Does anyone have a fiddle

Reading through all the posts and blogs out there we seem to be headed over the fiscal cliff fraught with hysteria. Both sides of the aisle both inside and outside the beltway are blaming each other and the verbiage is all doomsday hatred. Folks we aren't Israel and Palestinians are we? This is the US and two political parties, not multi generational enemies built up over thousands of years. How did our country get so divided? Or where are we really. Reading through everything though, you can tell that reason is not the Kool Aid flavor of the day.


I know I sound like a broken record, but the Democrats and Republicans are constantly proving my point that they don't represent the majority of this country. These are not your parents parties. Most of this country is ready for some rationale sane compromise. The majority of the middle class seems to have a much better grasp that some sacrifices by all is needed. And if we all make a bit of a sacrifice then it will be less of a burden on us all, but noooooooooo.

Folks we can stair step our way over the cliff and I have discussed this before. And even use the basic conservative philosophy of not raising taxes too much to get this done. Yes some taxes and some spending cuts a bit at a time to get started. We need to really do some budget cutting eventually, but we need to be careful. You just can't cut to cut. We are still facing some serious issues that need to be addressed and random cuts without careful consideration of impact could be as damaging as going over the cliff.


And then there is this infamous pledge, well at this point, some Republicans are making noise they might forego it, but we will have to see. I don't want my taxes to be raised, but reality is reality. So make smart choices now and we can win back tax reform later. And another point; all this talk about closing loopholes is a sham. We are so use to these loopholes that this is a tax increase to close them. Just simplify the code and get rid of a bunch of loop holes even the ones for the high and mighty super rich. Way too much garbage is written into the tax code that only benefits a few.

Okay to stay on track, that pledge has to go, no one person should have this much power over our elected officials. I have read some talk that this is treason, etc,, but really our elected officials should be held accountable to the people, not lobbyists and special interests. This shows weakness on our elected officials to be bent over by this pledge. It may not be treason, but can we recall the whole govt at this point. Lets put back accountability to the people into the process and this means we need to fix problems and no solution should be off the table, or at least no rational solution.

And yes we can keep some deductions in the tax code. I still believe in the charitable deduction. We could make it more accountable. Charity is always a good cause, church, food banks, Red Cross, Cancer organizations, higher education, etc there are strong charities/organizations to contribute to, but we need to hold ourselves more accountable in what we deduct. Another words we need to better prove what we contribute when we fill out our taxes. The mortgage deduction I am 50/50 about. It helps home ownership, but a simpler code and the fact we can take a standard deduction could be re written to make this a more balanced deduction. Either having it or not having it is fine with me, as long as it truly reflects a housing deduction. And there are some other deductions we might keep, but truly most of us would like a more straight forward code. Most of us want to pay no more than our neighbors so keeping it simple and standardizing rates within the range we are in now I think most people would be okay. This is what can be discussed once we got started on just stopping the madness now and then the madness of our growing debt.

The other major steps are getting jobs back with livable wages, ability to save, getting our trade imbalance in line, we need revenue flowing our way,and new technologies to create long term growth. This is another part of the solution to start to help ease the debt crisis.

And again I say, we need new blood in Washington. The current ingrained system of special interest dominance, two parties that answer to a minority base, and no real voice for the majority of this country is killing us.

The above is just some quick ideas of a much broader program to really put us back on our feet. If we could get the middle class to retake the country, demand better, and especially better education we can continue to be the greatest country on Earth, but if we don't, please find me a fiddle, its time to start playing while we crash and burn at the bottom of the cliff.