The Red Zone

Even the most casual observer today, whether they be from the inner city streets or on up to the top corporate executive--and everyone in-between--can diagnose the current tension surrounding the Capitol, Wall Street and Main, as deriving from one, central issue: TAXES! It's something that affects us all, but especially over the past decade when misguided policies have made clear the link between issues of taxation and budgeting to that of our national, and even our personal, wealth. Whether we should tax more, or less... what to cut, and what to fund... are the current issues of the day. Everyone able to add and subtract can read the writing on the wall, and it clearly says: 'anyway you dice it, cuts need to be made across the board to make up for the excessive spending that has been happening since 2001.' 2001, of course, was when Bush instituted his now all too known tax cuts, benefiting a segment of the nation's population who least needed those credits that, as of last year, have totaled: $1.3 trillion.

Of course, if you think back to where you were when this happened, and what was being talked about at that time, you'll remember the debate of that day mainly focused on such issues as 9/11, the Jihadists, Anti-American sentiment, and our foreign policy, etc.. Bush effectively--and strategically--used the veil of 9/11 to redistribute the federal budget surplus of $127 billion amongst the wealthiest of Americans, with little notice or fanfare. As Federal revenues plunged, this coincided with an exponential increase in spending that has today created the situation at the top of this post....
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When former President Clinton left office to then incoming President Bush, The Congressional Budget Office had projected that by the end of the decade (last year in our time, of course) we would have not only paid off the entire national debt, but we also would have had a $2 trillion surplus... instead, what we have (as of this writing) is a $15 trillion public debt--and the difference between those two numbers is mainly due to the Republicans giving tax cuts to the rich, raising two wars, and providing prescription drugs for seniors and putting it all on the layaway plan before bailing on the check.

Until Bush, never in our nation's history has any president raised any war without commensurately raising taxes. Today, both Iraq and Afghanistan each cost $5 to $7 billion a month--multiply that by the number of months that we have had a military presence in each country, and then multiply that by two, to account for each theater of war, and you arrive somewhere near the current total , which has remained on the layaway plan ever since their signings as police actions (that's right, they are not wars per se, or at least they are not on paper).
 
And then there's the anomaly of Medicare Part D, which has been called by the
former U.S. Comptroller, General David Walker 'the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s.'" It never made sense to anyone as to why the "fiscally conservative" Republicans went so all out to provide free drugs for seniors, especially when it was added to what at that time amounted to the largest national deficit of $475 billion, in 2003. A lot of observers have surmised that this was a political maneuver to shore up votes among seniors ahead of Bush's reelection, who, according to the 2003 polls, was headed to defeat in the 2004 presidential elections. Today, Medicare Part D is projected to consume 100% of the Federal Budget by the year 2050 if its current spending remains unadjusted.

Keeping on that theme, Bush continued to use--what I like to call--"restructuring of entitlements" to solicit to another voting block, the general electorate. The Bush Tax Cuts were pandered to the American public by Bush himself as he said such things like, "enough's enough folks, it's time to give our folks some tax relief in America..." and "...we always have to remember who's money it is we are talking about, it's not the Government's money, it's the people's money!.."1 Although this policy mostly provided tax relief to the highest income earners, it still garnered significant popularity and votes for the Bush administration by segments of the populace who were the furthest from receiving those Government returns.
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Former President Ronald Reagan established the modern Republican brand when he signed a series of significant tax cuts that were this Country's largest at that time since World War II. However, unlike Bush, he was a realist; so when a deficit grew from the disparity between the revenue to expenditure created by his cuts, he reversed his position by signing one of the largest peace time tax rate increases since the depression.

Again, however, history repeated itself with Bush the 1st when he too tried to not only remain consistent with his campaign promise of no new taxes, but when he also attempted to push through large tax cuts. When deficits were spawned from those cuts, he also reversed himself and reset the tax code for even higher increases. Moreover, Bush the 1st also instituted the pay as you go scheme, which created the budget surplus that everyone mistakenly attributes to Clinton. Unfortunately, as the pay as you go policy expired in 2001, when his son came into office, it allowed the Government to spend more than it took in, giving Bush the 2nd the opening he needed to redistribute the nation's surplus to its top earners.
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Because of avaricious consumption, it seems as though every sector of society panders to the Government for everything from corporate welfare, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to Social Security and Medicare. Yet at the same time, as each of us benefits from the Government in our own way, we all want to lower taxes, and cut spending, so long as what we get from the Government is not cut too, God forbid!

Americans by a 2 to 1 margin want more money to be spent on healthcare. Moreover, 62% of tea party members say that they want social security and medicare, and that those programs are worth the cost, while more than 90% of them also say that Government needs to drastically cut spending and be reduced altogether. 

There's a disconnect in America between revenues and expenditures, and it is one of the main reasons why our Country is in the hole that it's in. However, to get out of it is to put to challenge the very basic notion of what defines the average American: consumption. Our success in surmounting the above deficit is contingent upon how much we can reign in on our consumeristic appetite for more... and more. It will take a huge psychological adjustment on not only the part of our legislature, but on our collective conscious; for as long as we continue operating within the same mindset, the deficit will continue to grow, because it is by deference to foreign countries through borrowing that we can maintain our conflicting and irreconcilable appetites for lower taxes and more services. Unfortunately, it's an unsustainable system, because one day, we will have no willing buyers amongst our most trusted consumers of the U.S. Bonds being bought by Japan, China, and Saudi Arabia, and which has been the only thing keeping the Federal Government going. No one ever imagined that it could happen to Germany, but it just has... and now, it is only a matter of time until it happens to us--that is, if nothing changes.

1George W. Bush at the "Tax relief of America" signing, 2001.