.S. Department of Defense budget accounted in fiscal year 2010 for about 19% of the United States federal budgeted expenditures and 28% of estimated tax revenues. Including non-DOD expenditures, defense spending was approximately 28–38% of budgeted expenditures and 42–57% of estimated tax revenues. According to the Congressional Budget Office, defense spending grew 9% annually on average from fiscal year 2000–2009.")

Its the lowest tax rates in 50 years on the richest 1% of the people in America.

Its the corporations that are sitting on a collective 2 TRILLION in cash but aren't hiring new workers, opening new plants, or generally creating jobs that would get America working.

I completely understand that we must be cautious because whenever a dollar is allocated its almost impossible to unallocate it down the road. However, just because bad decisions were made in the past, they don't need to be compounded by bad decisions now.

Also, a personal note on the article. Its written pretty fairly , but I must point out that while the last budget surplus we had was under a Democratic President (Clinton) he was a very moderate Democrat and actually fell more towards the right fiscally. He had a Republican majority in Congress when they did more than just cut taxes and spend as well. Just wanted to add that clarification.

So America, wake up and stop panicing. We aren't on the brink of federal financial meltdown. The people in power just don't want to derail their gravy train of donations from Wall Street in implementing sensible tax rates for the super-rich or a tax on large financial transactions.