Elephants in the Room

Our federal budget has ballooned with waste, “pork” and corruption over time expanding our nation’s deficit to the point it can no longer be swept under the rug or hidden away. We must cut spending and increase revenue to even begin paying down our debt. We have overcharged our national credit card. It is no longer good enough to pay the minimum amount each month ignoring the balance due and the interest on that balance due. I hope we can all agree on this sobering fact, but the devil is in the details. It is how we cut our spending and what we cut that will be interesting to follow.

I find it interesting that for some the first thing to be cut should be education and social programs for the poor and disadvantaged. Still others say that spending on Space, high speed trains and our nation’s infrastructure should be on the chopping block. Some are calling for the end of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security which would have a tremendous impact on the elderly and the poor. One party seems to think that by heavily targeting only domestic spending (about 14 % of the total budget) that they can fix the total budget crisis. Everyone seems to be ignoring the “elephants in the room.”

Where are they on tax reform that would make our corporations and the wealthiest Americans actually pay their fair share? Many do not pay any taxes at all. In fact, they get tax breaks and incentives for taking American jobs to foreign countries to exploit cheap labor and maximize profits. But even making the tax codes fair will not solve the budget crisis, nor will only cutting domestic spending and social programs and education to the bone.

I think some of the biggest “elephants in the room” include defense spending and a military industrial complex that profits greatly from two wars half way around the world that are going on 10 years and counting. Just a small portion of that massive budget could fund education and most of our vital social programs for the poor and the elderly. Just a portion of that defense budget could create green jobs that could lead us off America’s dependency on foreign oil and improve our environment. It could lead to research and development of new technologies which would lead to more jobs that did not rely on death and destruction for profit and jobs.

As for Social Security, it is costing us nothing! It is still solvent, but it needs to be fixed for future generations. It can be fixed now to insure that it will be there for our grandkids. We are living longer than past generations so increase the age of retirement gradually, if needed, and reduce or eliminate benefits for those wealthy Americans who truly do not need them. Too many elderly Americans depend on Social Security to eliminate it, privatize it or raid the funds for other purposes, as is being proposed by some heartless, short-sighted, political idiots.

And when it comes to Medicare and Medicaid, don’t do away with them…fix them, too. Make them more efficient and fight healthcare fraud within the system. Take steps to make healthcare more affordable and accessible to all Americans. Reform the tort laws and give doctors incentives based on patient outcome and best practices so that our doctors don’t have to do test after expensive test to cover their butts from lawsuits. At the same time, eliminate conflict of interests between doctors and the testing facilities they may be invested in. Regulate the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. For God’s sake, why does our heath care cost twice as much as the rest of the world? Why should Americans have to pay so much more for the same lifesaving medicine that our neighbors in Canada and Mexico can have for a fraction of the cost?

Foreign aid may be a necessary part of diplomacy and who we are as a country, but at what point do we turn off the spigot to those countries that hate our guts and often use our aid money and the weapons they buy from us against us. Too often it goes to enrich their corrupt leaders with poor human rights records at the expense of their impoverished citizens? It is like continuing to dole out money to drunks on the street when we don’t have enough money to fix our own house or put food on our own table for our family. When do we stop giving out money that we don’t have?

Yes, we have “elephants in the room!” Will our nation’s leaders get up the courage to fix what needs fixing? Will they regulate banks, corporations and the insurance industry? Will they reform the tax codes so that wealthy Americans and large corporations pay their fair share? Will they end those two wars that have sapped our nation’s wealth and the lives of too many young Americans so that we can channel portions of the defense budget for education and research and development that will lead to a green economy and finally break our addiction to foreign oil?

Yes, we have “elephants in the room.”

Food for THOUGHT…