Congress and the budget

     According to the constitution of the United States, Article 1, section 7, the house has the responsibility to propose budgets. The Senate can amend or concur.
     At present Speaker Boehner is insisting that the Senate pass a budget. He insists that the Senate act as any house bill will not pass the Senate. No bill is forthcoming from the Senate as they believe it will not pass the house.  Thus we have the same stalemate we have had for the past few years.
     The most obvious reason for the continued stalemate is due to the American public re electing almost the identical congress we had last year.  This when their job rating is at a historical low.
 Be that as it may, the time has far past for the bickering and posturing to cease and a budget be agreed on.
     In the process of doing a budget there is a very long list of needs to be addressed.  One of the items talked about often is Social Security. Although it is not adding to the deficit, but in fact is running a surplus every month. That money is being used in the general budget,thus Social Security is helping to mask how large the deficit really is.  The surpluses will not continue forever.  So there does need to be some adjustments to Social Security.  There is talk of, over time, raising to 70 the age for collecting full benefits.  One other option that comes to mind is to eliminate the early retirement option all together, or at least substantially increase the penalty for starting benefits at 62. Social Security does need attention but it doesn't need to be directly tied to any general budget agreement.
     There is much talk of Medicare needing adjustments for it to be sustainable. That is true.  The over simplified solution to just reduce payments to doctors by over 25% is not a workable one. Their reimbursement is quite low now.  The other option talked about is to streamline the program. It is a very bloated bureaucracy.  Some solution has to be found.  It cannot be allowed to go on year after year having congress simply delay the cuts to doctors.  That was the same method used for the past two decades to patch up the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). It was not built with a cost of living clause in it so every year it caught more middle class taxpayers in its grasp.  That was never the intent.  So the fix cost us billions every year until this year when it was finally fixed permanently. Over forty years after the program was instituted. 
     Congress put no adjustment for inflation  in the AMT, but it used a formula to adjust Social Security for inflation that skewed the adjustments to high. That needs to stop.  inflation adjustments, or COLAS, on all Federal  programs need to be figured the same way.
     The tax code in the United States is a completely dysfunctional behemoth that needs to be completely revised. It runs to over eight thousand pages at present.  All those pages are rules written, most of the time to serve some special interest.  The special interest treatment in the code needs to be eliminated. That would include items such as: subsidies to the big oil companies. There is no need, in any circumstance for them to have special treatment in the tax code.  Farm subsidies need to be re examined, and in many cases eliminated.  The ethanol subsidy is one that makes the point.  It has been in place for decades making it financially worthwhile for farmers to grow corn for ethanol production, thus taking corn out of the food chain. It then skews food costs. It was found that ethanol did not help anything when mixed with gas. No improved mileage, and it was harder on engines. There is still a rule in place that mandates increased ethanol production each year to be  mixed in gas, although Congress did finally act on the subsidy its self. The justification for the subsidy was it was a new industry and the government should help it get established.  Businesses should not be treated to government subsidies at anytime in their life cycle. A subsidy for one creates a hardship for another business.
       Many businesses in the United States receive special treatment for research and development. If a business is going to be competitive and survive they will of necessity have to do R&D on their own.  
      Airlines get large government subsidies, yet over the life of the commercial airline industry, begining in the late 20's until just recently they had not made a profit.  They are not doing that well at present.  All foreign aid needs to be reviewed.  The friction between congress trying to make the military continue accepting delivery of unneeded planes, tanks, ships, and weapons to preserve jobs in their district, needs cease.  Work is being done on Freddie Mac, and Fannie Mae. Its needs to continue. They are bloated, and ill managed, and played a big part in the housing melt down. Even though some new regulation of Wall street and banking has taken place, there cannot be too much oversight of them. All financial crises in this country have been caused by these two industries.           
     While businesses get government subsidies our National Parks are being allowed to disintegrate before our eyes, as their budgets get continually cut.  The entrance fees need to go up more often than every twenty plus years. Congress needs to let the Postal Service run itself, instead of mandating, as they did a few years ago, that the mail must be delivered on Saturdays. The limit on stamp prices needs to be eliminated. Also the home mortgage deduction should be eliminated. Since it amounts to a subsidy for the housing market.
    The gas tax, which funds the road maintenance in the United States had not been adjusted in decades. Again it should be adjusted on a regular basis.
     The list could go on. Congress needs to spend time looking in depth at all programs in this country. That would also include all the family of federal grants that exist in this country.
      Their are claims that we can get to a balanced budget with streamlining government. Economists with good standing have stated that everything that is on the table for the budget now, including what is left of the fiscal cliff would cut GDP about 5%.  To get to a balanced budget it appears we need cuts on the order of 8% of GDP. The fear with the fiscal cliff is that 5% cuts would send us into recession again.That would seem to indicate that it is impossible to just use cuts as a way to balance the budget. There is finally some realization that there has to be a mix of cuts and more revenue.
     No budget proposal that has been suggested by either party gets us anywhere near a balanced budget.  That means the national debt just keeps getting bigger.  We are living as a rich country and trying to spend like a poor one.
     Congress has paid for the two wars we have been involved in, by using the government credit card.  They will have to be paid for sometime. We have always raised taxes in America in time of war. This time we have cut taxes, thus helping to create the widening deficits in our budget.
     The financial melt down, as bad as it was, would have turned into a depression without the costly bailouts, as imperfect as they were. The bailout funding has ended and government spending actually decreased last year.
     The congress we have elected has not covered itself in glory over the past few years as they have pushed us to the brink and caused a lowering of our national credit worthiness, and seem to be willing to do that again or even cause a government shut down as some of them would have us believe intrangicence is is an honorable quality.  
     Its time for the house, under Mr. Boehners leadership  to make a budget bill and send it to the senate. There Mr. Reid needs to bring it to the floor and from there let the difficult bargaining begin to reach agreement on a budget. It will, of necessity, be one that will impact all of us in some way.  Not coming to agreement, and just using short term continuing resolutions to fund the government, will just keep moving us closer to the situation in Greece. 
     We deserve real leadership from those elected to serve us. It should be made clear to them that a lack of leadership can have real consequences in the next elections.
   
