Fresh off
his golf vacation in Florida, the President yesterday breathlessly intoned that
the looming sequester was poised to visit untold devastation on our nation. A
government with a 3.6 trillion dollar budget is about to be eviscerated by an
85 billion dollar cut.
A mere ten
years ago, this same government managed to get by on only 2.2 trillion dollars
of spending. That’s a 68% increase in the budget in ten years. And yet this
government will be brought to its knees by a 2.3% decrease in spending?
Here’s a question
for you. Has your income increased 68% in the last ten years? I did the
numbers for the Dunnevant family and found that our family income has increased
roughly 28% since 2003. Not bad, but compared to my government, I’m an
underachieving hack. Second question, how many of you would be thrust into
economic Armageddon if you were forced to reduce your yearly spending by 2.3%?
So, if the
President and his party are to be believed, in 9 short days, our very way of
life will be plunged into a desperate struggle for survival. Children will starve;
old folks will be cast out into the mean streets, millions will lose their
jobs, infrastructure will collapse before our very eyes, our air and water will
instantly be polluted beyond recognition, our meat won’t get inspected, but
worst of all, no one will be able to answer our tax questions at the IRS, all
of this calamity because 85 billion dollars will have been trimmed from our 3.6
trillion dollar government. 85 billion, or put another way, the amount of money
that our government spends every eight days.
We are being
asked to believe that a sequester that cuts the equivalent of a little over one
week’s spending will plunge us all back into the Middle Ages. Hmmm.
Call me
skeptical.
"...how many of you would be thrust into economic Armageddon if you were forced to reduce your yearly spending by 2.3%?"
ReplyDeleteThe fact is that I, like millions of others affected by recent new tax rates, am now experiencing just that. We've been subjected to a 2-3% decrease in our own spending ability so that our goverment can have more spending ability.
Yes Matt. But has that 2.3% decrease in spending in the Hawkins home resulted in economic calamity? If not, you have made my point for me. If the Hawkins family can survive, then so should the federal government be able to survive without the promised calamity.
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