The Economy and Politics
The battle on Capitol Hill over the 2011 budget and rising debt continues with politics playing a key roll keeping the real issues as muddy as possible. No apparent solution resulting in something good for the general public seems in sight. Polls indicate by 51% that the Republicans don’t have a clue. Polls indicate that Obama’s approval rating is falling but only to slightly less than 50%.
Those figures baffle me. Explain to me why, when Congress and the White House last year were totally Democratic they didn’t vote and complete a budget for the year 2011, nor address a sky rocketing debt. Why has the Congress offered up Continuing Resolutions, totalling six to date to keep the government operating. Why has Obama and Democrats have stood by and watched us sink deeper in debt? The Democratic Congress did not offer any budget cuts until the new Republican majority in the House pressed for them. Since the new Republican House majority began January the last three of those six CR’s have all included cuts in the budget. And the Republicans don’t have a clue? Seems to me that no cuts would have occurred without the public making their feelings known in last fall’s elections by electing as many Republicans as they did.
The newly elected Republican state’s governors and legislatures have also tried to cut budgets and debt with huge resistance from rising health care costs, deeply entrenched unions, liberal institutions and unfunded pensions. The newly elected Republicans are doing their job and insisting that budgets must be smaller and reflect the governments income. How can Democrats ignore what’s right in front of them? Declining income and rising costs cannot be swept under the rug or by using the usual rhetoric of big business and the wealthy not paying enough taxes.
The New 2012 Budget
Paul Ryan’s proposed budget for 2012 contains many cuts, among them is a cut in the Corporate Tax Rate from 35% to 25% paid for by eliminating many federal subsidies and tax loopholes that allow big corporations from paying any tax at all.
I think that included in the new budget should be a two year, 0% tax rate moratorium on the current 35% corporate tax on specific off shore profits. These profits have been estimated to be about two and a half trillion dollars. These profits are sitting in off shore banks held by US Corporations that could be brought back into this country for job creation, investment and expansion here, instead of overseas. It seems a no brainer.