  



    

Posses, guards, and being safe

       The run to the rifle range was 2.7 miles. Wearing a green Army uniform, combat boots and helmet.  And packing  a canteen, poncho and an M-14. Once at the range the entire day was spent firing the M-14. Everyday for 2 weeks, hundreds of rounds.
      Finally it was off to the qualifying range.  In the foxhole, shooting at pop up targets.  Hit enough of them you were classified as an expert, miss a few you became a  sharpshooter, and miss a lot of them and you were a marksman.   The nervousness  set in and the bullets missed their mark for many of the shooters, making them either marksmen or sharpshooters.
     One last test of nerves for basic trainees was crawling the hundred yard infiltration course.  Done under the live fire of machine guns.  Many of the trainees were incredibly scared, some panicking as the bullets and tracers  zipped overhead.     
      Finally the training ended. The reservists returned home,becoming true citizen soldiers,well  trained on how to shoot to kill,and hoping they would never have to. The active duty trainees went off to various assignments, including war.
     I returned home to become an educator. During my  tenure the educational climate changed. We used to just call the bluff on bomb threats called in, and had the callers arrested within a half hour.
    It became time, some said,to put armed policemen in schools. My wife helped write the grant in our district.  In the ten plus years there was an armed policeman in my school I did not see them so much as prevent a fight or break one up. And every gun incident in our district was solved by information from a student to the administration.
     Some of the faculty got concealed carry permits. One of them was sitting on the bed with his wife showing her his new gun, and accidentally fired it. It missed them both luckily. The others who had permits were not the types of personalities that would be useful with a gun in an emergency situation.   
     There is research to show that even trained officers don't shoot very accurately in panic situations.  Anyone who was to  encounter a school,or workplace shooter, will find staring at a cold blooded gunman to be very disconcerting,affecting their accuracy, thus putting people at risk. 
     Armed posses outside schools,  armed guards inside them, either professional or volunteer, or teachers with concealed carry permits,  none is a prudent approach to safe schools.  
     None of those in my school who had marched to the rifle range, learned to shoot accurately from twenty five yards to three hundred, ever got concealed carry permits, nor did they suggest it to others as a way to make the school a safe place.  They all knew about the dangers of stray bullets.