Really, why should we care about deficits at all? Michael Moore has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that we, as a country, are not poor! Of course, the Heritage Foundation has proved that if we took all the profits (not 60%, we're talking 100%) from all the organizations, highly-paid movie stars and athletes, advertising revenues and oil companies, and every penny of every dollar of profit earned within the US of A, we would be able to pay for ONE YEAR of our expenditures in the budget as proposed by the Obama administration. And lest you think I'm giving the Bush administration a pass, I'm not. I didn't like the trillions of dollars Republicans spent anymore than I like it now, when the Democrats are spending it. In case you were wondering...that's what the Tea Party is all about. We're not about "bagging" the middle class (I'm not sure what that means or even if we have a middle class anymore), as one liberal friend characterizes it, instead, we're about not spending our children's, children's tax dollars during our lifetimes. It's so pathetically simple, I sometimes have to stifle a small scream.
OK, let me put it in the simplest possible terms: Michael Moore is wrooooong! We are no longer a rich country. There are some rich folks living here, I'll give on that point. But we are no longer a rich country because we have spent ourselves into oblivion. And it's not because I hate old people, the homeless, the jobless, or the black/mexican/vietnamese, or poor white trash with 7 kids who have to take TANF; nope, don't hate them, don't even have sour thoughts about them. I do, however, believe that 12 million illegal immigrants crossing into our country and sucking on the teat of the American tax payer is, well, sucky! Do liberals really believe that illegal immigration is OK? Really? I can't get my head around that one, and I probably never will, so I guess we'll have to agree to disagree and hope like hell that the folks who pay taxes continue to outnumber those who don't.
Without getting into the fact that the top 10% of Americans pay almost 70% of our total revenues, I want to address why we should all be concerned about AAA ratings from S&P and whatever other credit rating agency decides on a whim (and with some confusing and often wrong numbers) that they are going to downgrade our bonds. "Why should I care," you say? I get up everyday, fill my car with $4.00/gallon gasoline, take my kid to softball and pay my bills (well, some of them), what does a bond rating have to do with my life? I mean, we're America, right? Who wouldn't buy our bonds? Well, lots of people, now. Treasuries are at around 3.7% if you buy a 10-year note, right now. That means that if you put your money into US Treasuries, you won't even make the cost of inflation back on your money.
OK, so investors don't buy Treasury bonds. Somebody has to buy Treasuries though, because, (and this is the part where I tie the last part of my little essay into the first part) we could not possibly tax our way out of our current problem! We have to borrow, borrow, borrow! So, why would China stop buying our bonds? We are, after all, the US of A; we're a great bet! Ask George Soros, he knows. He's been working on how to crash our dollar and make himself another gazillion dollars for quite some time now. Don't believe me? Look it up, that's what he does! ANYway, without the ability to borrow money, where would our congressmen be? What would get cut? You can guess, can't you? Everything but Social Security and Medicare. Yes, even defense spending would be a dead goner. So, with all that in mind, why should you care? Oh, yeah, I already answered that question! In case you missed it, we must have good credit because without a AAA rating, we won't be able to borrow any more money as a country, and if we can't do that, we've already proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we cannot possibly live within our means.
Well, we could tax the rich, I suppose, and their taxes have gone down, as the news so loudly bleated today, but we may want to consider that route very carefully; they're the only ones paying taxes; if we take it all away, they may decide that their hard work is not appreciated here in the country of borrow-and-spend, and they might pack their bags and go elsewhere. There was probably a pretty good reason for dropping those rates, (after all, when the rich get done paying 17%, the states & localities don't give them nearly the break the Feds do), perhaps it was that other countries offer better tax incentives to job creators? Hmmm.
They may even decide that creating and running big companies is too much of a pain to deal with for no return (you've heard of return on investment, right?), so they'll pull out their money, stick it in Treasury bonds (well, probably not) and retire to some country that is capable of hiding all their cash. The numbers don't lie, there isn't enough money to tax the rich so that we can spend trillions of dollars each year and with bond ratings tanking, money will dry up. The Fed (Fracking Erudite Demons) would then be forced to raise interest rates in order to generate "interest" in our luxurious social service economy (this is called inflation). Without inflation, the only investors still buying Treasuries will be the people and companies from socialist countries who want to put their money in a free republic. Will we still look like a free Republic in the next 20 years? You tell me! Socialists know what socialism looks like, and they will recognize income redistribution. So, you should care very much about ratings and bonds and borrowing and spending. It's not all about CARing about your fellow man, it's about survival; and we are nowhere near the fittest in this Age of Unreason.
LBlakeNelson
Tea Party Enthusiast
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