***Any President Giving This Speech Would Win In A Landslide***

*snip*

You may object and say that a very large minority of our citizens pay no tax at all. You’d be wrong. I often hear that in the media too, but it isn’t accurate. A very large minority of our citizens pay no INCOME tax at all, and while I think that’s an important issue and one which I am going to address, everyone is affected by taxes of some sort, and I doubt many of us feel the amount is too low.

But therein lies the problem. Our taxes haven’t covered our spending. Our national debt is completely out of control. There are various ways of envisioning our debt… I prefer to think of it in terms of a stack of one-dollar bills, and forget about it simply reaching the Moon, a stack of dollars would reach well past it, times four. I find it easier to comprehend in terms of our Sun. Our national debt, stacked as dollar bills, would be about one and a quarter times the diameter of the Sun. Think about that. Think hard about that. I hope I didn’t just ruin all the remaining sunsets in your lives.

A person who pays 35% in income taxes may not be happy about it, but once paid at least they think they’re done with that particular tax for the year. It isn’t supposed to come back to haunt them later – not if they have done their taxes correctly.

And let me tell you, in case you’ve lost touch, we’re accustomed to generally thinking of taxes in annual terms. “Last year’s”, “this year’s” and “next year’s” taxes are frames of reference we’re used to and can deal with. Do you think Americans would be pleased to be forced to consider taxes not simply in terms of what percentage of their income is requisitioned each year, but additionally in terms of percentages of the entirety of their wealth?

Because our National Debt is only part of the picture. We’ve spent that. What are we going to do about our unfunded liabilities? About future spending this government has committed the country to?

Tell me this, please! How popular with the person paying 35% per year in annual income tax would be the idea of owing 35% of everything they have – of their entire net worth – due to government spending?

How about 50%? 60%? At what point would you assume civil unrest would begin? How high before we hit open rebellion?

How about 100%? How would the parents in your average family feel if one day they received a letter from their government informing them that – due to federal spending, both current and future – just to bring things even they owed 100% of everything they had, including the clothes on their backs? Oh, the letter could sweet-talk the issue, saying that they shouldn’t panic, that the IRS is not going to collect that 100%, and in fact that their tax rate has not changed… This letter was simply to inform them, in the spirit of transparency, of the obligations that have been assumed in their name. I’m betting that no matter how reassuringly such a letter was worded, and even knowing that their tax rate wasn’t being increased, simply knowing that the government had indebted them to 100% of their worth would strike a great many people as being slavery in disguise.

It makes me wonder… Will our citizenry willingly allow you to put a slave collar around their necks? Will they vote in favor of chains and shackles for their children?

I need to ask for your forbearance… please humor me for just one more outlandish scenario. What if that figure were over 100%, and in fact were actually over 400%?

I ask because that’s where we actually stand today. In the names and on the behalf of every citizen in this country, this government has embraced obligations in excess of 400% of all of our personal worth. Were we – each of us – to sell everything we own, and somehow miraculously still get top dollar, and surrender it all to the Treasury, then even after being left with nothing at all, we would only be able to satisfy less than one quarter of our so-called “fair share”.

Speaking of unsavory sunsets… Our unfunded liabilities would make a stack of dollar bills over NINE TIMES the diameter of the Sun, and remember we’re just counting the thickness of the paper, not the dimensions of the bills.

*snip*

Last Edited by snark on 05/03/2012 11:19 PM

One of my favorite paragraphs:

"It has been repeatedly said that our government spends like a drunken sailor. That’s a damn lie and a blood-libel insult to drunken sailors everywhere, who spend their own money and stop when they run out. You’ve probably already heard a version of that, and you may laugh through the pain, but think about it. Seriously. Sorry to spoil the joke, but the realization is stunning. Drunken sailors – and not just ours but I’m talking everyone’s and throughout all of maritime history, including illiterate guttersnipes press-ganged into being a half-step above galley-slaves – simply by dint of being constrained by reality, have perforce exercised nearly infinitely better financial sense and wisdom than has our government, for more years than I can bear to contemplate."

Snark, you support the GOP as far as I can tell, and yet they've followed the conscious plan of driving up the debt as high as possible so as to make social spending on people impossible.

What's yer excuse??

I am a conservative, NOT a Republican. I support liberty, small government, and balanced budgets.

think you could put up a real pic instead of leading the men with their dicks in their hands to your posts because you look like you're orgasming? that'd be awesome instead of you propagating your pathetic agenda.

You're a sick fuck.

Last Edited by snark on 05/03/2012 11:54 PM

*snip*

With spending at those levels, why do we even bother with taxes? Is it just to keep the charade going?

When incoming revenues have no apparent link to, much less limiting effect upon, spending, then phrases like “spending cap” become an unfunny joke and simply function as deceptive code words, good for noise control, used just to keep the barking down.

Ladies and Gentlemen, a debt is a bond, and we are bound.

