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Everyone talks about plans to move forward, but no one really understands specific consequences surrounding those decisions. For example, we all know that having the IRS is a waste of taxpayer dollars. The same could be said for a lot of the federal government. However, in light of all of the negative angst about our federal budget, many seem to fail in understanding why it is so hard to cut spending on certain portions of it.
If we decided to cut 100 percent of the funding for the Department of Education — which by historical reference has done absolutely nothing to progress our education system but provide more debt — then where would all of those people go? Where would they then become employed? More than likely they would join the others who represent close to 33 percent of all Americans who are either unemployed with benefits or just simply unemployed and stuck with massive debt.
Another example is the Department of Defense. Did you know that our government spends almost $2 trillion a year for DOD? That is equivalent to one-seventh of our country's entire GDP. Nevertheless, if we were to cut their spending by 100 percent, again, where would all of those people go?
You see, the problem with budgets is that the word "hindsight" does not exist in their initial planning. For example, if we created another sector of the budget, say for the Department of Wasteful Spending, there are a few initial steps to evolve the plan, one being overhead. In that overhead category it must be planned for how many jobs will be needed to facilitate the department, hierarchy-levels, etc.
But the problem again remains that even if the department is a failure and a waste of taxpayer dollars, it likely will stay in the budget because it is easier to keep people working at the behest of taxpayers rather than have 300,000 more unemployed people leeching from the same taxpayers. I beg to see the difference.
This is why the IRS will never be cut, even if we move from income tax to a consumption tax. The same will be said for the DOD; even if everyone came to a universal agreement that war is dumbfounded and pointless, there would still be a political narrative that hoisted the cause of national defense above practical thinking.
When your country is considering budgets and how to fund them, do not consider taxing the rich more and poor less. It has been proven time and time again that the driving force of any economy is its workers. But when its government has grown too big and needs to drive taxes even higher to keep up with the Joneses, then it becomes a problem for the business owners, which trickles down to the workers, and by extension to the taxpayers. It is a vicious circle.
The best idea to stop wasteful spending is to stop creating new departments in the government.
Steven Ellis
Gainesville