Friday, January 8, 2010

Special Education for Politicians, or Does Congress and the Senate Know How to Add?

I, like so many others, had to ask this question when the "Healthcare Reform Act" was passed by the Senate without a single senator reading the 2000+ page document. Here is a simple expose of where $100 of YOUR tax dollars go. Buckle up, because you are going to want to climb out of your chair very soon here! Figures were taken from http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1258

$21 goes to National Defense and "Security"

$21 goes to Social Security payments

$20 goes to Medicare, Medicaid supplement and CHIP

$11 goes to "Safety Net Programs" (Food Stamps, Earned Income payments, etc.)

$8 goes to interest payments on previous years deficits

$6 goes to Federal Retirees and veterans

$3 goes to Scientific and Medical Research

$3 goes to Transportation Infrastructure

$2 goes to Education

$1 goes to International (non-security related, i.e. embassies)

$5 goes to "other things"

_________________________
$101 (due to rounding)

(In defining these divisions of the tax money, it helps to know what those divisions really mean. Go to the above link to read exactly what that means.)




Now, with the CBO and the Democratic-held government disagreeing on the ACTUAL costs of healthcare spending, where will the money come from? They claim it won't hit our pocket, but if you review the list, you'll notice 3 big sections representing over 70% of the budget are spent on EXISTING inflexible spending payments we can't touch:

-Defense (not just our military, but the CIA, etc.,)

-Social Security entitlement payments (which, by the way, should double over the next ten years,)

-Medicare (which will also double over the next ten years as the Baby Boom generation enters the retirement years.)

You can also expect the Interest to increase as the difference between what was received by income tax in 2006 before the recession, to drop in 2010 as 15 million Americans are out of jobs.

Now, let's look at the expected budget for 2020. Remember, you have to double the cost of Medicare and Social Security spending by double because there will be twice the retirees, thanks to the Baby Boom Generation leaving the workforce. That means the following:

$21 dollars on Security and Defense

$42 dollars on Social Security payments

$42 dollars on Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP (remember, Medicaid must have matching payments from the States and we're now in hock for ALL of Nebraska's share, so this is expected to rise along with the other federal 'deals'. It also means your state taxes will have to rise since there is no such thing as a "free lunch!")

$10 dollars on interest payments (because we are expected to run at a deficit for the next ten years)

$11 on Safety Net programs (Food stamps, Earned Income credit for families in poverty, etc.)

$6 dollars on Federal Retirees and veterans payments (which will also rise to possibly $12 as the retirees increase exponetially.)

$3 on Scientific and Medical Research

$3 on Transportation

$2 on Education

$1 on Non-Security International

$5 on "other stuff" (or as we say in our home, "mad money")

________________________
$165 and possibly $171

What does this mean? Our taxes will need to increase by 65 - 71%! SIMPLE MATH! The average birthrate for America is currently at .98 per each death. (CIA figures for all countries can be found at https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2002rank.html?countryName=United States&countryCode=us®ionCode=na&rank=129#us )

This means there is less than one child born to every one person dying. We barely have enough to replace those going into retirement, so at least we'll be able to tread water, but keep in mind, the lifespan of the average American is much longer than it was at the introduction of Medicare or Social Security. We will be coughing up more money for longer in order to allow people to simply retire.

Healthcare Reform will tag an additional $100 billion per year in deficit spending (or add another $1 to $2 dollars to the interest payments.) That would be looking at the best case scenario.

Now, I KNOW the politicians that vote on the budget each year graduated college, but I propose a new program to educate politicians in Basic Math. They seem to be disabled mentally when it comes to simple addition. And they want to blow more money? Considering how many actual jobs were created by the $1 trillion they gave the banks and the other $1 trillion they just blew on the "stimulus" that offset just ONE WEEK'S job losses at the worst of the recession thus far, it appears to me these twits need remedial math classes.

I'm scheduled to get my Bachelor of Science degrees in Education AND Special Education by mid 2011. I will be available to teach all politicians how to add and subtract (hey, we can hope, can't ee?) by that time and I will gladly offer my skills FREE OF CHARGE to any politician who wants to reintroduce themselves to remedial math.

Or, we could just double the birth rate for the next 10 years to produce enough new taxpayers to limit the amount we all pay for these morons to count wrong. Frankly, I've done my part, so the rest of you will have to get with the program!