Admittedly, I know nothing about economics as is taught in economics classes. I have never taken “econ.” I was a science and journalism major. I always thought that money would take care of itself. My naiveté has come home to roost. I am essentially on my own for the first time in my life. I have been learning many lessons and continue to do so.
Even though my assumption that money would just happen as needed proved to be a bit of a fantasy, a more profound gut feeling about the way national and world economy functions has proven to be correct.
The economic system does not work. It appeared to work for decades, centuries even. Now we see it collapsing from its own dead weight, even though the pundits keep trying to prop it up and baffle our public consciousness with bovine excrement.
A growth economy is the fundamental foundation of how this is all set up. It is a crumbling foundation. Envision a huge pile of sand assaulted by the strong and unrelenting winds of change.
I am also no architect, but I think we can all call to mind what would happen if a tall building were built on top of a pile of sand.
Too much confidence has been placed in this economic house of cards. Literally tons of books have been written about this form of economy.
To paraphrase Wikipedia, labor, resources, production, exchange and distribution of goods and services comprise an economic system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy.
There are places in life where balance is our best possible goal. Economy is one of those places.
Worldwide population growth is out of balance and has been since, well, forever. But that does not mean that the world economy has to outflank it. Achieving a balance in economy would look different than what we see today. Not only would it mean equal pay for equal work in the USA
It seems as though some things in life should be free. Indeed, some are, but they are the intangibles. If other things were free, how would the providers thereof be able to provide for themselves? Education, it seems, should be free, but if it were, then how would the teachers live? Parks should be free, but if they were, how would the people who care for them buy groceries and clothe their families?
Government has assumed the task of paying for many things for people. Oops! Where does the government get that money? Well, from the people. The government has become this gigantic and inefficient middle man doling out this and that while paying bureaucrats and staff large amounts of tax money to pass along some of it in the form of welfare, that people would not need if the government wasn’t sucking up so much money and accruing so much debt. Debt? Debt you ask? Well, yes, the government spends more than the tax revenues, no matter how great that figure. And the United States Government has been borrowing money in one form or another for decades.
When I was a little kid, I saw on TV how we sent massive amounts of aid to China China USA
And some want to raise the debt ceiling and spend even more.
These are things the various levels of government should provide for:
Unified roads and bridges
The infrastructure for other forms of transportation, utilities and communication. This includes airport runways, cell towers, power lines, water and sewer systems and so forth.
Military
Border and port of entry monitoring
Police
Fire Departments and EMT services
When I say various levels of government, I am assuring you that not all of these things are to come from the federal government, but some must come from state and local levels. And some, especially infrastructure and EMT and Fire department services could be privatized through renewable leases, which would not be a drain, but a possible source of income.
Here is how the governments can save money:
Cease and desist the so-called “war on drugs.”
Stop paying welfare to the able-bodied idle.
Cut off annual retirement payments to retired congressmen/women.
Freeze salaries of politicos currently in office at all federal levels.
Require that all persons serving in government fly or travel commercially and not in government craft or in private planes, unless those are paid for strictly by the individual. No expense accounts for elected officials. Only enforcement agencies will have access to government craft as need for assignments.
No government money to fund election campaigns.
Set a low cap on how much can be spent on any political campaign.
Eliminate lobbiest organizations.
Eliminate discretionary spending categories.
Confine entitlement programs to verified citizens and their legal dependents, providing none have any criminal records.
Tighten the eligibility criteria for aid programs
Turn away all illegals at the border. Explain to them the proper procedure for applying for legal entry.
Realize Border Patrol is not doing the job. Use the military and military dogs to do the border patrolling work.
Stop sending arms to Mexico South America .
Eliminate all foreign aid immediately.
The above chart is from Wikipedia. This is the discretionary spending of our tax money.
Starting at the top, I suggest we do the following:
>Itemize Health and Human services. We need to know line by line, what this huge amount is for. Then we need to cut it, line by line as appropriate.
>Veterans Affairs: Increase to 60 billion to account for exceptional advances in treatment of amputees and for PTSD.
>Department of Education: Cut to 30 billion, line by line
>Housing and Urban Development: lets do a line by line cut back to 30 billion.
>Homeland Security and TSA: Cut back to zero. We have a very fine, well-trained military and a wonderful contingent of beautifully trained dogs. Let them do their work.
>Department of State: Minimize fluffy luxury expenses. Cut back to 20 billion.
