I was checking out the WaPo this morning and I ran across a report on President Obama’s debt reduction panel. Their report isn’t due until the fall but the Post was covering a speech given by one of the members of said panel to a Governor’s Association meeting.
The story itself was pretty much what one would expect but the quote that caught my eye was this: “The commission leaders said that, at present, available federal revenues are fully consumed by just three programs: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. “The rest of the federal government, including fighting two wars, homeland security, education, art, culture, you name it, veterans, the whole rest of the discretionary budget is being financed by China and other countries,” Simpson said.”
That’s pretty incredible and neither political party has done anything about it. Worse yet, I don’t see any serious leadership on this issue anywhere on the horizon. Leadership on an issue this big will have to come from the White House and we haven’t had that kind of gumption in a president for 20 years at least.
Can you imagine if we ran the City like that?
July 12, 2010 at 6:30 am
Running the City like that? Well, this morning I glanced at our local rag and was cruising the legal notices. I think I am one of the rare folks that do that, but sometimes you pick up on things like the one from the City today.
Ok, I fully understand the shift intended from Calendar Year tax base to Fiscal Year tax base. Went through that with the Federal side of the world under President Carter with “Fiscal Year 7T” – it was 1977 and the Fed wanted to shift from the July-June FY to October-September FY basis. Three months of living hell for those who had to manage budgets.
When I read the notice, I had to read it twice, get another cup of coffee, and then a pad & pencil. Drew a little chart to illustrate and then pondered what this does to my escrow account. I then checked the City website to see if some form of American Standard English (ASE) story was there, or even better, a simple chart. I also pondered the impact to our Elderly & Disabled Tax Relief.
Andy, I realize this is still not until the 19th, but I think the Council and our good folks in Finance need to get a clear chart in ASE up on the web & on the Gov’t Channel slide show so folks at least have a visual reference. It will make my mortgage company a little crazy (which is a good thing), but those who receive their tax bills directly are going to be confused if a campaign is not mounted early.
July 12, 2010 at 9:50 pm
Andy,
I do seem to recall some members of the Council were all to willing to accept “stimulus” money. At the time, I expressed my disbelief that our elected officials were willing to take money that was just going to sink us further into debt and do so without a second thought.