Band-Aid Anyone?

In mid November, I outlined my ideas for how our politicians ought to address a long term solution for the pending financial cliff. With just three days to go, clearly a long term solution isn’t in the cards before the deadline. With that sad but not unexpected reality in front of us, what can Obama, Boehner, Reid, McConnell, and the rest of our court jesters manage to do to at least avoid every American paying thousands more in taxes this year? Below is my band-aid solution until the longer term plan can be developed.

First, it’s glaringly clear that neither side is going to “win”. If anything is going to be agreed upon, it’s going to have to be a compromise. Both sides will get something they want and both will give up something they don’t want to lose. From a revenue perspective, Boehner has suggested limiting the higher, Clinton era tax rates that are about to kick in to millionaires only. This is in response to Obama’s call for applying those higher rates to anyone making over $200K per year. Limiting the higher tax rate to millionaires would mean only the richest 250K Americans would pay more. That’s about $250B in new revenue over 10 years.

For the sake of a short term deal, let’s say Obama and the Democrats take Boehner up on this offer. Now, to make the Republicans (and Libertarians like me) happy, let’s find $250B in savings over the next decade to match that increased revenue without stripping our military, intelligence, or needy communities bare.

If Congress and Obama do nothing, automatic cuts to spending will come out to $1.2 trillion dollars over the next ten years. That’s $120 billion a year, split almost evenly between defense and benefits. To satisfy our balanced band-aid approach, let’s ask for less than ten percent of that. $10 billion in annual DOD discretionary spending and another $10 billion from the combined departments of Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Treasury, and Interior. That’s $20 billion saved per year, totaling $200 billion over the next ten years.

Next, as I mentioned in that November post, we’re giving away over $8 billion in aid to Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan every year. Let’s cut that in half. $40 billion saved over the next ten years and it doesn’t impact a single citizen.

And finally, the EPA has an annual budget of $8.7B. Their job is to make it more expensive for companies to do business by enforcing higher environmental standards on things like fracking and mining in order to provide cleaner air and water. Let’s ask the EPA to take one for the team themselves over the next decade to the tune of $1B per year. That’s the last $10 billion we need to make our goal.

Make no mistake, $250 billion dollars over ten years won’t solve our deficit problem, but it would solve the crisis our government and people are facing this weekend and might be the sort of compromise that could lead to a bigger, better deal down the road.

Reflecting on Sandy Hook

 

Like many of you, I don’t know how to express the horror and sadness I feel about the murder spree that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut Friday morning. I’m rattled and I didn’t sleep well last night. I’m a parent. My world would be utterly destroyed if something like this befell any of my children. There is nothing on this Earth that can balance what was taken from those poor mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers.

I think all of us want answers. Why would anyone ever do such a horrible thing? How could anyone, no matter their level of hatred, target innocent children? And already, we’re beginning to point the finger of blame. It’s hard not to.

Many people, apparently President Obama included, are pointing to gun control. They believe that access to guns is the reason for this type of violence in America and that the only way to stop it is to severely limit or ban access to those weapons. I wish it were that simple. A look at both history and a glance around the world tells me that it isn’t.

We came to a similar conclusion about alcohol in this country in 1919 when we implemented Prohibition with the 18^th Amendment to the Constitution. After 14 years of organized crime reaping record profits and committing an unprecedented level of violence as they fought for control of this illegal market, we repealed that “solution” with the 21^st Amendment.

Today, we’re fighting that same hopeless battle against marijuana. This recreational drug has never been more popular. However its illegal status in the U.S. allows Mexican cartels to make all the profit, killing over 50K people in the past six years as they compete for routes and territories.

Making guns illegal will not keep guns out of the hands of those that would do evil with them. It would only prevent citizens from protecting themselves from violence and tyranny. It would also transfer the profits of the sale of those weapons exclusively to the criminal organizations that would continue to provide them to other criminals.

I do not know anything more about Friday morning’s mass murderer, Adam Lanza, than you do. I’ve read that he was troubled, that his mother, who he still lived with, was strict, and that his parents divorced three years ago. I don’t know who he hung out with, what his hobbies were, what television shows he watched, what video games he played, or if there were any warning signs that someone should have caught. But what I do know is that guns have been around for centuries. Guns are available to people all over the world. I also know that anger, hatred, poverty, and injustice exist all over the world and have since the earliest days of civilization. If all of those things are true, what makes our country and this past decade or two so different? Why do we have Columbine, Aurora, Clackamas, and now Newtown?

I believe the difference is our current culture and both the economy and the media that spawned and perpetuate it. I believe the United States has lost its moral way. People no longer have good jobs that they’re proud of. People are no longer confident that they have a secure future ahead of them. People no longer know and love their neighbors. People are no longer able to stay home and raise their children. They both work.  As a country, we decided two-income families should be the norm in order to continue the growth of our consumer-based economic policies. We decided it was better to spend than save. We decided shareholders were more important than workers. Instead of a parent being there to teach and guide our children about life and the differences between right and wrong, we could rely on poorly paid public educators and 24/7 television.

Instead of entertainment and news programming that depict the value of community, the wonders of love, and the benefits of giving, we’re deluged with reality tv, dramas, and sitcoms that bombard us with messages that we must be better looking, richer, greedier, meaner, sluttier, and famous at any cost if our lives are to mean anything. It’s more important to be a celebrity than to be a good person. Instead of video games where cute protagonists chomp dots or navigate mazes full of amusing baddies, we have hyper-realistic games of war or ultra-bloody carnage.

We’ve desensitized a generation to violence and marginalized charity and kindness in favor of gluttony and doom. I know turning around a culture is no easy or short-term task and by no means am I suggesting we can or should try to regulate our way to a more gentle nation. What I am saying is that perhaps it’s time all of us question ourselves. What is truly important? What warrants our time, our attention, our devotion, and our passion and have we misplaced those things today? When will we turn off the television and go outside? When will we stop shopping and start saving? When will we stop texting and start talking? And finally, when will we stop waiting for “them” to solve our country’s problems and start fixing them ourselves instead?