It’s Friday again.
How nice it is to have two free days to regroup from a gruelling week. This has been a tough week for everyone. Seeing job numbers go the way of the Dodo and unemployemnt rates rise like a subprime mortgage rate, it makes me wonder what would happen in the next few days if no action was done.
Now I have not live through the Great Depression so I have no first hand experience on how to act or think. With politicians bickering on whether to cut taxes and spending or spend more and tax more or something in between.
If you ask me, the basics still matter. If government and corporate would act like what every person should be acting, things ‘might’ get a little better.
First, cutting taxes on payroll and capital gains would not matter if taxpayers do not have jobs or businesses to generate taxable income. Cutting spending on aid programs would eliminate not only recipients but millions of government jobs who by the way, pay taxes. So the recipients would receive no aid (cash, health care and etc) can lead to decreased or no spending on their part since Cash aid and health are no longer available and the employees who work in cut programs would also cut or eliminate spending due to a loss of income. So how would cutting programs and spending aid the economy in this way? I am sorry but the Reganomics of yesteryear would not work.
Spending ourselves to the hilt would lead to more debt and more debt would eat through tax revenues in the future. Not really a wise course of action in the long term.
So what are we to do? In plain simple terms, we need to get back to basics. If an ordinary american can represt as governent and wallstreet, here’s what the American should do:
1. Spend on income generating items (such gas to take you to work, job fairs or in the case of government, infrastructure program that create jobs.
2. Have a spending cap or budget. If USA only makes $5 trillion in taxes then spend only $5 trillion or less.
3. Eliminate the spend it or lose it culture. Encourage States and local agencies to be efficient, effective and fiscally responsible by allowing these entities to “bank” surpluses (for a rainy day.. like a recession)
4. Transparency, Transparency, Transparency. We have to be honest with everyone and especially to ourselves. If we cannot afford it, we do not spend it or find a way to afford it.
That’s just my opinion. I do not have the fancy MBAs that the Wall Street rats have but at least it works in the realm of common sense.
Filed under: Opinion, 2009, Barack Obama, black Friday, budget, common sense, deficits, economy, Friday, government, Great Depression, local, MBA, programs, recession, spending, Stimulus, surplus, transparency
