Sunday, January 18, 2009

Do they not know anything about how budgets work?

When making a budget, it becomes a bit problem when the money going out is greater than the money coming in. Because our politicians do not understand this, the size of our national debt is inconcievable. This morning, I read a small blub in our newspaper about a bill proposed by a legislator in Texas:

from the Star-Telegram Sunday, January 18, 2009, p 5B (by Maria Recio, Anna M. Tinsley, Dave Montgomery, Aman Batheja)
Rep. Kay Granger says she wants to help people out during these tough economic times.

Granger, R-Fort Worth, signed on to a bill by Rep. Louis Gohmert, R-Tyler, to give taxpayers a two-month reprieve from paying federal taxes.

"I think this is a practical solution," Granger said. "Not every option has to include spending billions of dollars. I think most Americans would be surprised at the amount they could save if they didn't have to pay federal taxes for two months."


So, if the revenue from income taxes goes down by one-sixth, the government's spending should decrease by a proportional amount. Has anyone heard of the federal government cutting spending? I've only heard about bailouts for the financial and automotive industries as well as a hefty economic stimulus plan in the works. Am I mistaken, or does this plan make no sense? I don't see much difference in spending extra money and spending the same while earning less. It seems like the end result will be the same- more debt. What do these legislators gain from this bill? Approval from voters? Maybe we should all agree to pay more taxes to reduce the national debt with a strong limit placed on government spending. It seems practical to me, but unlikely to ever happen.

2 comments:

mike harris said...

you're right on emily!
our political leaders continually defer the pain and our children will be worse off because of it.
thanks for the post!

cathy said...

emily, as i understand these two tax plans, there are three critical differences between the gohmert plan and the obama plan. gohmert's plan would reduce federal taxes to all people who pay them simply by not collecting them (people would be able to keep their own money). whereas the obama plan descriminates by restricing credits to the low end wage earners. secondly, gohmert's plan allows people to decide for themselves how to spend their money. whereas obama's plan means that government decides how to spend their money. thirdly, gohmert's plan is believed by some to be so directly stimulating for business (and thus so facilitate the creation of more jobs) that a further stimulus may not be needed. the cost in terms of lost revenues would be covered by the $350 billions of TARP,or bailout funds already approved, with no additonal stimulus funding. whereas obamas plan would add about $800 billions more of stimulus money than is already approved by congress. essentially, the issue here is, who knows best how to pull the country out of this mess- people or government?