Senator Murkowski
Senator Murkowski was speaking on the economy. She did not paint a pretty picture. She basically said that if there are not immediate and substantial cuts and revenue increases the US Economy will be in BIG TROUBLE. That’s the short version.
She explained the difference between mandatory spending and discretionary spending. Mandatory spending is everything spent on medicare, medicaid, social security, and the interest on our debt. More than 1/2 the budget is spent on these items. At the current level of spending, mandatory spending will eat up all the available funds by 2025. We won’t reach 2025 of course because at the current level of spending the whole thing will implode before then.
Discretionary spending is everything else.
Basically the total budget is somewhere around $3.8 Trillion dollars while the total revenue is only about $2.2 Trillion. In other words, we are still spending ourself into a hole. That hole is somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 Trillion right now. The only encouraging thing is that Murkowski at least can see the light at the end of the tunnel…AND IT’S A TRAIN. There are many people still in congress who don’t recognise that.
Murkowski thinks we need to cut the budget over 10 years to the tune of at least $3 Trillion. That’s all well and good, but we are currently going into the hole at a rate of more than one trillion dollars a year. All that will do is delay the train wreck…but it’s still coming. I think she hopes that the remaining amount will be made up with increased revenue to the federal government…as in taxes.
The positive thing is that she said she is in favor of a balanced budget amendment to the constitution which would be helpful in the long run. She also understands the need to get government out of business. However, it isn’t going to happen short of a small revolution.
She emphasized that next election is very important to change the direction of the government, but I’m not sure she agrees on the amount we need to cut government regulations. In order to turn this large ship we call the US economy as quickly as possible you need to turn the wheel all the way to the right…you can make the minor corrections later. I’m afraid she doesn’t see that yet.
I appreciated her candor, she did not sugar coat the situation. I also understand that she is only one person in congress and cannot fix things on her own. I think she was totally off base in her knee-jerk reactions to Herman Cain’s and Rick Perry’s proposals of tax reform even though she did support tax reform. She had the typical liberal response saying how she is worried about their tax policies hurting the poor and rewarding the rich.
Basically, we have to get over worrying about how much the rich have in this country and free things up so that all of us can make a living. So what if the rich get more of the pie, as long as there is enough freedom left to let us all have a slice at it.
She will be speaking tonight at the Palmer Senior Center…there will be an open mike in case you want to express your opinion to her. She said she will be listening. It starts at 6PM…get there early.
