To the editor:
When any level of government raises your taxes, it tells me they are not willing to operate within their budget. Your home is a business. You have obligations, contracts and people to take care of. If you do not operate within your budget, you could lose your business (foreclosure).
If you ask those in government positions why they want to raise your taxes, they will tell you it is hard to make ends meet and they need more money to operate. As a homeowner, you cannot go out and raise taxes to make ends meet. You do without or cut back. The government should do the same.
I have a budgeting suggestion: For the next five years, no one in government gets a raise or bonus. They will say we can’t live on that. Seniors do it every day. Seniors did not get a Social Security raise, but have to pay higher costs on everything. If seniors have to survive with less, so can our government at all levels.
Raising taxes is a no-brainer. Raising taxes is the easy way out. Our elected representatives need to cut out the pork, eliminate the icing on the cake and learn to live with less like the rest of us that have to pay those taxes.
Comments
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normal_entire_route (anonymous) says…
at your "home" you can also go out and get a better paying job, or get education and training to get a better paying job, or work an extra job, to increase your income. The government has its ways of increasing income but the two aren't the same.
mom_of_three (anonymous) says…
The LTE has a point. During the last several years, when millions of people were losing their jobs or not receiving raises, the house and senate, plus others in government were receiving raises. The rest of us have to tighten the belts;why not them.
tomatogrower (anonymous) says…
Not to mention that in good times, you ask your boss to give you less money, as in giving out all those tax cuts. You also don't ask your boss for less money in bad times, as in the tax cuts they gave this year. Mr. Henderson, do you have any idea what the government in Topeka has done for the last decade. Sure roll back funding of schools, but also roll back all the cut taxes that they have given in the last few years.
Jimo (anonymous) says…
Henderson's "family" metaphor isn't very aptly applied. More accurately, imagine if you took all your family money including whatever you could borrow to spend it on a big drunken trip for yourself (maybe to Jamaica or Thailand) without the spouse, the kids, anyone else. Then you came back home, announced that money was tight and that everyone was just going to have to pull in their belts and sacrifice - sorry, no replacing that worn out carpet, the 10 year old pickup was just going to have to make it another few years, no cell phone kids, and forget that college trust fund junior.
THAT'S the proper comparison. After years of cutting taxes for the wealthy and paying for the resulting deficit by borrowing from foreigners, Henderson now has the gall to complain that during the worst economic downturn in living memory -- the precise time that demands on the government are their greatest -- that's the time to not demand a return back to where we should never have left: government funding its services to the public BEFORE playing Santa Claus to the wealthy.
wolfy (anonymous) says…
I can't believe people still buy into the "starve the beast" approach to public finance. Most people who work for government are paid far below market levels. Which means government agencies can not attract, or keep, the kind of talent required to match all the well-paid corporate minions they are charged with policing. This inevitably leads to agency capture (the Fed), incompetence (FEMA's response to Katrina), and corruption (Dept. of Interior). It's a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Why so little outrage about excessive charges and abusive practices by banks, energy companies, food monopolists, big pharma, health insurance, etc.? These rapacious corporate interests have been allowed to run amok in large part because of our failure as a country to adequately resource government regulators and watchdogs?
Mr. Henderson, raising taxes is never easy. (It's probably the most difficult thing to do, politically.) What's easy is to blame the tired old boogeyman, government, for everything. Let's have a more nuanced analysis, please.
Solomon (anonymous) says…
wolfy says: "I can't believe people still buy into the "starve the beast" approach to public finance. Most people who work for government are paid far below market levels."
This is simply not true. Check this out. Originally from USA Today.
• “State and local government workers now earn an average of $39.50 per hour in total compensation, reports the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Private workers earn an average of $26.09 an hour.”
http://sbecouncil.blogspot.com/2008/0...
This article goes on to note that private sector employees are more productive than government employees.
