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Do You Budget the Way the Government Does?                                               _______________________________________________________________

11/15/2017

1 Comment

 
Suppose you and your spouse both work. Suppose you have a rich uncle who lives off the fat of the land. Suppose this uncle decides he’d like to have more money, but doesn’t want to work for it. Suppose he comes to you, a hard-working fully employed 40-something with three kids and a good credit rating, and says, “Hey, I need $100,000. I know you don’t have that much stashed away, but you have a line of credit at your bank. How about you borrow it from the bank and loan it to me?”
 
Does that make sense to you? …
 
I thought not. What’s the collateral? What would he do with the money? How would he pay it back? When? All those and more are questions you’d want to ask.  
 
But this is what your Congress wants to do with the much-vaunted “tax cuts.” They want to increase the national debt (i.e., borrow money) to finance tax cuts, an inordinate amount of which will go to the wealthy who need it least. While the politicos like to claim that “everyone’s” taxes will go down, if you’re paying close attention, you know that’s just not true. And, of course, when our government borrows money, all of us, rich, poor and in between, are on the hook for it.
 
The tax plan will continue to evolve as the two houses of Congress hash out their differences. It’s up to us to pay attention to the bill that’s finally approved and to know how our legislators vote, yea or nay.  The entire House of Representatives will stand for election next year. Any of them who vote to increase our already whopping national debt in order to finance tax cuts for the wealthy donor class should be sent home.
 
I’ll try to post summary updates from time to time in the Issues section. Go to Issues/Budget and Taxes/Updates 2017. Meanwhile, see who your legislators are and track their votes here.    
1 Comment
Becky Stratton
11/16/2017 04:29:57 am

This tax bill is awful -- and the Republican senators aren't even noticing that most people don't like it. It really is taking money from the lower income people and giving big tax cuts to the rich. I need to learn more about the national debt and why we keep increasing it -- as well as taking money from social security, not including military spending in budget accounting. I would mind less if the money was used to help with health care for everybody, repairing the infrastructure -- certainly not for big corporations, oligarchs, etc.

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