Over the Cliff and Across the Sea

The United States of America had a deficit of $1.3 trillion in 2012. That’s trillion with a t. That number is tough for some of us 99 percenters to fathom so I’ll write it out. $1,300,000,000,000. And that’s just the annual number. All told, our country is in debt to the tune of around $16 trillion. Almost half of that debt is owed to foreign investors, China and Japan being the two largest. These sobering statistics provide some back-drop to the current “fiscal cliff” drama that is playing out between the Obama administration and Congress over how to lower our debt without dipping the country into another (or worse) recession. Obama and some of the more left-leaning Democrats believe we should raise taxes on those making over $200K per year in the form of not renewing the Bush-era tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of December while extending those cuts for anyone making less than that threshold. John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and their rightwing Republican counterparts want to extend those tax cuts for all Americans, no matter their income level, and believe the deficit should be reduced via cuts to domestic spending, i.e. welfare benefits for the poor. Both parties have been steadfast in their refusal to bend on these stances and if a compromise isn’t reached in the next month, the result will be a higher tax bill for all Americans. Estimates put that tax increase at $2000-$3000 per American family.

Neither of our two major political parties is tackling the problem properly. Raising taxes per the Democrats’ plan punishes the very business owners that we need to create more jobs. The less they can profit, the more wages, benefits, and jobs they’ll need to cut. On the other hand, cutting benefits to the poor, elderly, and unemployed in an already weak economy will only drive us further away from being a land of equal opportunity and closer to the type of caste system found in India and Pakistan.

What we should do is reduce the size of government, create tax policies that foster bringing jobs back onshore, legalize and tax marijuana, and most importantly, pull our troops and funding out of the Middle Eastern countries that pretend to be our allies only to repeatedly stab us in the back. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are estimated to cost our country four to six trillion dollars when all is said and done. Obama’s proposed 2013 budget earmarks over $8 billion dollars in aid for Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan alone. That doesn’t even include the billions set aside for “friendlier” countries like Israel, Jordan, and Egypt.

Earlier today, Iraq’s representative to the Arab league, Qais al-Azzawy, told that body "Iraq will invite (Arab) ministers to use the weapon of oil, with the aim of asserting real pressure on the United States and whoever stands with Israel.” This is a representative of the country that we spent trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives freeing from the tyrannical grip of Saddam Hussein telling his fellow Arabs that they should charge Americans more for oil in order to pressure us to leave them alone in their mission to destroy Israel.

Meanwhile, Pakistan holds our supply routes for ransom, demanding astronomical fees on top of the billions of dollars we already provide them while they spent years protecting the architect of 9/11, Osama bin Laden. I don’t think anyone in this country is naïve enough to believe that Pakistani officials wouldn’t have spirited bin Laden out of that compound if Obama had given them warning of our Navy SEALs mission that night.

Enough is enough. Spending must be reduced and it needs to start with slashing the funds to these foreign cutthroats. Let them fight their own battles and fund their own nation building. We have a nation of our own that is crumbling while our leaders’ eyes are across the sea instead of focusing on what they were elected to do.