Let's cut $13 per hour from the average government employee salary. That should help our deficit a little bit.
wolfy (anonymous) says…
Solomon-
Government employee compensation should be completely revamped. Let's gut the civil service laws and implement performance-based employment. Currently, many in government are overworked and underpaid. For example, SEC lawyers make a fraction of what their Wall Street counterparts make. (Is there any wonder why Wall Street operates with impunity?) On the other hand, throngs of government slugs do next to nothing "working" in jobs that are obsolete. The answer is for government agencies to be mission-driven and evaluated continuously on their performance. The answer is not procrustean, across-the-board cuts.
remember_username (anonymous) says…
Solomon - I read your blog reference from the small business council - a post by a Raymond J. Keating. Mr. Keating refers to a USA article dated Feb. 1st. In your reference you forgot the rest of Mr. Keating's comments at the end which illustrate the lack of neutrality in the piece.
"While private sector workers are more productive, it is not surprising that government workers receive higher compensation. Why? Because elected officials are spending other people’s (i.e., the taxpayers”) money, so they have no incentive to rein in costs, or to tie compensation to efficiency or production. In addition, government workers have higher rates of unionization, which further weakens the link between performance and pay. In the end, all of this means higher costs for individual and business taxpayers. The economy gets hit twice – from higher taxes and due to increased compensation for less-productive government work."
If a person digs into the BLS website they'll find information that shows the difference between federal and private compensation and productivity is more complex than 13 dollars a hour. Assuming a person were inclined to find out for themselves rather than follow along with some ignorant talking head spin master. Or if one is too lazy to learn something for themselves and perhaps be a better citizen for it, one could find media that presents both sides of an argument to consider the complexities. Since you refer to the USA today, start here - www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-03-... . Then do a little digging before you arrive at such a simplistic declaration that cutting a neighbors salary by 13 dollars an hour is an intelligent move to make.
bkgarner (Brent Garner) says…
Bottom line, folks, is we are out of money! If we ain't got it, how can we spend it? And that goes not just for the tax hungry governments--federal, state, county, city--but for most folks who still have a job. We have been bled white. There is no more to give!
KSManimal (anonymous) says…
Solomon say's: “State and local government workers now earn an average of $39.50 per hour in total compensation, reports the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Private workers earn an average of $26.09 an hour.”
That kind of comparison is totally useless, as it makes no reference to the level of education and skill required for the jobs. I'll hypothesize that the average government job requires more education and skill than the average private sector job. Plus, those private sector per hour numbers likely include service workers (waiters, etc.) who are paid an hourly wage well below minimum wage....and tips aren't included in the per hour wage. As the saying goes figures don't lie, but liars figure.
As to the original letter; what a great example of the failure of the right-wing to connect the dots! In one piece, the author complains about the government collecting money; then straight away complains about the government not giving people enough benefits (in this case, social security raises).
You can't have your cake and eat it, too. As such, you can't have your taxes cut and get your streets plowed & potholes fixed, your social security raised, your state parks free, your medicare coverage maintained, your KPERS increased, etc., etc.,......
mr_right_wing (anonymous) says…
In this particular illustration the homeowner is unemployed and has no job possibilities on the horizon, so instead of cutting household costs, his idea is to apply for more credit cards and try to get his existing credit extended. He will most likely lose the house and be forced into bankruptcy -- but he's okay for TODAY.
tange (anonymous) says…
Tom... two words... bilge pump.
Cappy (anonymous) says…
I always laugh at the simile that government should run itself like a business or a household; i.e. within its' budget.
Pretty much all business rely on credit to make payroll and long term credit for growth. Most families I know are hocked up to their eyeballs either in mortgages, credit cards, or other loans.
rdragon (M. Lindeman) says…
Cappy (anonymous) says…
I always laugh at the simile that government should run itself like a business or a household; i.e. within its' budget.
Pretty much all business rely on credit to make payroll and long term credit for growth. Most families I know are hocked up to their eyeballs either in mortgages, credit cards, or other loans.
Cappy keep in mind, if you or I ran our check books like our broken federal, state and local goverments doe. We wouldn't be in jail, we would be under the jail. If any of you would ever take the time and look how the goverment accounting is done compaired to how the rest of us have to do it. You would be out raged, it takes a specially trained accountant in order to run the three books our goverment keeps. If you think I am pulling your leg, then pull your head out and do some research. It will scare the hell out of you like it did me.