There is a difference between “indebted” and “indentured”. But when what is owed can only be expressed in multiples of what one now owns or will one day possess, there’s not much of a difference.

I will say it one more time… We are the wealthiest country that has ever been. And yet… and yet … if we look around us, in comprehension and with understanding…, everything we see, everything we have, even those things we created ourselves and understood to have owned outright, are – thanks our own government – BORROWED.

Borrowed from others, and increasingly, from the future.

Dreams as yet undreamt, ideas still to be conceived, innovations unattempted, inventions not yet invented, sales still to be made, commissions as yet uncollected, products unmanufactured, mines undug, pictures unpainted and songs yet to be sung…, all these and more – the results of every profitable undertaking – have been sold, and sold, and sold again, in our name, supposedly on our behalf, NOT to our benefit, and largely without our knowledge.

Last Edited by snark on 05/03/2012 11:57 PM

Ill read this only because you are hot and I want to get in your pants.

great read and post! What the hell is it going to take to get us in mass (and I don't mean church) and make real change?

I'm ready to hit the streets and do something for the sake of my future!

It does tend to fire you up, no?!

eeew,the megaphonies are out tonight!!

There is no difference in parties dip shit!

What's your excuse for being an ignorant sheep?

*snip*

I’m sure you’ve heard the clichéd but true phrase “What can’t continue forever, won’t.”

I am reminded of something William Shakespeare wrote in Macbeth, about how “So foul a sky clears not without a storm.”

That storm is coming.

It cannot NOT come.

We cannot stop the storm, but it is not too late to mitigate the storm’s worst effects if we begin right now discharging its fury here on the debate floors of these two houses. Therefore, to the degree one co-equal branch of government can “task” another, I am tasking this Congress to develop a budget whose purpose is to turn the tide.

You know me; you know what my priorities are. Whether you agree or vehemently disagree with my policies, there should be no one here who is unaware of them. So you know what I want – what my targeted goals are. They’re published, in case any of you have forgotten or need a refresher.

And we must agree on our terminology before we agree on the terms. A “decrease in the rate of a projected and expected increase” is not a “cut”, no matter how loudly the pundits cry.

I am only going to deal in real numbers and actual figures supported by hard data, and believe me – this country will hold in contempt those who do not.

We’re all tired of the spin, we’re tired of being fed lines, we’re tired of “seasonally adjusted figures”, and we’re NOT tired of these simply out of frustration or petulance, no, we’re tired because they’re used to distract us while behind our backs this very government is doing everything from picking our pockets to selling us into bondage.

Let me share with you a dreadful secret… The government cannot chart a course to economic recovery. Any attempt to do so will simply make things worse, and we have a long negative experiential history to learn from in case anyone doubts this.

No, what the government must do is to staunch the bleeding. And given how fast a healer our economy is when given a chance, the best way for government to staunch the bleeding is to stop shooting and stabbing the body. While we’re at it, we should also stop throttling and suffocating the economy as well. If we’ll stop the aggravated assault and simply get out of the way, the amazing juggernaut that is this country will put things to right eventually, and will begin to do so immediately.

Indeed!

The number one issue is spending and I agree with the author, stop the overspending and it will turn around because of the hard working American people.

Those responsible need to be jailed also to have true healing and also to send a message...NO MORE and NEVER AGAIN!!!

I would love to vote for someone who gives this speech. But the short sighted special interest people will never let that happen.

Id be more interested in who wrote it.

just sayin

I know the person who wrote it, he is a very good man. I don't think he would ever, unfortunately, run for President. Father of 2, probably the most brilliant person I've ever met. Unbelievable mind.

Last Edited by snark on 05/04/2012 12:45 AM

you need to stop thinking a president will change anything.

Thanks snark ! Great post.

why is reading some bs speech, a must read? you like oprah, dont you?

you should vote on actions, not how good one can bull shit. thats why were here in the first place. fuck

It's not a must-read for you, dear. Only for the readers. You can have the evening off.

Oh that's good.

Even if it's fiction, it brings to light the reality of the situation.

There is a great awakening happening!

Debt is a bond, but every dollsr printed is a certificate of debt to the Federal Reserve. It is the bankers who own the world and they run it for their own profit. Taxes are just a way to keep the poor poor, and drive the middle class down. Most of the money made from taxes is paid out from the Government to some company or corporation to provide a service be it medical care for the poor and elderly, or equipment for the Military. This system insures that the wealth stays with those in power.

Dr. Paul is the only one of the current crop of candidates from either party whom I can remotely picture giving this speech.

This is true on so many levels. Thee is nothing that their tyranny does not touch now.

And its all absurd.

Like not being able to post a whole article in one post, but being able to post the whole article in two posts by two snips of it.

Everything is madness, and stupidity coming from Government and the corporations.

If they were not intent on wanting to kill us, I would advocate ignoring them.

Yes it does indeed, stark reality. We are indebted 400 times the value of each and every one of own net-worths. Now that is effed up.