Giving More Heroin to a Junkie

Articles published on The Rhino Den reflect the opinion of the individual authors and are intended to provide a voice for Veterans. The opinion of each author is just that, an opinion, and does not necessarily reflect that of Ranger Up.

By RU Contributor Mad Medic

So I looked at my bi-weekly paycheck, and I was thoroughly disappointed. I’d say a little on the screwed side, because not only have my hours been cut, but now my taxes have already gone up. At this point in my life I want to opt out of social security, I really can’t afford $40 +/- being taken out of my meager paycheck, and at this rate I’ll be lucky to get a buck fifty back when I retire. In essence it’s a giant Ponzi scheme right now, and I want no part of it. We’ve got no budget, and despite a “deal” to avoid the fiscal cliff, sequestration is still going to happen, and the military is going to get boned, while still trying to fight a war. Basically Congress kicked the can down the road once more.

People keep saying “elections have consequences” and they’re right, they do. More to the point not electing people who care more about the country’s welfare (not the welfare programs) than they do about scoring political points have consequences. Disengaged public, complex bills no one reads, broken promise after broken promise, all are to blame. Rather than point fingers at one party, I’d rather point fingers at all political critters. Rather than look at the promises made by their predecessors and saying “ok what can we actually afford” they’ve voted again and again to keep the status quo, assuming the gravy train will never stop. It will. It has to eventually. The sheer weight of our national debt makes it impossible for things to continue like this much longer.

16,000,000,000,000. Think about that for a second. If we filled a moderate sized college stadium with $20 bills, that’s how much we owe. Every person has a personal share of debt to the tune of $53,000. Every family owes about $120,000 +/-. Do you have that? I sure as hell don’t. Now, if we were to take 100% of the wealth of everybody, to include families, making over $120,000 a year it would fund the government for a grand total of 6 months. Think about that for a second. We’re not talking about “fair share” anymore; this is going full retard, and still coming up short. Well everybody knows you never go full retard.

Like it or not Medicare, and Social Security are the main culprits. They consume 60% of the current budget. I’m not saying get rid of them, I think having a safety net is a good thing, but let’s be practical about this. We cannot afford it. To attempt to say otherwise is simply trying to obfuscate facts. We can cut the DoD down to nothing, we can cut almost every single legitimate function of the United States Government, and we’re still in the red, and keep in mind this still hasn’t done anything about Social Security and Medicare, whose costs are only projected to increase.

Just a few months ago, Soldiers almost received a no pay due, because of this. Who would have thought that might ever happen? The United States would become like Russia, in that it was unable to pay its soldiers. It seems like one of the truly legitimate obligations to the American people, is to have well trained (and paid) soldiers. Say what you will about everything else, it was a horrendous thing to do to men in harm’s way, whose families back home still have bills to pay. The worst part is that all this drama is going to happen again, because we have very predictably failed to come up with a spending plan, and must raise the debt ceiling again.

At this point the raising of taxes feels like feeding a junkie’s habits so they don’t have to suffer the DT’s. We don’t want to deal with the consequences of racking up too much debt, and going insane with spending, so we up taxes, to Clinton Era levels but failed to cut the spending, so the new tax increases, if they actually do increase revenue will only fund the government at current spending levels for a whopping 8 days. Meanwhile I’m out $40 a pay check which I could really use for just about anything. Hell that’s 1 bottle of Jack, almost a tank of gas. . . yeah at my end it hurts a hell of a lot more, and I’m actually trying to pay my damn bills instead of borrowing more.

I really want my money going to welfare, where you don’t have to pass a drug test, and you get more money if you’re unmarried and keep popping out kids. Gee what could go wrong there? I really want more tax dollars going to a fighter-plane that will explode if hit by lightning. Might’ve mentioned that fact before you approved the damn thing. I really want my tax dollars to keep going to Pakistan, because, you know they’re such great allies. Most of all I really wanted more tax money to go to programs like studying how to make pig farts not smell bad, or give Congress the kind of parties that they missed out on in College. Yeah, that’s totally how I want my tax dollars spent.

So instead of figuring out what is essential spending and what can go, we have to raise the debt ceiling yet one more time, this time to an unlimited level, until the Senate passes a budget. Which it hasn’t done in 4 years. Let’s be honest, at this point the only part America actually liked about that is that congress will not get paid till the senate actually passes a budget. Personally I would have made it so that no Federal elected official gets paid till the budget is deficit neutral, but that’s just me. Pretty much at this point I’m shaking my head and wondering if maybe we should institute intelligence and credit checks before we allow someone to run for office.

The Junkie needs detox. Yes we should have raised taxes to pay for the war. That’s over with now. Yes we made promises we didn’t know we’d have a hard time keeping. Both sides are right, both sides are wrong, and every idiot is wrong until we get our house in order. I’d be all for raising taxes on everyone, as long as it were in a serious effort to reduce our deficit, not add to it. I know not getting our fix will be hard, and will hurt but if we keep going this way we’re going to end up a frail wasted shell of ourselves. You think things are bad now? Wait till all the money in your wallet isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.

3 Comments

1. 

   Russ

   January 29, 2013 at 9:54 am

   Sums things up perfectly.

   “I’d be all for raising taxes on everyone, as long as it were in a serious effort to reduce our deficit, not add to it.”

   Reply
2. 

   Daniel F. Belin

   January 29, 2013 at 10:32 am

   I agree with the author up until the third-from-the-end paragraph. Given that I may have a slight bias because I work in Defense R&D, I see R&D and science programs as one of the biggest advantages in competitiveness that this country still has. I’d be interested to hear the author’s rationale for cutting these programs—especially when they have given the US many of the competitive edges it enjoys today.

   Reply
3. 

   Common Sense

   January 29, 2013 at 2:09 pm

   I agree except for the end. We don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. If we cut Federal government spending back to what’s allowed according to the Constitution, and eliminated the bazillions regulations on everything under the sun, the economy would come roaring back and practically eliminate the deficit overnight. We wouldn’t have to raise taxes.

   Other countries have solved the Social Security problem by providing for individual savings instead of a government cash cow. People ALWAYS manage their own money better than politicians try to manage it for us. One of the biggest problems is that Social Security wallet has been raided time and time again to pay for whatever else politicians want to pay for in order to buy more votes.

   Reply