Hello all in Playtimeville! Yesterday I came by this meme and I was a bit shocked.
So I went to look it up. Googling the issue, I found that the bottom 90% of earners had an average wage of $36,571, and the federal poverty line for a household of 4 is $32,150.
Now, my father worked a good factory job, and I now supervise a fabrication plant. I don’t make, inflation calculated, what he made in 1990 – roughly when he retired. None of my people do. Interestingly, the job he had and a great many of the jobs like the one he had are gone now, moved off quite literally to India, China, Mexico and such. Those jobs are gone. Gone. Like the Bruce Springsteen song, they ain’t coming back.
When you look at the debt situation, it is bleak as hell. But, when did those debts really start accumulating? Right after Ronald Reagan’s Trickle Down Economics – when three major events coincided: the idea that the wealthy know how to invest money better than the poor, and will therefore be the better custodians of that money, trickling it down to the labor classes; the globalization of industrial labor when companies could move their jobs off-shore for a fraction of the hourly wages; and the reduction in taxes that the top incomes would contribute on their astronomical earnings while increasing the taxes that the lesser incomes would pay.
When it gets to the end, there are a great many factors influencing the lives of the common American. I believe welfare and immigration are problems. I believe also that writing laws that you won’t pay for is also a problem!! Congress, regardless of party, has put the tab on the credit card for over 40 years and worsened the position for those who are not in the top 10% at every opportunity. Like every other business and family in the country, I believe the government must live within their means by forcing a law that the budget must balance. It is only then that we can solve some of the other problems facing our country – or more so, become unflinchingly aware of who the real problems are.
Scottie's Playtime 
This seems to need looked into a little more, Blundersonword; some of the info is slanted to the right, rather than 100% factual. That being said, instead of being concerned with “paying off” or “down” “the debt,” which is a great deal of the rhetoric used by Republicans to tell us why we can’t have nice things in the US but there can be 2x as much paid for the Pentagon supplies than the Pentagon even asks for (as just one example, and it will come up easily when searched. So far.) And this is why all the money is where it is, and why we the people don’t fully receive even those benefits for which we pay, like Social Security and Medicare. Those aren’t government benefits. That’s our money, like a savings account. The Right has totally turned things upside down in people’s minds, then kept them busy chasing dollars while the Right takes more money.
I’m sorry; obviously this is a sore point with me. Clinton handed GW a surplus, btw, also easily found when looked up, which GW blew with tax cuts and wars. We have not been able to recover a balance from then on, and it’s always worsened by Republicans.
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Hi Randy. I think the issue is the US has a revenue problem not a spending problem. The shifting of the burden of paying for the government from those that could afford it with no lifestyle change to those who are hammered by the burden as they can not afford it without giving up stuff. It is like the man who can’t afford rent deciding the way to fix it is to work fewer hours at his job. And the Citizens United SCOTUS ruling that removed caps on how much money the wealthy and corporations can give to PACs for bribing candidates running for office. They can buy their own congress person / government official at any level of government, local, state, and federal. Look at Musk effort to buy the conservative judge in Wisconsin. Also the issues with government doing things to help the people which according to the constitution is the government’s job. The General Welfare Clause appears in Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution. It grants Congress the power to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States.” Sadly the wealthy have managed to turn any government assistance to anyone but them as “welfare for the lazy” while they get subsidies in the billions. Musk wouldn’t have gotten any of his companies off the ground without government grants and pay outs. The fraud for Medicare / Medicaid is not the poor end users, it is the provider / insurance companies that steal the money. Rick Scott became super wealthy with the largest Medicaid rip off of nearly 500 million dollars, he got no punishment not even a work requirement, instead he got to become governor then senator. Hugs
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ok… I’m having a hard time writing this comment, so bear with me.
Hi Scottie and Ali; I think you both have my point, no matter how much it pissed you off. What I’m reading from you I believe is only a complete lack of accountability. If you look at the problems we have had in this country it can all be brought to the idea that there are lesser-than’s who should be “handled for their own good”, and a socio-politic class who should do the “handling” and they, of course, live at a different level so aren’t subject to the same rules as the “handled people”.
See, I agree with everything you both said, but when you are arguing about whether it’s right to spend the revenue on things for the people and infrastructure, or if you think it’s right to give billionaires a tax break on their yachts, it becomes irrelevant when you don’t have a measure of reality. $36Trillion is not a measure of reality. It shows the numbers don’t matter. Steal, no one is watching the books!
A mandate to balance the budget is similar to our households: we expect to have to pay the bills. If we have an unexpected expense, we go into debt but we pay for it. The rest begins the conversation about just what we stand for in this country, what is our identity, what makes us proud. Should I go deeply into debt buying new cars and living the high life, or should I go into deep debt giving money to St. Jude’s (I think you can guess my answer to that, but…) I personally believe that the failing of our country, the rise of maga, is centered around the idea that we need not be accountable; that the powerful aren’t held to the same rules and therefore the people who associate with the powerful feel they need not be held to those same rules.
The Reagan Era was the downfall of accountability. Before then we had the Nixon administration, and we held them accountable. When we tried to hold Reagan accountable, he “did not recall”. His people, well, those that recalled, eventually became the hero’s for their resilience in the face of such expectations of obeying the laws. Fox News came along and made them living martyrs. Heroic rebels. Now we have this clown. We need accountability.
well…. such is my opinion.
Hugs!
randy
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