Saturday, June 18, 2011

Seniors may have paid, but they haven't paid enough

Ever since Michigan's new governor, Rick Snyder, proposed taxing pensions a parade of protests has been reported in the news media that "seniors have paid enough."  But to assert seniors, or any generation, has paid enough they must also have paid their way.


With a $14 trillion debt there hasn't been a single generation that can be said to have paid its way since before World War II.  Ever since then Congress, elected by the people, have been borrowing money to support a national lifestyle we cannot afford.


If today's seniors, tomorrow's seniors, and the seniors after them, ever want to arrive at a time in their (our) life when they can presume to have "paid enough" we must all start by first electing congressmen, senators, and presidents that can control their spending and welfare appetites.


But the rest of us ordinary citizens can begin balancing the budget by sending back money earmarked for our communities' historic districts, monuments, bridges, and firetrucks and resolving that if these expenditures are that important to us we must pay for them ourselves.  If we can't afford these expenses, or aren't willing to pay for them ourselves, then they must either be not that important or we'll have to live without them--just as earlier generations, much earlier, did.


Or we can continue as we have since the 1950s, just leave it for the future generations to either pay-off, or suffer the consequences of a default.

1 comment:

  1. Tom, it's a bit late in electing people who can control their spending as they have been partners in crime in breaking the bank.
    Money talks and they have supposedly borrowed (leaving IOUS) to buy votes.
    Not only the elected but maybe the people learned from them to never be satisfied with having their needs met but always want more.
    Adding to the misery is the continuous printing of money which is making the dollar worth less (Inflation). It's called"legal plunder", basically stealing from the people. It's a way of removing so much money in circulation.

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