Mayor’s Message: The fiscal cliff
Well Happy New Year everyone. I hope everyone stayed safe.
We’ve had a few folks asking about Christmas tree (I know, I used the “C” word, but holiday tree doesn’t cut it for me) pickup. Please check the township website for dates. Once again, our local Boy Scout troop is putting together a tree pickup/recycling drive and the information regarding that will be on the website (www.shamong.net).
By the way, while you are at the website, please remember to sign up for township email notifications if you haven’t already. You can pick and choose what notifications you want to receive, but at a minimum be sure to get any emergency notifications. We already have over half the town signed up for this but would love to get 100 percent.
For those of you who had your fiscal cliff mountain climbing ropes ready, guess you got disappointed. Well don’t get too happy yet because the best is yet to come. Once again this ridiculously partisan Congress has managed to kick the can down the road. Sure, they took care of the low hanging fruit by not raising taxes if you earn less than $400,000 for an individual or $450,000 for a couple but once again the specter of spending cuts and the debt ceiling are still hanging over the country.
Are you in favor of spending cuts? Sure you are. Everyone is until the thing getting cut effects you directly.
For example, most reasonable people understand that we are spending way too much on the military. If we would end these stupid wars and bring our troops home we could save $20 million per day. We can no longer afford these military adventures. But what about real cuts in military spending?
How happy would we be if they decided to close McGuire and Ft. Dix?
Oh, suddenly the deficit may not be that important, huh?
It’s this not in my backyard attitude that Americans have taken on which has exacerbated our financial problems. Everybody is in favor of cutting pork spending as long as it’s not their pork. So nothing gets done.
By the way, the only spending cuts which need to get done are those that contribute to our debt.
Social Security is not one of those items. Social Security is a program that is paid for by you and I through payroll deductions and matched by our employers. Social Security does not contribute a single penny towards our debt. Whenever the government needs some extra cash, they “borrow” it from the Social Security trust fund and leave an “IOU.”
Social Security is completely solvent and when you include the “borrowed” funds is fully funded far into the future. When you get a payment from Social Security they are giving back the money you invested for your retirement.
This is not an entitlement. It’s your money. So don’t let the Congressional hacks convince you that cutting Social Security will have any effect on the deficit or the national debt.
Then of course, we also have my favorite political football coming up, which is the debt ceiling.
Does anybody understand what this is about?
Raising the debt ceiling is not a way to increase future spending. It’s a way to pay for the stuff that Congress has already appropriated and spent. The reason that the threat of not raising the debt ceiling has such a negative impact on this country’s credit is because it’s us saying, yea, we bought that stuff on credit but we are not going to pay for it.
To simplify, it would be like the township issuing purchase orders, receiving those products or services and then deciding not to pay the vendors when the bills come in. It’s unthinkable!
If the folks in Congress care about the debt ceiling, then stop cutting those purchase orders and spending that money. Not raising the debt ceiling is like closing the barn doors after the horse it out. The only thing that comes out of those debates is a shaky market, a scared economy and a possible reduction in the country’s credit rating. I’m tired of this political grandstanding.
Any member of Congress who does not vote to increase the debt ceiling so we can pay the bills they’ve already racked up should be targeted and bounced out of office at the next election.
And finally, hat’s off to Governor Christie. As everyone knows, I blast Trenton regularly when I think they are wrong. It’s only right that I acknowledge his push back against the members of his own party and the house speaker for their reckless and irresponsible attitude towards providing funding for reconstruction of our battered state.
Very few politicians have the courage to speak the truth, especially when it’s their party that’s getting blasted. As the Governor pointed out, when a disaster strikes a part of our country, there are no political parties, only Americans helping each other. For Speaker Boehner to make this a political issue should offend every American.
