Unless you haven’t been paying attention to the news recently, you’ve probably heard some discussion about the budget, and the GOP (and actually, the Tea Party, first) vs Democrats and Obama on this issue. It’s gotten to the point where there’s even talk of another government shutdown. Obama won’t approve any budget cuts the GOP proposes, and is frankly hoping to force a crisis in order to reap political benefit.
The debt crisis is real – despite the attitudes most Americans have. In fact, our debt is the single greatest threat our country has ever faced. So what are the different proposals to dealing with it?
Well, Obama has proposed literally microscopic cuts in the budget. In fact, there’s actually new spending in his budget. The way Obama instead expects to reign in the deficit at all is by new taxes and better tax collection. While better tax collection can certainly help, new taxes always slow down the economy, something Democrats never seem to take into account. In case you haven’t noticed, businesses are already moving elsewhere. And then of course, he makes the laughable claims that this budget actually helps get things under control. Politics as usual, he’s screwing the next generation by leaving them with the tab.
What are the GOP’s solutions? They seem to finally be waking up to the problems at hand, and are actually trying to cut spending for various things. For example, they’re trying to cut out Planned Parenthood’s funding – and Democrats are strongly opposing them. They’re trying to cut public funding to PBS and NPR – and of course Democrats are strongly opposing them. There’s even some thoughts at taking a shot at the entitlement programs – which of course Democrats will strongly oppose. Sure, most of these programs are just scratches in the surface of our debt problem – but it doesn’t matter. There’s not a special group we’re paying out money to that Democrats won’t oppose cutting the graft to. If we can’t get even small programs like that cut, then we’re really in trouble.
