In June, AmericaSpeaks sponsored a little public policy exercise. They got together 3,500 regular Americans from across the country. The gathered them up in 60 different cities, all tied together via the Internet. And they asked them to balance the federal budget.
In six hours, the regular Joe the Plumbers and Sally Homemakers (and, since we live in Politically Correct America I’ll add Sally the Plumbers and Joe Homemakers as well) crafted a plan for a balanced budget, something Congress just can’t seem to do.
Below is the summary, from AmericaSpeaks.org, of what they came up with. My snarky comments are included, since you’ve come to expect that from Camp Campaign.
• Raise the limit on taxable earnings so it covers 90% of total earnings. (Why are we stopping at 90%? What is so magical about that last 10% that it should be tax-free?)
• Reduce spending on health care and non-defense discretionary spending by at least 5%. (Across the board cuts? How un-21st Century-American.)
• Raise tax rates on corporate income and those earning more than $1 million. (The website didn’t say how much we’d have to raise those corporate income taxes in order to balance the budget. It seems like maybe somebody forgot to calculate the impact those higher taxes might have on the consumer.)
• Raise the age for receiving full Social Security benefits to 69. (As much as I’d like to get on the government dole by age 65, this just makes sense. People are living longer. We cannot afford to keep Social Security going the way it has been.)
• Reduce defense spending by 10% – 15%. (This I’m not so sure about. I guess those Afghanis will just have to fend for themselves.)
• Create a carbon and securities-transaction tax. (Yes, let’s tax the crap out of Al Gore’s carbon credit scam. This is an idea I can get behind.)
Now I realize that this is nothing more than a conceptual frame work. These 3,500 regular Americans didn’t really solve anything in their six hours together. But still, it is more than Congress could manage in a year. It doesn’t change anything, but it does highlight just how ineffective our government has become.