>Department of Justice: This department needs to review the Constitution and become more accountable to the original principles of that fine document. If they can do their job properly, leave it alone, if not, cut it at any area that is misbehaving.
>Department of Agriculture was originally designed to protect the interests of our nation’s farmers against foreign and domestic incursions. They have failed. Now our nation’s agriculture is dominated by two or three major corporate enterprises which are patenting chemically and biologically altered seed and prohibiting independent farmers from using their own harvested seed. They are killing our farmers and feeding us chemically altered crap prettily packaged as though it were actually food. Cut them back to 2 billion and rescind the seed patents issued to agribusiness corporations, whose names I will not mention here.
>Department of Energy. Hmmm. What have they done lately? Pushed pencils and wasted paper mostly. Eliminate the whole thing. Zero Zilch.
>International Assistance, also known as foreign aid. Bring it home! Cut this down to 2 billion dollars and that is still generous.
>Department of Transportation. Line item. Make them simplify. Eliminate excessive paperwork. Cut their budget to 15 billion and hold them accountable for their expenditures. If bridges and roads need repair, then acceptable proposals can be handled as special appropriations.
>NASA: well, as of today they seem to have eliminated this all together. Apparently the space industry is being turned over to the Russians and other European countries and to private industry. Too bad. It was the best research and development organization in the world.
>Department of Labor seems mostly like a lame duck. If it were fully functional, labor unions could be put to rest. OSHA should make periodic inspections of business and not wait to be called. Working conditions would be better monitored and less jobs would be out-sourced. Make them accountable and more efficient. Perhaps President Johnson was correct when he suggested combining it with the ….
>Department of Commerce: they once were combined. It might prove more effective again. Dept. of Commerce needs to be watch-dogged a bit more rigorously. Especially in the area of patent-issuing. Consideration needs to be given to the long-term affects of certain patents that could eventually prove to be not in the public interest, but harmful to overall fiscal and physical health.
>The Treasury Department has conspired with the Federal Reserve and the White House and Capitol Hill to ruin our economy. And of course, it harbors the IRS, a debatably controversial and unpopular agency. Hopefully the good it serves at least balances out the bad. As budgets go, it appears to be comparatively small for the complexity of the agency. We need more public oversight into this.
>Department of Interior Has not done an exemplary job in protecting our American Indians nor our American forest lands. It oversees the parks and really doesn’t accomplish much. It should be combined with …
>Department of Environmental Protection which has proven to be a whole lot of useless paper-pushing for the most part. I suggest combing the EPA with the Department of Interior and the Department of Agriculture. Giving them a list of things to do, and hold them accountable. If they actually do it all, then it could be appropriate to combine their budgets and rounding down to a flat 25 billion. For good measure, let’s throw in whatever functions the Department of Energy was designed to perform. It all could easily be accommodated in this more efficient combination.
Here is how the governments can make money:
Legalize all currently illegal drugs or controlled substances, regulate and tax them. The ATF needs something useful to do.
Put prisoners to work. Make them earn their keep.
All welfare recipients must pass random pee tests. Even though controlled substances will be legalized, they must prove they are not wasting money on non-essentials.
Tighten scrutiny at the store level, so that people cannot buy junk food and luxury items with food stamps. And if they have money to buy these things, why are their ordinary items paid for by food stamps?
Force all able-bodied welfare recipients to work in some of the following areas:
Cleaning roadsides of trash and litter, sorting and recycling it.
Pulling noxious weeds from public areas
Sweeping streets and shoveling snow in public areas
Cooking and distributing food to the homeless or indigent
Collecting cast-off food products for the homeless
Collecting and sorting food waste for composting, making compost and mulch for sale to individuals and business.
Teaching ESL and other basic skills to those who lack them… ie: to each other.
Sand bagging for flood zones
Bucket brigades for wild fires
Reading to the blind or infirm, or to children in after-school programs.
People need to take pride in themselves for some accomplishments.
Make the welfare recipient work force available on contract to private citizens willing to pay a small amount for basic help, such as carrying things, cleaning or yard work.
(Determine which of these suggestions , if enacted, would not deprive someone not on welfare, of any employment opportunities)
I think we remember a few years back when the government accounting office uncovered some very expensive hammers that were sold to the US
I am tired of wastefulness in my own life and I am tired of wastefulness in our government. Let’s make government accountable to us. It is designed to serve us. We are not servants of government. Liberate America
Maybe you disagree. Fully? Or line by line? I would like to know. Maybe I need a different perspective, but that’s how I see it.
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