I have trouble when it comes to not helping our own people because of the argument: We can’t just keep running up the debt.
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The Home War
The people in this country need help. They need jobs, food on their tables, decent housing, and satisfactory transportation. They need affordable health care, significant community services, clean streets, and safe neighborhoods. The elderly need to be taken care of. Mental health services provided for those in need. Recreational facilities for kids to take advantage of. Training programs for those who want to learn a much needed trade. College availability for those who wish to seek higher education. We need to invest in ourselves.
Yet the argument against this investment seems to always be blocked by this one statement:
We can’t keep running up the debt.
I don’t get it. The December 8, 2014 issue of the New Yorker Magazine reported that America spent $3 billion in humanitarian assistance in Turkey. This included: food, medical aid, garbage trucks, ambulances, communication services, and more. It assists Syrian refugees, Syrians living inside Turkey, and protection at the Turkey-Syrian border.
$3 billion in humanitarian assistance in one place in the world alone. Imagine all the other places in the world receiving assistance – humanitarian or otherwise.
Don’t get me wrong. The world needs assistance. The United States, one of the richest countries in the world, should be at the forefront of helping. Along with all the other major players in the world. We’re all in this together.
I just have trouble when it comes to not helping our own people because of the argument:
We can’t just keep running up the debt.
pic by Randy Mazie – The Holocaust
We don’t bring up that argument when it comes to defense spending, our role in assisting the rest of the world, the perks given to our politicians, or our bolstering net profits to our corporations and our wealthiest citizens. We don’t hear that argument when it comes to lowering taxes on capital gains or restructuring the tax system. But we do hear a great outcry when someone wants to tax daily stock trades on the exchanges.
If we don’t put money into the coffers, we will:
Just keep running up the debt.
No family can spend without its members pooling their resources to support that family. But the American family feels that we do not have to replace the kitty.
So those of you who say that we should not spend on the home front because we’re running up the debt, start talking about putting resources into the kitty, stop hoarding profits, and start replenishing the till.
photo by Randy Mazie
After all, we are one of the richest countries in the world.
Randy Mazie
The Writer's Village 
We take in alot of money, it’s always a wonder where it gets spent.
We really don’t take in a lot of money. Of the 9 trillion earned on the individual level, only 1 trillion is paid in taxes. That just a little over 10%. And we are one of the lowest tax paying countries of the industrialized world.
source:
Citizens for Tax Justice
interesting, I saw numbers much higher than that for taxes – I’ll have to dig into it.
I would help as many people as possible, I just think the way we do it now isn’t working, and no amount money fixes it. Just like the school systems, money alone isn’t going to fix it.
I agree that our first priority must be taking care of citizen of our country. However, we are NOT “one of the richest countries in the world”. We have terrible national debt and our unfunded liabilities are tremendous. Pensions of millions will be cut in 2015 (see AARP’s reports).
Our government spends more than $500 per day on children who illegally came in this country instead of sending them back and preventing furthere breaches of the border. At least 25% of taxpayers’ money wasted by the government employees.
Thank you for commenting.
Please cite the AARP report so I can review it.
I suspect that private corporations are cutting pensions as they have done in the past to make their bottom lines look more attractive to shareholders. Which is immoral and wrong. The same as state and local governments have stolen funds from pensions to pay down their debt and now claim they can’t afford to pay them out.
It’s all greed, and the greedy need to be brought to pay.
As far as immigration. I was always taught this was a country of immigrants – other than Native Americans.
The Statue of Liberty say explicitly (even though if my memory serves it was the French who gave it to us):
GIVE ME YOUR TIRED, YOUR POOR
YOUR HUDDLED MASSES YEARNING TO BREATHE FREE
THE WRETCHED REFUSE OF YOUR TEEMING SHORE
SEND THESE, THE HOMELESS, TEMPEST-TOST TO ME
How quickly we abandon what we stand for, and where we’ve all come from once we’ve gotten for ourselves – and then only want to keep what we so freely given to us – rather than giving it back.
We – the greedy.
Just a few thoughts of mine.
Randy
Amen!
We belong to the same church, I see.
Amen, too.
Randy